Introduction

This chapter draws attention to oral traditions concerning early modern rebellions. Oral communications may have been vital to the practice of revolt, but for the historian they are often out of reach. Historians of early modern rebellion are obliged to rely on written testimonies, frequently the testimonies generated through processes of repression. This chapter examines why there are voids in the oral archives, just as there are in the written archives. The characteristics of oral traditions, the elements that make them receptive to memorisation and verbal performance, may disguise their qualities as historical sources. Historicist oral cultures put a high value on accuracy of transmission and a low value on imaginative originality. Sometimes the fact that oral traditions conform to aesthetic models depoliticises their content. Oral traditions may even downplay or preclude the memory of revolt.