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STORIA DELLA STORIOGRAFIA NUMBER 56 (2009)

CONTENTS

3 Rolf TorstendahlHistorical professionalism. A changing product of communities withinthe discipline

27 Georg G. IggersA comment on Rolf Torstendahl

29 Stefano MeschiniBernardino Corio e le fonti della Storia di Milano (1503)

53 Neil HargravesResentment and history in the Scottish Enlightenment

81 Philipp MüllerDoing historical research in the early nineteenth century. Leopold Ranke,the archive policy, and the relazioni of the Venetian Republic

105 David M. LeesonBarthes and the ‘act of uttering’ in historical discourse

129 BOOK REVIEWSby Georg G. Iggers, Paul J. Kosmin, Davide Bondì

145 ABSTRACTS

148 NOTE ON CONTRIBUTORS

1

3

HISTORICAL PROFESSIONALISM. A CHANGING PRODUCTOF COMMUNITIES WITHIN THE DISCIPLINE

Rolf Torstendahl

I. THE IDEA OF HISTORICAL PROFESSIONALISM

Very often historians of historiography refer to the nineteenth century as aperiod when the ‘professional historian’ came into existence or when a ‘process ofprofessionalization’ changed the historical discipline. Most often the developmentreferred to is regarded as a unified series of occurrences. Yet different authorsmake different criteria decisive for the classification of the professionalism thatthey want to illustrate. Thus, Pim den Boer and Christophe Charle make full-timeemployment (or salaried employment) the criterion of the ‘professional historian’;Gabriele Lingelbach lets the ‘professionalization’ of historians depend oneducation and its content; Georg Iggers refers (1997) to the ideas (regarding historyas a science) and methods of historians as the fundamental preconditions for their‘professionalization’, but later (2008) his use of the term is sparse; many othershave claimed that historians became professionals through the advancement ofmethods in the nineteenth century, sometimes using a combination of criteria1.Because of the different criteria these authors also indicate a different time-span forthe process. Boer sets the period to the whole of the nineteenth century or rather1818-1914 for France; Lingelbach sets it to 1870-1914 for France and the USA;others tend to indicate a period around the middle of the nineteenth century.

This article wants to oppose not only one or the other of the criteria mentioned:full time employment, education, utilization of certain methods. Primarily it isdirected against the idea of one process of ‘professionalization’ that made history‘scientific’ (and a corresponding process of dismantling the scientific image). Theidea of a professionalization process in diverse occupations was very popular

Storia della Storiografia, 56 (2009): 3-26

1 P. den Boer, History as a Profession: the Study of History in France, 1818-1914 (Princeton, N.J.:Princeton U.P., 1998); C. Charle, «Être historien en France: une nouvelle profession?», F. Bédarida ed.,L’Histoire et le métier d’historien en France 1945-1995 (Paris: Maison des Sciences de l’Homme,1995), 21-44; G. Lingelbach, Klio macht Karriere. Die Institutionalisierung der Geschichtswissenschaftin Frankreich und den USA in der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &Ruprecht, 2003); G. Iggers, Historiography in the Twentieth Century. From Scientific Objectivity to thePostmodern Challenge (Middletown: Wesleyan U.P., 1997), esp. Introduction; G. Iggers & Q.E. Wang,A Global History of Modern Historiography (Harlow: Pearson, 2008); esp. 121-125, where the term isavoided, cfr. 74 using the term for Ranke and his successors. For a survey of the problem, see also R.Torstendahl, (article) «History, Professionalization of», The International Encyclopedia of the Socialand Behavioral Sciences (London etc., 2001), 6864-6869.

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among sociologists in the 1960s, based on ‘traits’ that were thought to characterizeprofessionalism2. Since then the concept has lost its attraction among sociologistsand they usually avoid it. It seems that there is good reason to do the same inhistory of historiography, not just to follow the pattern from sociology but mainlyfor the reason that it is based on the idea that certain ‘traits’ should be found thatconstitute the process.

Historical professionalism has tended to be viewed from a German perspective,partly justified through the role of German historians in establishingprofessionalism. It cannot be denied that historiography has a close connectionwith state and society but the emphasis on these matters should not block our viewfor the philosophical impulses on the discipline and its internal formation throughcontinuous sharp debates about its epistemology. Again, German interpretationshave had the upper hand, obscuring the eye for French and Anglo-Saxon – andother – reasoning on such matters. Diversity thus has been considerable, althoughprofessionally conscious historians constantly have tended to unify the discipline.

Not only may the idea of one process be opposed. There is also a complexrelation between the criteria that are used. Some of them focus on what historyought to deal with in the form of actors and subject matters. Others focus on whatis required of a historian, such as methods. The two categories of criteria will becalled here optimum norms and minimum demands3, respectively. In the history ofhistoriography the emphasis has been strongly on one or the other of thesecategories but they have also been mixed in different ways. It cannot be taken forgranted that the categories are of a fixed content. Instead, what is desirable in oneperiod may be a requirement in another and vice versa. Here professionalism isregarded as a term denoting the bases for evaluations of historical research. Theobject is the notion of good and bad history or fruitful and less fruitful history inthe past, i.e. what is the minimum and the optimum. As we discern several shifts inthe basic value system, professionalism has changed not once but several times.These changes are what this article will deal with.

II. COMMUNITIES

A community is to be distinguished from a mere network by a shared value-basis. The members of a community take the same standpoints to certain matters,where values are involved. For scientists and scholars the main concern is with therules governing the advancement of their learned occupations.

2 See e.g. H. Wilensky, «The Professionalization of Everyone?», American Journal of Sociology, 70,2, (1964): 137-58; for an overview of the literature on professionalism, see J. Evetts, «Introduction:Trust and Professionalism: Challenges and Occupational Changes», Current Sociology, 54, 4, (2006):515-531, esp. 519 on «traits».3 I have used these terms and the notions involved in previous articles, most of them in Swedish. InEnglish, see above all R. Torstendahl, «History-writing as professional production of knowledge»,Storia della storiografia, 48, (2005): 73-88, esp. 75-80.

HISTORICAL PROFESSIONALISM

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There is reason to regard all academic professionalism as more or less linked tocommunities. While most professions have lost their feeling of community and theactive communication between members of the collective, the academicprofessions have not. As university teachers professors of history may feel close toprofessors of other disciplines but as researchers they form an expert grouptogether with their colleagues of their discipline. This group, quite as researchers inany discipline, employs the communication among members of the collective as achief mechanism of fostering and maintaining professional consciousness4. Thedevices for such communication vary over time but presently the internet web,journals, seminars, conferences and congresses are chief tools for the creation oftheir communities and the execution of the critical substance of their interaction.Oral and written criticism or praise are the chief manifestations of the interaction,and such criticism and praise is based on value systems that the individual scholarhas picked up from his/her environment. Few scholars would be able to give agood account of the value system that he/she is using. Yet it would be evident tocolleagues rather immediately, if and when a scholar deviated from the system.

Deviations do occur. On some occasions, mostly under dictatorial politicalregimes, academic professionals have been forced to give up their autonomy inregard to fundamental values such as accepted methodology and criteria for fruitfulresearch5. In the normal academic life changes of value systems occur when ascholar is successful in persuading colleagues that some changes in the valuesystem are justified. This becomes revolutionary if the initial group find otherswho share their view and are willing to help to disseminate the idea. The wholescholarly community may change its value basis if such opinions spread around.This is what this article will deal with within the discipline of history.

It is not self-evident when historical communities began to be formed. Acommunity is understood here to be a network of interconnected persons who sharefundamental values in regard to scholarship and who exchange views in one formor another on the works of other historians. In the sixteenth and seventeenthcenturies there is no evidence of national or international communities ofhistorians. If there were any such communities at all, they must have been purelylocal.

