defestival1-1, Exercise 3: A plan for testing a myth

Model answer, for "Carnival is an ancient pagan survival" (check the sources named):

Claim to test: that German carnival continues a pre-Christian rite.

1. Define the terms: what counts as carnival (masks, processions, a licensed period before Lent) and what counts as pagan survival (an unbroken custom, or a similarity?).
2. Find the earliest written records of carnival-like events in the region and note what they say and who wrote them. Church records, town council rules and bans are useful.
3. Look for any link between those records and a pre-Christian practice, rather than a resemblance. Note that scholars in the 1800s proposed such links with little direct evidence.
4. Compare with the later history: the Cologne carnival was reorganised by clubs in the 1820s (check), so what is "traditional" today is partly recent.
5. Read a historian of custom and a folklorist who disagree, and note who gains from each story (a city's tourist office, for example).

Where to look: town archives, regional museums, university studies of carnival, and the Cologne carnival's own history pages, read as a source with an interest.

Result to aim for: "carnival in its present form was shaped in the 1800s, with medieval pre-Lent revelry recorded in the Middle Ages; a direct pagan origin is claimed but not shown".