Kaitlyn Webb
Professor Paul Evans
The Medieval World
August 25th, 2020
Confessions Paper #1
When writing an autobiography people more often than not unintentionally leave out information that to them seems mundane or banal. Autobiographies are written to show the life of a person in the time period they are currently living in so writers don’t tend to think ahead and see how their story may one day provide insight into the past for future historians. Furthermore, the stories that people write about themselves often are biased or intentionally leave out important information so people aren’t able to see from any perspective outside of the one they are provided with in the story. Going by the assumption that people are bound to leave certain things out, I contemplated what things in my life and in Augustine’s life might be left out intentionally or unintentionally when telling our own individual stories and formulated a list of things that seemed to stick out to me.
There are many things in an autobiography that I would and wouldn’t include based on a number of reasons but the important things I would highlight would be the major stages of my life and the major events that helped shape me into the person I am today. Despite including a lot of the important parts of my life in my autobiography, there are smaller parts of my life I would inevitably end up leaving out unintentionally. Simple things in my life that seem ordinary to me but would be of great interest to future historians would be the type of clothes I wear, the food I dine on, or the chores I’m assigned. These pieces of information would be valuable in the future since the type of clothing, food, or things I had could be associated with financial status or the trends of the era, but since these aspects of my life are so common I’d probably forget to even mention them. Another element of my life I’d leave out unintentionally would be any unremarkable or unmemorable experience that I’ve undergone. For instance, I’d mention if I went to school but I wouldn’t explain in detail what I did in school every single day or talk about places that I’ve traveled to that left no lasting impression on me. The last things I wouldn’t mention would be my race, unless my life was seriously impacted due to what race I was, and any events that happened in the world that didn’t directly affect me or my family. As for the things not added in my story but left out with full intention, those details would regard certain things that I refuse to acknowledge or extremely personal and sensitive topics that I would not feel comfortable sharing unless absolutely essential to the story. As I said before, stories from only one person’s view are usually biased so events or institutions that may be approved by other people could be disapproved of by me and would not be included in my life story unless I made it a point to criticize these matters. In many ways, Augustine also leaves out some of the things I mentioned I also would leave out and for some of the same reasons.
When reading Confessions, the audience gets both a general idea and detailed look at Augustine’s life as he writes about the stages of his life and what important events occurred during each part of his life. Unfortunately for historians, many aspects about his daily life are up in the air as he fails to include the more ordinary aspects of his life like what his day looked like, what he wore, or even what he looked like. I’m not a historian so I don’t particularly care if he mentions what he’s wearing or not but one of the things I wish he would’ve mentioned would be his ethnicity since it’s only assumed he’s Berber due to his mother’s name, Monica, being of Berber origin. It would have been interesting to see if Augustine being Berber aided in shaping his values or beliefs as he traveled through the stages of his life struggling with his faith and duties to his family. I believe that the fact of his ethnicity was unintentionally left out because at the time Augustine was writing Confessions he was a well-known bishop of Hippo-Regius and probably didn’t see a need to talk about his ethnicity since people knew him at the time. One important aspect of the era Augustine lived in that he didn’t mention would be the presence of one of the two African Christian groups, the Caecilianists and the Donatists, that was a part of the schism in 311. Despite there being more Donatists in Africa than Caecilianists, Augustine doesn’t even acknowledge them which is most likely because his family was Caecilian. Due to this background information on Augustine’s family, it makes sense that Augustine most likely had some bias and intentionally left out anything regarding the Donatists since they were a threat to his own religious faction. Furthermore, some historical facts that slip through in Augustine’s autobiography involve the various values and beliefs of Manichaeism and how the Manichees saw the world and god. He also talks about how astrology was very popular in his time as it involved things such as horoscopes that made some people believe that their lives were shaped by the stars and movements of celestial objects. The information that Augustine unintentionally provides greatly helps not only historians, but it also helps his audience see what was going on during his time period, even if the people reading it exist a thousand years after the book was written.
In retrospect Augustine provided a lot of details about his life, even though he fell short in supplying information in other areas. However, when writing things I might leave out of my own life story it makes sense why Augustine didn’t include some of the things he did since it’d be insignificant to talk about what he wore or ate when his main focus is showing his journey of how he adopted the religion of Christianity. Personal bias also accounted for details in history being left out so there were some valuable pieces of information but people writing their own life stories usually pick and choose what they like. So although it would be beneficial for archivist documenting the history of the world to have all this information, in the end people need to realize that Augustine was writing a personal autobiography to share his life with others and not a perfect historical document meant for future generations to learn from.