I accept Stephen Jones’ ‘apology’ .
I have been a professional historian for thirty-nine years- first pay-cheque came in September 1973!- and have written over twenty books with several hundreds of reviews (Probably nearly 150 on Amazon alone-they can easily be found.) So Stephen Jones’ and other critical comments are part of life and don’t worry me. I only intervene when there is clear inaccuracy as here, especially one which may affect the professional reputation I have spent many years earning.
I do not always write for money and most blogs pay nothing as here. I choose my projects carefully. I am not a ‘hired gun’ and will write an article for nothing as in this case if I feel I have something to contribute. I believe in the arguments I present so ‘WHAT HE KNOWS TO BE FALSE’ is another inaccurate statement, that could equally be seen as damaging to my professional reputation. Historians have successfully sued in the British courts for much less.
The rebuttals of Wilson have been widespread across the academic community and anyone who works on the material and reads the work of historians who specialise in Byzantine history and literature comes up with many of the same points. I was not surprised to find that Yannick Clement has found the sources Wilson uses as inadequate as I have and he is opening the debate wider among a community who are often unaware ‘of the manifold problems with Wilson’s hypotheses’.
I am still not convinced by Charles or Yannick but I value the debate.