The eighteenth century is much more interesting from this point of view. Therewere obviously close links between scholars in some places, and Germany was thebreeding-place of historical networks. The most famous of them was the Göttingen‘school’ in the latter half of the century. Herbert Butterfield pointed out the fruitfulinterconnections within the Göttingen circle of scholars, not all of them historians

4 I intend to develop the role of communities for professionalism in another connection.5 K. Schönwälder, Historiker und Politik. Geschichtswissenschaft im Nazionalsozialismus(Frankfurt/Main: Campus, 1992); Iu. N. Afanasiev, «Fenomen sovietskoi istoriografii», in Iu. N.Afanasiev ed., Sovietskaia istoriografiia (Moskva: RGGU, 1996), 7-41. (Several essays in the lattervolume illustrate the political pressure on historians to give up their professional norms).6 H. Butterfield, «The rise of the German historical school», in Man on his Past (Cambridge: CUP,1955-1969), 32-61.

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but all historically-minded researchers, where August Ludwig Schlözer stands outas one of the leaders and the leading historian6. Peter Hanns Reill, Jörn Rüsen andHorst Walter Blanke have shown that many of the eighteenth-century universitiesin Germany – and they were plenty – had circles of interacting scholars in thehumanities7. This is certainly a sign of some sort of incipient communities at thelocal level, though not of national importance. As they were in different disciplinesthey did not create a rule system for professional historians.

Historians were among the scholars who were most active in formingconnections and debating a foundation of historical thought in Germany. TheFrench Enlightenment was different from the German one in several respects andespecially notable from the perspective of the present investigation is that theFrench debate was not carried on mainly in the universities but outside of them. Itwas in the first hand a discussion among ‘philosophes’, who often held historiansin low esteem. Thus there was no ground for an international community betweenthe two countries who were at the forefront in forming European Enlightenment.

One of the prerequisites for community-forming was still missing amonghistorians in the eighteenth century, a journal of some sort that was read indifferent circles and could provide the basis for a nation-wide discussion and giveopportunities for foreign scholars to get informed and maybe take part in thediscussion. It is not contended here that communities did not exist until thenineteenth century but it seems quite clear that the communities among historiansbefore this century were local and embryonic.

III. RANKEAN PROFESSIONALISM

When historians of historiography have tried to characterise Leopold vonRanke’s importance and his influence on historiography, they have chosen quitedifferently. Some are stressing his importance for using strict historical methods;others are underlining his deep understanding of history as a cornerstone of allunderstanding of the social world, past and present; still others are emphasizing hisunequalled performance as a teacher taking on disciples not only from Germanybut from many countries and inspiring them with his teaching8.

7 P. H. Reill, The German Enlightenment and the Rise of Historicism (Berkeley, LA: University ofCalifornia Press, 1975); H. W. Blanke & J. Rüsen eds., Von der Aufklärung zum Historismus(Paderborn etc.: Schöningh, 1984), esp. Blanke, «Aufklärungshistorie» with discussion, 167-200; H. W.Blanke, Historiographiegeschichte als Historik (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstadt: Fromann-Holzboog, 1991),111-204.8 It is impossible to enumerate all books and articles that develop viewpoints on Ranke’s importancefor historiography. In addition to major handbooks the following works are notable: G. Iggers & J. M.Powell eds., Leopold von Ranke and the Shaping of the Historical Discipline (Syracuse: Syracuse U.P.,1990), G. Iggers, The German Conception of History: the National Tradition of Historical Thoughtfrom Herder to the Present (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan U.P., 1983) (revised ed.), F. Jaeger & J. Rüsen,Geschichte des Historismus (München: Beck, 1992), W. J. Mommsen ed., Leopold von Ranke und diemoderne Geschichtswissenschaft (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1988), F. Meinecke, Die Entstehung des


7

Ranke certainly did show some interest in historical method. His early book onGuicciardini and a couple of later essays on Frankish annals and other suchmatters9 make clear that he took an interest in the origins of myths and persistentconceptualization of the past. However, it would be quite misleading to call this afundamental interest of his. In his comprehensive histories of England or of thepopes or of German history during the Reformation or of Prussia discussions ofmethod are rare and very short. It is obvious that he has wanted to give a historicalnarrative in these books – and that he has seen discussions of method as out ofplace in a narrative.

The second characteristic of Ranke’s historiography that has been broughtforward, his deepness in thought, is indeed striking. Compared to many of thosewho preceded him as well-known historians he represented another type. He likedto reflect on history and to make history a source of understanding of the present.This did not mean, however, that he drew rash conclusions from the past to thepresent and the future. Rather he tried to form a system of analysis of supra-individual entities – states in the first hand – and their modes of behaviour incontrast to human individuals. Already in the work that first made Ranke known toGerman public, his Geschichten der romanischen und germanischen Völker from1824, he operated with an idea of a basic European state system. This notion took amuch wider perspective than earlier nation-based historical writing. This thinkingis only occasionally at hand in his main works – his Weltgeschichte is an exception– and mostly developed in essays, such as «Die grossen Mächte», where he firstoutlined the priority of foreign policy in state politics or, as he says, «I will keepintentionally to the great events, the development of external relations between thedifferent states; the consequences for the internal conditions, which external policyin many different ways influences and has repercussions on, will in this manner forgreat parts be included» (transl. by RT)10. Another of his often cited wide-rangingcontributions to historical thinking is his Über die Epochen der neuerenGeschichte, a series of lectures for the Bavarian king Maximilian, which was notprinted in Ranke’s own life-time11. This is a remarkable text where Ranke permitshimself to reflect on history while presenting a rough outline of historical events.History itself is pushed into the background in favour of theories of history andtheories of society. In sum, it is quite clear that Ranke was a remarkable exceptionamong historians of his own time and earlier historiography because of his effortsto understand more about history than the mere narrative of events.

Historismus. Bd 2, Die deutsche Bewegung (München: Oldenburg, 1936). Many recent books onHistorismus deal only with the post-Rankean period from the 1880s to World War II or to the present.9 His enquiry of Guicciardini’s Florentine history, called Zur Kritik neuerer Geschichtsschreiber(1824), is an annex to his History of the Latin and Germanic Peoples, and his essays from differentperiods are found in vols. 24 and 51/52 of his Sämtliche Werke.10 In Rankes Meisterwerke, 10 (Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1915), 423-482, quote 426-427.11 Posthumously published by A. Dove in 1888 as a supplement to Ranke’s Weltgeschichte. A newand critical edition was published in L. von Ranke, Aus Werk und Nachlass, vol. 2 (München:Oldenbourg, 1971).

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Finally the third characteristic that has been attached to Ranke is his teaching.No doubt his performance as a teacher is well worth observing. Already ConradVarrentrapp took note of Ranke’s many disciples and he published letters fromquite a number of them12. A much later study by Gunter Berg tries to make anoverview both of the content of the teaching in seminars and lectures and toanalyze the scope of Ranke’s influence through the numbers of his listeners13.According to his calculations around 1100 people listened to Ranke’s in all 85lectures. However, Berg has also a list (compiled from actually preserved originallists) of persons who participated in Ranke’s ‘Übungen’, that is his seminars andsimilar group meetings. Berg has complemented these with (some) others who areknown to have listened to Ranke’s lectures. He has listed 501 names in all. Mostimpressive is the wide span of people from other countries than Germany whohave sat at the master’s feet. Yet Berg states that the loss of foreigners in the listingmust have been extensive. Among the listed non-Germans were people from allEurope and some came even from greater distance to listen to Ranke. Of coursesome of these attended only some seminars but others were there for several years.

