> scholarly work stating that they were warmly welcomed 4 centuries ago
Yeah, that doesn't sound legit. Any general sentiment from that time period is lost, and the best your scholar can do is project the lens of the present onto sources from the past. To be fair, all histories are done that way.
That's not true. The best scholars can do is figure out the lens the past sources were using, given the historical record about the time period. Take for example contemporary scholarship and the historical Jesus. It's now understood Jesus was a 2nd Temple apocalyptic Jew. Something nobody is today, since 2nd Temple Judaism and it's sects were replaced by Rabbinic Judaism, and Christianity went in it's own direction.
> scholarly work stating that they were warmly welcomed 4 centuries ago
Yeah, that doesn't sound legit. Any general sentiment from that time period is lost, and the best your scholar can do is project the lens of the present onto sources from the past. To be fair, all histories are done that way.