Attribution Gleanings

Those engaged in scholarly work might benefit from getting out of their silos of research from time to time and become familiar with parallel research in other areas of study. Very little of historical study involves 100 % certainty; it mostly involves degrees of possibility and probability. Finding out how scholars in other fields deal with similar problems can help us adjust the possibility/probability calibrations in our own field. For example, one can apply standards to determine degrees of certainty to works attributed to Nil Sorskii. One can then apply those standards to the works of other mid-second millennium authors. Meanwhile, the three criteria of historical study can beneficially be applied to questions of authorship, such as the controversies surrounding the attributions to William Shakespeare and to Andrei Kurbskii. No matter how frustrated one might get with one’s opponents, one needs to remember that ad hominem denigration does not advance the cause of scholarship.