Quotes from Robert Jan Van Pelt

He had made clear that it would be foolish to require for each historical question the presence of a unique type of document with a specific sort of use.

Works of architecture were, in that context, embodiments of the ideals on which the life of institutions depended.

Here it is important to note that a basic rule in the interpretation of historical evidence is that any piece of evidence depends upon the context from which it is taken.

No single piece of evidence can "prove" the existence of any historical event.

had come to accept that the court was an important forum where society, through battle, finds out and defines what it stands for.