Rumours are at the same time challenging and contentious. Archival material in historical research is often laced with gossip, sanitised and raw, lingering and vague, unreliable and obscure ... shadowy.
By nature this stuff is far from the reliable source material required for the writing of, or the 'righting' of, histories as they happened.
However, the uncertainty that is characteristic for rumours opens up a chance to understand knowledge that is in the making. Say, by looking at reports of rape and pillage there is much to trust or distrust. People grapple with contradictory information and try to evaluate its credibility and its sources.
In moments of crisis, rumour mongering functions as a kind of narrative that offers a way to come to terms with a collection of fears and to kind of establish some kind of order.
In the end, rumours become a collective stories that help historians, commentators, et al understand the ambiguousness and the uncertainty that can challenge and destabilize power structures.
A focus on rumours allows us to embrace uncertainty, fuzziness and speechlessness in divining reliableness and unreliableness. Local politics is full to the brim with 'this stuff' and come what may at election time those looking for it will surely find some.
To be straight up, gossip, is a form of retaliation. If one is trying to get back at a person who has offended them, talking about them behind their back happens, and the fear of it tends to 'govern' opinion and more still.
It has ever been thus, it will ever be so and let us not forget!
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