Ranke was also an outstanding historical author for his time. He wasenormously productive, if you count by printed pages. The bulk of his writing wasbased on original research, partly combined with secondary works of a previoustime. Almost everything he wrote was first-class history, measured with the normsof his own time. In his view every social phenomenon and especially states werefull of history and the embedded history in state institutions and state systems werethere for the researcher to uncover, but he must abide by the divine relation of eachepoch. This meant in Ranke’s understanding that nothing may be seen only astepping-stone to later occurrences. This type of thinking, an important part of hisHistorismus14, made his authorship original.

In spite of all this he might have been forgotten except by a few historians oflearning if it had not been for his disciples. In Germany almost all of the nextgeneration of historians were his disciples or wanted to appear to be so. Histeaching, combined with his qualities as a historian, had created for him a specialstanding. This standing was also mirrored in many other countries in Central,Eastern and Northern Europe. In France and in England his impact seems to havebeen weaker in the third quarter of the nineteenth century than in the rest ofEurope. His reputation was solid in Northern America and he had admirers in allparts of the world15.

12 C. Varrentrapp, «Briefe an Ranke», Historische Zeitschrift, vols. 105 (1910), 107 (1911).13 G. Berg, Leopold von Ranke als akademischer Lehrer (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprechet,1968).14 Cf. R. Torstendahl, «A Return of Historismus? Neo-institutionalism and the historical turn of thesocial sciences» (forthcoming in Russian as Торстендаль, Рольф. Возвращение историзма. Нео-институционализм и «исторический поворот» в социальных науках, in Диалог со временем, vol.29, 2009) with a discussion of viewpoints on Historismus in relation to Ranke.15 About Ranke’s influence, see G. Iggers, «The Crisis of the Rankean Paradigm in the NineteenthCentury», in G. Iggers & J. M. Powell 1990, 170-179.

What did bring about this success? No doubt the formation of a communitywhich shared his thinking and norms was a necessary condition. His lecturing, hisseminars, and his authorship formed the basic lever for the creation of thiscommunity. The people within this community worked together with the appeal ofhis Historismus to create the effect. Ranke talked to hundreds of historians of theyounger generation, convincing them of what had happened and how it hadhappened, and made them consider how the deeper cohesion of states and timesworked in the long run. Many came to share his opinions, at least in part. And,most important of all, many came to share the normative standpoint that this waswhat historians ought to devote their time to. Many of his listeners and disciplesbecame professors and they taught Rankeanism, as they understood it, to their ownstudents.

It is quite clear that the followers of Ranke could not accept as history anaccount that did not follow certain principles of method. Old sources werepreferred to more recent ones and a certain closeness to events was givenprecedence to hearsay or tradition. Ranke’s own use of the Venetian archives hasbeen interpreted as a preference for diplomatic materials. There are however fewstatements by him or his close associates about the character of methods asrequirements, i.e. minimum demands. This depends, certainly, on the standing ofRanke’s Historismus in the common understanding of how historical works shouldbe written. It was necessary not only to write a faultless account but also to look atthe historical development from the notions of state and politics that Ranke hadformulated. These concepts expressed a formula for a fruitful and desirableperspective on history. In this manner Ranke’s professionalism turned the optimumnorms into requirements and made methodology only a subsidiary asset.

Thus Rankeanism outright or in a modified version became a condition for aprofessional historian. Without this condition it was not possible to adhere to thecommunity of historians, and this community was so important that very fewhistorians wanted to stand outside of it. This community had international branchesand a strong Central, East and North European and North American foothold, butstill it had clear geographical boundaries.

IV. PROFESSIONALISM AS METHODS AND METHODOLOGY

In spite of its rapid success real Rankeanism had petered out already beforeRanke’s own death. In Germany new stars among historians had won reputation,such as Johann Gustav Droysen as theoretician, or Heinrich von Sybel andHeinrich von Treitschke as narrators. None of these had by far the sameinternational standing as Ranke. At the same time Ranke’s way of writing historyin multivolume national histories was no longer what the scholarly world needed.In the last quarter of the nineteenth and the first quarter of the twentieth century thescholarly demand increasingly focused on detailed studies. This is what historicaldissertations came to be about. The prevailing notion in history of historiography,


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standardized through the works of Georg Iggers, that Rankean professionalism wasthe one that won the ground after 1870 in Western Europe is therefore misleading.Something new had become the prevailing value-basis in the historical nationalcommunities and internationally in Europe and the USA, even if they oftenreferred to Ranke as a model16.

One might think that French historians as Fustel de Coulanges or GabrielMonod or a British one as Lord Acton might have taken the position that Rankehad left. But, in fact, none of them had any sharply defined profile that differedfrom Ranke’s. Nor had they disciples in large numbers who could establish theirreputation abroad.

Instead the new ‘fashion’ of historical studies that spread around Europe wasfounded in source studies. Both in Germany and France large-scale projects ofediting medieval sources were active from the 1820s and 30s. The model was rapidlytransferred to most European countries. Medieval documents, chronicles, annals werelocated, restored and interpreted, which required refined instruments of editing.Impressive tool-boxes were created for editors17. These instruments were useful alsofor the historian. As the obsession with old archival material and its reproduction innew and critical editions spread around Europe, the critical standard for publicationand evaluation of the content became international. One important means of makingthem international was the publishing of manuals for historical studies, whichbecame a real trend. They were partly intended for the students of history at theuniversities and partly became reference manuals for the historical world, theinternational community of historians. In 1868 Johann Gustav Droysen firstpublished his Grundzüge der Historik, which was a rather dry distillate of histeaching on historical method and some historical theory18. It was not aninternational hit, in spite of its small format and clear prescriptions. Much greaterwas the success of Ernst Bernheim’s Lehrbuch der historischen Methode, whichcame in its first edition in 1889 and was repeatedly republished up to World War I.Another internationally influential manual was published in France. There Charles-Victor Langlois and Charles Seignobos produced a rival textbook called Introductionaux études historiques (1898), which was republished once, in 1899. There aredifferences, also in polemical form, between these very influential manuals19.

16 Iggers, Historiography in the Twentieth Century, esp. 23-30. The same basic idea is expressed byIggers in several other books and articles, but this is the place where I find it most clearly argued.17 On these projects, see H. Bresslau, Geschichte der Monumenta Germaniae Historica, NeuesArchiv, 42 (Hannover, 1921); X. Charmes, Le comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques. Histoireet documents, 1-2 (Paris, 1886).18 In late twentieth century there was an intensive backing of Droysen’s reputation by making most ofhis Historik. See e.g. J. Rüsen, Begriffene Geschichte: Genesis und Begründung der GeschichtstheorieJ. G. Droysens (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1969). For a reversal see W. Nippel, Johann Gustav Droysen.Ein Leben zwischen Wissenschaft und Politik (München: C.H. Beck, 2008). Cfr. R. Torstendahl, «Fact,truth and text: The quest for a firm basis for historical knowledge around 1900», History and Theory,42, (2003): 305-331.19 Bernheim had the opportunity to reply to Langlois and Seignobos in the later editions of hisLehrbuch. See Torstendahl, «Fact, truth and text».


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The most apparent difference was their attitude to the historian’s task.Bernheim (and Droysen though his text is very meagre) saw this task as aclarification of history itself. Here one may trace a link to Ranke’s statement ofhimself as historian: «er will bloss zeigen wie es eigentlich gewesen». Byclarifying the historical past itself historians were to indicate what probably or lessprobably had taken place, according to Bernheim. Langlois & Seignobos were ofanother opinion. They saw the historian’s work as a text, where he/she had to striveto make every sentence a true one. Thus probability of the past stood againstsolidity of a textual account20. Slightly different opinions in minor matters weredeveloped in manuals for historical studies that were written in different nativelanguages all around Europe to popularise historical methodology. Some of thembecame very widespread and dominated historical education in their andneighbouring countries. This was the case with the Dane Kristian Erslev’s bookletHistorisk Teknik (1911)21.

