One important thing to know is that history as a subject or discipline in its own right was not really a thing before modern times.

History was not part of the "septem artes" of the medieval age, and in ancient Rome education in general was a rather deregulated, private affair by private teachers or tutors, who sometimes were slaves.

Higher education in Rome was also all about rhetorics and practical skills you would need for a career in politics, and even that was reserved for very high class people. Of course, some knowledge about the history of the realm would have been vital for the aspiring high class citizens, but mostly just to further their political "value" and not for its own sake.

In the middle ages, you had the first universities in Europe, the first one being in Bologna somewhere around 1080, but again, this early universities had no "history institutes" before the 18th century for the most part.

To put things into perspective, ordinary folk in this age would not even know what exactly their by far most important text did say, since the bible was not available in anything other than Latin, ancient greek and hebraic (or however you call that one in english...).

Some researchers in the middle age, mostly from a church background, would work with the texts of the classical philosophers of antiquity, but even that was a very exotic field of research.

Another point, of course the lense through which history is viewed was very different "back then", both in classic age and in early christian and muslim societies. Their was always a focus on the "success stories" of your own society and your own faith of course