Question. Does Historiography use a standard technical term for the following (commonly encountered) 'mode' of historical writing?
- The author, towards the beginning of the work, tells the reader a rather sketchy list of 'sources' that allegedly were the basis for the main text, maybe even without precise references, and then blissfully sets about weaving the narrative, without ever (or: hardly ever) giving any precise reference for the more contentious/dubious factual claims in the text.
Remark.
- I am not a professional historian. I am more-or-less aware of the fact that it is a much-discussed topic, since antiquity, whether a historian should be a narrator shaping the subject matter, possibly with some distortions/guesses/gullibility-for-the-usual-possibly-apocryphal-stories, or should rather painstakingly stick to what can be substantiated by primary sources and always either abstain from making a claim or give a reference. And of course I am aware that with the second mode of writing, one is much slower, and sometimes cannot say much at all. This question is not asking for a normative discussion of this old debate, rather only for whether there are recognizable technical terms for these modes of historical writing.