Thus, in the last part of the nineteenth century and the beginning of thetwentieth a specialized discussion on the methodology of history was taking form.Even if the discussion was specialized it was intended that all historians ought tobe aware of the main issues, especially the issues where a broad consensus wasgrowing up. In fact, most of the rules, i.e. the normative regulations for thetreatment of sources by advanced scholars in history, were the same. What differedbetween the methodologists were the arguments with which they wanted tovindicate the rules and their normative basis22.

The instrument that was used for making all historians aware of the normativesystem of the methodology was the historical seminar. Seminars became usual onlyin the last two decades of the nineteenth century, though some German professorshad followed Ranke’s example from the 1860s, e.g. Johann Gustav Droysen. As adevice for the dissemination of historical method it was very efficient to sit arounda table (the seminar table was an obligatory accessory) and discuss whichinferences should be drawn about the origin, tendentious inclinations and contentof a historical text, old or new. The teacher thus had the opportunity to pass onboth personal views and a standardized version of what the historian ought to takeinto regard. The microcosms of historical communities had all fundamentals incommon thanks to the wide-spread manuals. A wider consensus grew up and aninternational community was formed.

A new historical literature grew up inspired by the new interest in methods andmethodology. Historical dissertations have already been mentioned, and somehistorians won their celebrity by using source analysis in a radical manner. Suchmethods might change traditional views on history, especially the rather distantpast. In Germany this process had started comparatively early and the gradualrevaluation of the past did not create real ruptures. In other countries where a20 Torstendahl, «Fact, truth and text».21 Erslev had published an earlier version under another title in 1892. A book in Norwegian by G.Storm, Indledning i Historie (Oslo, 1895), was far less successful.22 See Torstendahl, «Fact, truth and text».

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critical scrutiny had a shorter and weaker tradition its results could be moreshocking. The cultural adaptation to critical evaluations of the past depended also toan important degree on the conclusions that historians drew from their criticalscrutiny. Some found that the results of their analysis indicated that the material inquestion was not sufficient to evidence what earlier had been thought but all thesame concluded that they had to consider the probabilities of the one or the othersolution. Others made a clean sweep with the historical narratives that were basedon materials that did not answer to the demands of criticism. A Swede, LauritzWeibull, based his fame on his willingness to discard all old Norse history that wasbased on «tales and fiction» as he said in a famous book from 1911, where he statedthat only the rough contours of what happened in Scandinavia around the year 1000could be evidenced through less distorted poetry contemporary with events23.

Weibull was radical in his application of source criticism, but first of all he wasdrawing radical conclusions from a criticism that many other researchers mightaccept. In fact he followed rather closely the norms for conclusions that had beenproposed by Langlois and Seignobos in their manual24. This was rather rare. Mostother researchers preferred following the cautious norms for conclusions that hadbeen proposed by Bernheim in his manual. Thus they had a possibility to considerthe pros and cons and to let their conclusion be whatever seemed to them a bitmore probable than the alternatives.

I am not arguing that most historians around 1900 looked into the manuals toget guidance regarding which norms should be followed. Both then and latermanuals have served, it seems, mostly as references for the advanced scholars,where they could find support for their own ideas. They also used the manuals astextbooks in their teaching.

In most countries there was no real struggle for or against source criticism. Thisis quite understandable from what has been said above. Source criticism in itselfwas a refinement that historians of quite different schools of thought might accept.Among those who accepted the critical attitude to sources were however greatdifferences. In Sweden there were historians who accepted source criticism but notWeibull’s conclusions. In Denmark there was a great tradition of criticism firstadvanced with radical conclusions by Caspar Paludan-Müller and later developedinto a system of methodology by Kristian Erslev, who was more cautious asregards conclusions. Both in Denmark and Norway there were researchers who hadused similar critical methods as Weibull to the old saga material earlier but hadreached other conclusions25.

23 «When tales and fiction are swept away, it has become clear that only occasional events and thecoarsest lines of the history of this period [late 10th and early 11th century] are scientificallyobservable», he says in the preface to his Kritiska undersökningar i Nordens historia omkring år 1000,published (in Swedish) in 1911.24 See R. Torstendahl, Källkritik och vetenskapssyn i svensk historisk forskning 1820-1920, Studiahist. Upsaliensia, 15 (Uppsala, 1964), ch. 12; B. Odén, Lauritz Weibull och forskarsamhället,Bibliotheca hist. Lundensis, 39 (Lund, 1971).25 The researchers alluded to are Edvin Jessen, Gustav Storm and Yngvar Nielsen.


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The example from Scandinavian historiography is not intended to claim forthese countries any special qualities in regard to historical professionalism. Itseems probable that one could find similar controversies and developments inmany other countries in Europe or other parts of the world. Scandinavia had,however, one advantage. Old political grudges had been shelved andhistoriography was therefore less occupied with justifying national prejudices andmore open for scholarly squabbles about sources and what they showed than wasthe case in many other countries in Europe where history was in a rather strictservice of national politics.

An international meeting-place for historians was created with the foundationof the International Congresses of Historical Sciences, which in 1923 led to thecreation of a permanent body, the Comité international des sciences historiques(CISH). However, the Congresses lead their history back to 1900 with a precursorin 1898, even if the name came later26. In view of the national dissensions withinEurope it is striking that this movement of international cooperation could getsufficient support – mainly from European historians – to get a takeoff in thebeginning of the century. This fact must be interpreted as a sign of a need amonghistorians to find a forum for their discussions and an organization to refer to as asymbol of the community that had come into existence among historians.

As Karl-Dietrich Erdmann shows in his history of CISH questions aboutmethods and methodology were paramount topics in the first internationalcongresses. Erdmann and his translators and editors of the English edition give thefourth chapter the heading «Debates on methodology: Rome 1903» and the fifth«Victorious professionalism: Berlin 1908». However, this may give a somewhatmisleading impression to the present-day reader. The issues were rather specific,and covered things ranging from the archaeology of Rome to the codification oflaw and to the composition and origin of the New Testament in the Bible (the‘international’ congresses were still an exclusively European affair). Specialsessions were devoted to such themes in Rome. In Berlin five years later economicmatters and the Lamprecht-inspired methods came into the limelight whenLamprecht himself was permitted to lecture. However, the Berlin congressabolished the special group for methodology. The organizers instead gave theinstruction that lectures in all sections should primarily deal with substantiveinformation or «questions of method and scholarly activity»27.

As Erdmann has observed the congresses in the first decade of the twentiethcentury became more scholarly and more directly occupied with what wasregarded as scholarly progress. Real debates were introduced and spokesmen fordifferent opinions on theory and method came forward with strongly voiced

26 K. D. Erdmann, Toward a Global Community of Historians. The International HistoricalCongresses and the International Committee of Historical Sciences, 1898-2000 (New York & Oxford:Berghahn, 2005), 6-22, 101-122. The book first appeared in German as Ökumene der Historiker (1987).The English edition has been supplied with a chapter covering the period 1985-2000 by Wolfgang J.Mommsen, and is edited by Wolfgang J. Mommsen and Jürgen Kocka.27 Erdmann, Toward a Global Community of Historians, 22-65, quotation from 44.

