96 What is Architectural History?
drawing the architectural historian’s perspective into these
historical issues can render buildings a richer source without
reconstituting the problems as architectural in nature. Writing
of the specifi c historiographical problems presented by
medieval architecture and the medieval architect, Nicole
Coldstream observes: ‘Once a building is completed it may
continue to have a personal history. But it will also enter the
main historical narrative, a narrative that encompasses far
more than understanding how a building is made.’^19 The
degree to which an ‘architectural’ knowledge of the building
is important to understanding how it enters the ‘main histori-
cal narrative’ determines the extent to which the specialized
approach to historical evidence exercised by historians of
architecture will be important for unpacking the historical
question posed by or of the example at hand.