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judgements. The criticism to the news regarding methods and methodology thatErdmann has noted in his book came from French participants. Most explicitlyFrançois Simiand opposed the scattering of the discussions about methods insections on diverse topics and the lack of sessions on real methodology28.

This is noteworthy. Simiand was a historical sociologist who avidly advocatedDurkheim’s ideas against historians and (historical) economists. In 1898 hepublished a critical review of the Introduction by Langlois and Seignobos and in1903 he had a long two-part article in Revue de synthèse historique, where hepresented a radically critical view of three books on historical method, one of themCh. Seignobos’ La Méthode historique appliquée aux sciences sociales, from190129. Simiand’s interest in the debates shows the breadth of the discussion. Heseverely criticized Seignobos for not realising the subjectivity of the historian’sselection of information, and the limits of historical knowledge in comparison withsocial science. He also advocated systematic comparison of differentiated socialphenomena separately in a vehement denunciation of the intertwining wholes (heuses the German word Zusammenhang in his French text) that he meant thathistorical methodologists recommended as starting points for historians30.

Obviously an ultimate aim of the international organization was to stabilize thenormative system around methods and methodology, but this could only beachieved through consistent openness to all relevant arguments. The philosophicalbasis for methodology was by no means uniform, even though methods weregenerally regarded as uncontested. This was important as the bulk of discussionson national arenas, when they were not about themes with a political relevance,were on methods from various points of view. The different national communitiesneeded and got a point of reference in the international community. It should benoted, however, that the unanimity was limited to questions on methods andmethodology. Whenever theoretical questions were approached, either in socialtheory (Marxism and other materialist thinking) or in epistemology (Dilthey andNeo-Kantians), and they were frequently taken up, radically different views werevoiced.

In this manner a much more international community of historians was createdthan the one that had gathered around Ranke and his ideas in the middle of thenineteenth century. Methods and methodology was the core idea. The vitalcondition was that it got a foothold in the national communities for it should not beoverlooked that history was still a nationally based discipline. The national

28 Erdmann, Toward a Global Community of Historians, 49.29 F. Simiand, (Review of) «Introduction aux études historiques», F. Simiand, «Méthode historique etscience sociale», parts 1-2, both available at website <http://www.uqaq.uquebec.ca/zone30/Classiques_des_sciences_sociales/index.html>. The two other books reviewed by Simiand were: P. Lacombe, Del´histoire considérée comme science (Paris: Hachette, 1894), and ? Hauser, Enseignement des sciencessociales. (I have not been able to identify this book in any library catalogue, including the one ofBibliothèque National de France). I want to thank Professor Ph. Steiner, Sorbonne, who drew myattention to Simiand’s activity as a proponent of Durkheim’s ideas.30 Simiand, Méthode historique, 1-2.


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communities might have their own agenda and these were most often based oninterpretations of the national past in a way that was reflecting contemporarypolitics. For the international communication between historians it was then utterlyimportant that there reigned a sort of consensus around the importance of methodsand methodology for the professional historian.

Thus the second appearance of historical professionalism, which graduallyreplaced Rankeanism in the 1870s and 1880s, was in the shape of methods andmethodology. The Rankean professionalism of the 1830-70s was determined in thefirst hand by norms for the selection of themes and subject matters. Theprofessionalism that became dominant from around 1880 concentrated on methodsand methodology and made a correct application of agreed methods a sign of theprofessional historian and his/her professionalism. It is striking that the«objectivity question» (as it was termed in Novick’s famous book31) was not acentral one in the European debates on history. Occasionally both impartiality anda ‘true representation of the historical reality’ were touched upon, but suchopinions created no observable divisions in the academic community of historians.Rankeans could find ground for evaluations in the value-loaded concept of state inRanke’s production (but some might favour impartiality). Those who adhered tomethod-related professionalism often saw method as one thing and evaluativestandpoints as another (but some tried to include rules for object-relatedness and/orimpartiality in the normative system). This means that no professionals wereimmune to lack of ‘objectivity’, which is in itself a very complicated matter. Thus,before 1900 there were no other alternatives to professionalism than Rankeanismand the later methods-centred one. Only around these two varieties ofprofessionalism were international communities successfully created that professedthe norms and elaborated the values of these notions of professionalism.

In hindsight Rankean professionalism has been taken as part of a process(‘professionalization’) that was continued through methodology in the latter part ofthe nineteenth century. To make this a unified process it became necessary to stressthe methodological part of Ranke’s (and Niebuhr’s and Mommsen’s) teaching. Iam not saying that this part did not exist. But it was not a central part in theprofessionalism that was spread through the Rankean community over Europe andNorth America. Only in the eighties and onwards methods and methodology got astanding that made it central in historical professionalism. The minimum demandsthus came into the forefront of historical professionalism. Most historians alsorecognized optimum norms that were often those that Ranke had developed butwere given only a secondary place in relation to the minimum demands. This mayalso serve as an explanation to the rising role of national themes in historiographyin the late part of the nineteenth century. When optimum norms – what historyshould deal with – was regarded as less important for their professionalism, thefield lay open. State interests, as Iggers rightly stresses, worked in favour of

31 P. Novick, That Noble Dream: The ‘Objectivity Question’ and the American Historical Profession(Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 1988).

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national and conservative historiography. My interpretation is, however, that thiswas a side-effect of the reign of methodology, not a main trait of historicalprofessionalism of this period32.

V. WIDENING PROFESSIONALISM: ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL HISTORY

In the first quarter of the twentieth century the national agenda was oftenchallenged by groups of historians who would prefer social and economic affairs tohave prominence in the writings of historians. Of course, this did not necessarilyimply that methods and methodology could not continue to be the backbone of thenormative system within the community. Methods designed within the nineteenth-century editing projects were, however, intended for other purposes than problemswithin social and economic history and were not immediately relevant or importantfor the solution of such problems. Seen in this light there is a close affinity betweenKarl Lamprecht’s struggles against the German historical community around theturn of the century and Marc Bloch’s fight for his integrity during the first Annalesperiod. Both stood in opposition to the dominating normative system of theirnational communities. Lamprecht, however, lost his battle in the long run (Finlandcame to be the only country with a vital Lamprechtian tradition in research33) butMarc Bloch won his. It is important, however, that Bloch was not an internationaltrendsetter for new historical norms in the form of a new methodology or a newstandard for conclusions from sources. He fought his battle for the importance ofother subject-matters than those that had previously dominated the discussion, andin this field he was not alone. Economic historians and economists with a historicalmind such as, Gustav Schmoller, Max Weber, Alfred Marshall, R. H. Tawney, andEli F. Heckscher had a similar agenda. They were nationally very celebrated bothas economists and historians but they had few disciples active in history. Similarlytheir solid international reputation did not avert that their influence on the trends inthe historical community was limited34. There was a specific section for economicand social history at the International Congress of History in Oslo in 1928. ThereEli Heckscher read a paper on «Economic Theory and Economic History», wherehe pleaded for «extensive use of theory» in order to «understand what really

32 Cf. Iggers: «What is striking is how professionalization, with the development of the scientificethos and scientific practices that accompanied it, led everywhere to an increasing ideologization ofhistorical writing»: Iggers, Historiography in the Twentieth Century, 28.33 P. Tommila, «Studies in the History of Society in Finland Before World War II», ScandinavianJournal of History, 6, 1, (1981): 143-160.34 On Marshall and Tawney, see D.C. Coleman, History and the Economic Past. An Account of theRise and Decline of Economic History in Britain (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987), 63-77; on Heckscher, seeY. Hasselberg, Industrisamhällets förkunnare: Eli Heckscher, Arthur Montgomery, Bertil Boëthius ochsvensk ekonomisk historia 1920-1950 (Hedemora: Gidlunds, 2007); on Schmoller, see E. Grimmer-Solem, The Rise of Historical Economics and Social Reform in Germany, 1864-1894 (Oxford: OxfordU.P., 2003), esp. 246-279; on Weber, see J. Kocka ed., Max Weber, der Historiker (Göttingen:Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986).


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constitutes economic history». According to his short abstract this meant, that«theoretical treatment is as necessary in regard to economic history as it is topresent-day economics». Heckscher’s abstract was the most theoretically-orientedamong the abstracts that are printed in the publication from the congress. The onlyone with a comparable aim is V. P. Volgin’s (Moscow) paper on socialism andegalitarianism. In the same section Marc Bloch presented a paper on «Le problèmedes systèmes agraires». The short summaries in the documentation from thecongress do not permit any far-reaching conclusions. It is important enough thatHeckscher and Bloch alongside with the Hansa historian Fritz Rörig, the Sovietspecialist on France Evgenii Tarle and several others were allowed to presentviews that went beyond the politically determined field of problems. However,Heckscher seems not to be content with what the community allowed, for in hispaper he asked for more economic history dealing with «the economic problemproper» instead of what he judged as institutional, legal or social history35. Thethree labels mentioned by him seem to fit exactly for what the others in the sectionon economic and social history were dealing with.

In fact there was a difference between the economic historians who wereinspired by economic theory and the social historians of the type represented bestby Marc Bloch. The former category soon created an outlet for their own profile inorganizations for the promotion of economic history as such, e.g. the BritishEconomic History Society, founded in 1926 and the American Economic HistoryAssociation, founded in 1940. Yet, there was no definitive break with thediscipline of history (there were few chairs in economic history) and TheInternational Economic History Association was created only in 1960. Economichistorians also started journals for economic history. First of them wasViertelsjahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, established in 1903. Inthe nineteen-twenties were founded The Economic History Review (1927) inBritain, The Journal of Economic and Business History (1928) in the USA, and theAnnales d’histoire économique et sociale (1929) in France. It is no accident thatsocial history is not mentioned in the titles of the British and American journals.

While the economic historians gradually accepted that historians had theirprofessionalism anchored in the minimum demands, they chose to quit or to behalf-hearted members of the historical community and to create their own platform.In retrospect Bloch’s social history was a conscious struggle against themethodological paradigm of professionalism but within the frame of the disciplineof history. His obvious aim was to widen the field of history and to change theoptimum norms to achieve this. However, Bloch’s victory was only to becelebrated posthumously, after the war where he lost his life. At that time newideas on the task of history had become heard, especially in France. As a socialhistorian in the 1920s and 1930s Bloch was in good company. Many otherinfluential economic and social historians quite as Bloch found little guidance from

35 VIe Congrès International des Sciences Historiques: Résumés des communications présentées aucongrès, Oslo 1928, Section X, 257-296.

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methodological professionalism in their research and, in fact, social and economichistory itself developed in diverse directions, more or less independently of themother discipline of history.

VI. THE ADVENT OF A HISTORICAL SOCIAL SCIENCE

Among historians in general methodological professionalism dominated theacademic community of historians up to 1950. This does not mean that alldiscussions among historians in the first half of the twentieth century were relatedto texts and their critical use. Erdmann states that since the beginning of thetwentieth century «the traditional ‘historicist’ historiography with characteristicelements – textual criticism, hermeneutics, intellectual history, politics, events,individuals, narrative – had been challenged by ethnology, sociology, economics,psychology, and quantificational approaches»36. It will seem that this is anoverstatement of oppositional directions within the community of historians.Economic and social historians had been taking their own paths from the 1920s,and there were other directions, such as Arnold J. Toynbee’s civilizational (macro-historical) approach that had became famous, beside the group around the Annales,which was restructured just after the war. Still after the war many historicaljournals continued publishing in the traditional fields of historical research. TheAnnales (getting its new name Annales ESC in 1946) formed an exception whichwas followed by other exceptions, such as Past and Present (from 1952).

Apart from the statement on challenges from the social sciences Erdmann iscertainly right in his declaration that the Paris Congress in 1950 represented an«important step in the development of the theoretical self-awareness of historicalscholarship». It is, however, harder to pinpoint the novelty than to get a generalimpression of newness from the programme. Its division of the subject-matter wasreally innovative. There were seven main sections with substantial reports, 1)Anthropology and demography; 2) History of ideas and sentiments; 3) Economichistory; 4) Social history; 5) History of civilizations; 6) History of institutions; 7)History of political facts. The six first of these headings might have been fetchedfrom the content of Annales, and the seventh was a last-minute addition urged bySir Charles Webster.

One should not be deceived by the headings of the sections. The structuring ofeach section was very traditional, dividing time in four periods, antiquity, middleages, «temps modernes», and «époque contemporaine». One or the other of theseperiods was skipped in the reports and discussion in some cases. The reports werevery wide and gave overviews of recent literature. Occasionally they even took upsome Asian and African countries but then in view of colonial experiences. Thedebates were sometimes hard and critical. For instance, Eric J. Hobsbawm, isreported to have said that Colin Clark’s report on modern economic history «est un

36 Erdmann, Toward a Global Community of Historians, 206.


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example de ce qu’il ne faut pas faire en histoire économique». In passing hementioned Clark’s concepts and statistical method as worthy of criticism butconcentrated on Clark’s analysis in terms of one single criterion, growth – or, asClark himself puts it, economic progress as shown by industrial development37.Still more interesting is the introduction made by Hobsbawm, this time chairing thesession, to the discussion on the Polish historian Marian Malowist’s report on‘contemporary’ social history.

I propose to agree on two points made by Professor Malowist in his own report:a) Like him, I propose to define Social History as the history of social groups and their mutual relations.b) Like him also, I believe that the most important task is not to give an account of work done – becausethere isn’t as yet very much – but of problems whose solution is urgent.Let me correct myself. A lot of work has been done – but hardly at all by historians: the Americanenquiries into the social structure of towns (‘Black Metropolis’, ‘Prairie City’, ‘Yankee City’, etc., andof course the remarkable ‘Middletown’ studies) are by sociologists; studies like Professor PierreGeorge’s ‘Banlieu’, by human geographers; the interesting studies of British towns, – Middlesborough,London – by architects and town-planners; the surveys of British industrial areas between the wars,largely by economists. Demographers have contributed – but hardly at all the historians.

In his long introduction he continued with saying that class relations and classstruggle ought to be central in social history and he concluded with reminding hisaudience that they were historians specialising in social history but had to writehistory, not social history, for history cannot be subdivided in real life38. Nothingsimilar had been heard earlier in the context of the historical congresses.Hobsbawm did not say that that historians ought to make American sociologiststheir models, but he came rather close to it. And he praised other social scientistsas well for taking up important problems, which historians had overlooked. This iscertainly almost saying that he «wanted to transform history into a ‘historical socialscience’», which is what Erdmann says of another group of historians at the Pariscongress.

The group of historians that Erdmann mentions were connected with theAnnales. From the Annales group he mentions Aymard, Boutruche, Fourastié,Francastel, Friedmann, Lefebvre, Renouard, Varagnac, and Wolff, but he includesalso Cipolla, Dhont, Postan, de Roover, and Sapori as belonging in a broader senseto the Annales circle. «Their common denominator was the conviction of aparadigm shift from historicism to historical social science»39. If this is to be truethe last sentence has to be taken in a very broad sense. All of them were inclined tofavour a reorientation of the emphasis of history, that is new optimum norms, butmost of them did not orient themselves towards social sciences especially.

Thus, Erdmann’s characterization of the Paris congress as dominated by agroup of historians who wanted to make history into a historical social science is

37 IXe Congrès International des Sciences Historiques Paris …1950, vol. II, Actes, 116. Clark inRapports, 242-258, esp. 244.38 IXe Congrès International, 144-147.39 Erdmann, Toward a Global Community of Historians, 206-207.

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hardly a fair characterization of the Paris congress and the people active there. It isalso misleading as an interpretation of the ideas dominating in the historicalcommunity of the time. No transformation of history into a historical social sciencewas advocated at the congress. One can find no evidence in the reports or theminutes from the congress that supports such a view. Rather, Hobsbawm – aradical but not one of those mentioned by Erdmann – made clear in the quotedpassage that he did want historians remain historians but with a new outlook. Onecan find the same ambition to guide historians’ interests into a new direction in thecontributions to other of the fundamental themes of the congress. Very clearexamples are the reports by Pierre Francastel and Georges Friedmann on themodern and contemporary periods of the ‘History of Civilizations’ theme.Francastel argued that history of civilization was a new branch of history thatneeded its own methods and Friedmann argued that the only fruitful method tostudy the relations between the technical development and modern civilization is toadopt an ethnological point of view. Technology is part of the civilization and isnot an autonomous factor that threatens eternal values. Friedmann also states thathe will not take a general view (in historical manner) of influences but wants tobreak the questions down into a psycho-physiological level where influences canbe traced in new, technically created, conditions of life40. When social scienceswere mentioned in a positive sense at the Paris congress, it happened in contextslike the mentioned ones. Hobsbawm was the participant who came closest torecommending a ‘social science history’.

Already before the Paris congress something had happened that came to be ofmuch greater importance for the historical community than any of the declarationsat the congress. The event was the publication in 1949 of Fernand Braudel’s LaMéditerranée et le monde méditerranéen à l’époque de Philippe II, defended threeyears earlier as a dissertation for the doctorate. With this book Braudel rapidly gotan enormous influence in the French academic community by posts of importanceas director of the Annales, director of the École des hautes études en sciencessociales, director of the Maison des sciences de l’homme and member of theCollège de France. The success was also an international one. Abroad the fame ofBraudel relied solely on his authorship, which contained not only the outstandingwork of 1949 but also several essays and minor works and, later, one other greatwork that paralleled La Méditerranée, his Civilisation matérielle, économie etcapitalisme. XV-XVIIIème siècle (1979). It is probably true that no single historianafter Ranke has managed to shake the prevailing notions of the historicalcommunity as greatly as has Braudel. However, it should be noted that it is hard tofind traces of this influence in the (rather compressed) reports and minutes fromthe international congress in Paris of 1950. His name was mentioned in a footnotein each of Malowist’s and Francastel’s reports. Braudel himself was not an authorof any report, he is not listed among participants, and his name is not mentioned in

40 IXe Congrès International des Sciences Historiques 1950, vol. 1: Rapports, 341-366 (Francastel),esp. 341-343; 367-381 (Friedmann), esp. 367-368.


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the debates where one could expect it to be so41. Yet, his fame was already solid.What was then new with his way of conceiving history? It is easy to pinpoint

some terms – as la longue durée, les conjonctures and l’histoire événementielle –but it is not quite as easy to grasp what is new in the normative approach to historyin Braudel’s work. According to the historians of historiography who have mostintensively studied this question the central point in Braudel’s idea of history isthat it is concerned with social wholes, which have to be considered in theirentirety. This total aspect is then a ‘histoire globalisante’, which has to preserve itsunity and not get lost in a multiplicity of details. The leading perspective should be‘global’, according to Aguirre Rojas, and this means that there are no historicalevents or circumstances that are purely economic, political, religious, geographic,cultural or family-related. They should primarily be seen in their socialenvironment. Historians must try to place both the spectacular events that areknown by everybody and the seemingly trivial ones in everyday life in theirconnections with the social totality. «The social totality, past, present and future,constitutes this real unity, which forms the foundation for and legitimates theequally unitary and global vision of the globalising history that Braudel is fightingfor. But it constitutes, as a by-product, a frame of reference for the very mode toapproach to the different problems that the historian and the social scientist willmeet»42. It is noteworthy that in this interpretation Braudel advocates exactly theconnection between all sorts of social development in history, which thesociologist-historian Simiand, half a century earlier, severely criticized (see p. 12above). Pierre Daix, in his rather prosaic biography, writes with passion and poetryon the openness with which Braudel treated space and geography as well as theeconomic implications of the infrastructure that La Mediterranée provided43.

Had the historical community just met an opposition, arguing these things inabstract terms, against its preoccupation with methods and methodology asprofessional criteria, it would hardly have yielded. But there was the enormousbook and its admiring and positive acceptance by many historians not only inFrance but all over Europe and Latin America and in other parts of the world aswell, even if Burke reminds us, that all reviewers were not positive and might havesome reason for their criticism44. But generally, the reception showed that a lot ofreaders were overwhelmed.

Braudel’s success did not alone bring about a change, although he became acentral person in the historical community where his presence was strongly felt.For example Jo Tollebeek has recently showed how central Braudel was for

41 This contention is not based on a systematic analysis line by line of the minutes but on a rathernormal reading of the most vital debates. The footnote mentions are in Rapports, 308, 356. Both reportsand minutes (Actes) are without index.42 C.A. Aguirre Rojas, Fernand Braudel et les sciences humaines (Paris: Harmattan, 2004), 45 (transl.by RT).43 P. Daix, Braudel (Paris: Flammarion, 1995), esp. 229-232.44 P. Burke, The French Historical Revolution. The Annales School, 1929-89 (Cambridge: Polity,1990), 38-42.

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Belgian and Dutch historians at the International Historical Congress in Rome in1955, in spite of the fact that he was not there45. Braudel’s influence was strong onthe younger members of the historical community towards a change in thenormative system of the discipline. His shadow was there in spite of his absence,and his name was frequently mentioned in the discussion.

Erdmann has noted also that the American historian Thomas C. Cochran, wholike Braudel was not present at the 1955 congress, had written a paper called«History and the Social Sciences». Erdmann seems to classify it mainly as aspecimen of what Henri Berr had called «syncretism» rather than synthesis.However, in his argument Cochran is formulating an appeal for historians to usesociological and economic approaches to history. He mentions several examplesand contends: «Theoretical constructs or models have value in giving meaning andorganization to otherwise diffuse data». Cochran’s conclusion is also worth quoting:

History as one of the social science disciplines is still history with its intuitive insights andmethodological limitations. From inadequate data historians must still piece together qualitative aspectsof situations [.]. To ask that historians regard parts of their discipline as primarily analytic and syntheticrather than merely descriptive is a call to add to the scope of historical research, to cast off the impliedlimitations of Professor Burr’s statement that the study of social causation as such is ‘not history’, to gobeyond the admonition that the historian’s main object should be describing events as they actuallyhappened, to seek a broader intellectual approach that includes an interest in social theory; and torecognize that since history is a selection of factors from an infinite universe, an explicit basis forselection reduces misinterpretation46.

In the discussion David S. Landes had got the task to substitute the absentCochran. Landes tried to tone down the sharpness of the paper. In his versionCochran had only recommended historians to borrow certain methods from otherdisciplines on the basis of ‘common sense’47. This is certainly what Henri Berr hadthought of when he characterized American New History as syncretism. In thediscussion that followed very few interventions are taken to the minutes. Criticismdealt with the empirical scope of Cochran’s proposal rather than with thetheoretical message, and none of the speakers really took up the question of thepossibility to use sociological and economic theory in the writing of history48.

Even if the international congresses were held only every fifth year and hadbeen suspended during the war, they did serve as a meeting-place for historians anda forum for the articulation of news in the discipline. And here were news. Around

45 J. Tollebeek, «A Diversity of Experiences: Belgian and Dutch Historians in Rome», LaStoriografia tra passato e futuro. Il X Congresso Internazionale di Scienze Storiche (Roma 1955)cinquant’anni dopo (Rome: Unione Internazionale degli Istituti di Archeologia, Storia e Storia dell’Artein Roma, 2008), 243-269, esp. 261f. Braudel was the co-author of a paper with six authors called«Commerce et industrie en Europe du XVI au XVII siècle», in the Relazioni, vol. 4 of the RomeCongress (1955), 227-303.46 Cochran’s paper in the documents from the Rome Congress, Relazioni, vol. 1 (Firenze: Sansoni,1955), 481-504, quot. 503-504.47 Rome Congress, Atti, 176-177.48 Rome Congress, Atti, 177-181. It must be noted that speakers who did not provide the secretarywith a manuscript of their interventions had little chance to have them recorded in the minutes.


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the first years of the 1950s something happened in the conception of the historicaldiscipline. The historical community took notice of this news, and the discussions atthe Paris and Rome congresses of 1950 and 1955 show that many of the leadinghistorians from different countries were aware of a turn. It was rare to oppose to thenews, and the news was gradually presented as a turn towards use of social sciencetheory and what social science researchers had found with the help of such theories.A new change in the value-system of the historical community had its advocates.Their intention was obviously to strengthen the optimum norms in historicalprofessionalism, but the exact means to do this were still vague or obscure.

This situation was not to remain. There were other new directions inhistoriography that were coming up in the 1960s and 70s. One was the generalAmericanization of social science in Europe, which led to a strong influence ofAmerican sociology not only on sociologists in Europe but also within thediscipline of history. In Scandinavia (esp. Sweden and Norway) this influence wasstrong and meant creation of a social history based on quantitative data processedthrough computers49. Generally, quantitative history also grew in importance andmost often had a focus on social history50. One specific direction was a sociology-inspired, sometimes quantitative social history, which was launched by a group ofstill young and not quite established historians around the journal Geschichte undGesellschaft, which started in 1975 when the group had already been formed. Assome of the leading members of the group were attached to the University ofBielefeld, it has been known as the Bielefeld school. Its main aim was to further anew direction of historical studies inspired by the social sciences and thecatchword became ‘historical social science’ (historische Sozialwissenschaft) and itwas anti-Marxist51. Another direction was ‘the New Left’ with a historicalmaterialism that wanted to be inspired by Marxism but rejected the Marxism of theSoviet Union52. A third new direction was history based on dependence andunderdevelopment and took a new perspective of the world, created by AndréGunder Frank in connection with the World Systems theory that ImmanuelWallerstein had developed from Braudel’s works53. A fourth direction was the

49 See R. Torstendahl, «Thirty-Five Years of Theories in History. Social Science Theories andPhilosophy of History in the Scandinavian Debate», Scandinavian Journal of History, vol. 25: 1-26.50 Popular early introductions were D.K. Rowney and J.Q. Graham eds., Quantitative History: SelectedReadings in the Quantitative Analysis of Historical Data, The Dorsey series in American history(Homewood, Ill.: Dorsey Press, 1969) and W.O. Aydelotte et al. eds., Dimensions of QuantitativeResearch in History (London: Oxford U.P. 1972) (from the series Quantitative studies in history).51 Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Jürgen Kocka, Reinhard Kosellek, Heinrich August Winkler, and Hans-Jürgen Puhle were core members of the group, all with connections to Bielefeld. In a wider sense theirdirection of research included also several others, e.g. Wolfgang J. Mommsen and Hartmut Kaelble.52 Originally the ‘New Left’ was a label for a British anti-nuclear group which got a voice in the NewLeft Review from 1960. With the growing interest in Marxism (unorthodox and orthodox) in the late1960s and 70s the group expanded. Historians, such as E. P. Thompson and Perry Anderson, formed asmall part of its authors. See R. Blackburn, «A Brief History of New Left Review», available at thewebsite <http://www.newleftreview.org>.53 Especially see A.G. Frank, Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America (New York:

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general revival and revitalization of Marxist views and theories in the West thattook place in the period from the late 1960s to the early 1980s.

These different new directions of historiography unanimously discarded thepreviously existing priorities of the professional historical community. Accordingto them methods should be subordinated to the important choice of perspectivesand problems. But at the same time none of these directions wanted to establish aspecialized sub-branch of history but rather aimed at reforming history as adiscipline. So far we agree completely with Georg Iggers in his characterization ofwhat he calls «the middle phase» of social science history. However, he creates theimpression that this was a transformation of the discipline of the same kind as theone that Ranke achieved or the one when methods and methodology becamefundamentals for professionalism. That is not true for two reasons.

First, the new directions that had some aims in common were not unanimous inwhat they wanted to replace the earlier optimum norms with. The Annales circle,inspired by Braudel’s work, directed attention to geographical factors, demographyand long-term changes; Eric Hobsbawm favoured a Marxist view with a classperspective but in close relation to the Annales and was a direction of his own; theBielefeld group stressed state-society relations in a social science perspective; theNew Left, like the historians of the Marxist revival generally, focused on classperspectives and their effects on society; and the underdevelopment historiansemphasized the effects of European and North American policies on formercolonies and the rest of the world generally. Thus, when they reversed theimportance between the optimum norms and the minimum demands, their ideas ofthe new optimum was widely different and sometimes led them into being eachothers’ outspoken enemies. One may even doubt that they saw each other asfellows in the same struggle against a common foe.

The second reason why the interest in social science history that we mayobserve in the different directions was not a change of the discipline of history ofthe same kind as the earlier transformations is that the earlier conceptions of thefundamental value of methodological minimum demands and the importance of anarrative-hermeneutic political history as the optimum norm were still very valid invast parts of the historical community. This does not mean that the news haddifficulties in penetrating the community. Instead it is obvious from the heateddiscussion in Germany in the 1980s on what history should deal with and howhistorians should treat the past (the Historikerstreit) that important parts – if not amajority – of the established historians were well aware of the challenge againstthe old norms and refused to accept news54. Even if other countries had no such

Monthly Review P., 1967); J.D. Cockroft & A.G. Frank & D.L. Johnson, Dependence andUnderdevelopment: Latin America’s Political Economy (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor, 1972).54 J. Peter, Der Historikerstreit und die Suche nach einer nationalen Identität der achtziger Jahre(Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1995); I. Geiss, Die Habermas-Kontroverse: ein deutscher Streit (Berlin:Siedler, 1988); J. Habermas, The new conservatism: cultural criticism and the historians’ debate(Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1989); H.-U. Wehler, Entsorgung der deutschen Vergangenheit?: einpolemischer Essay zum ‚Historikerstreit’ (München: Beck, 1988).


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very open dissensions within their historical communities, there is no doubt thatsocial science history was not at all generally accepted. Many historians wanted tostay in the normative system that had dominated earlier.

Thus historical professionalism had attained a new point. It was impossible toarrive at unanimity even when some time had passed and the news were no longerquite new. Thus there is no middle phase dominated by social science history, asIggers says, but different sorts of professionalism that went in different directions.

VII. FROM ONE TO SEVERAL COMMUNITIES

If the period 1950-1980 can be regarded with some truth as a time with doublestandards in history this was still more the case after 1980. Already earlier newapproaches to history had become common and greeted with joy by manyhistorians, who found the statistical groundwork of much social history laborious,tedious and menial. Social anthropology had already offered another angle tohistorians, but now the very mentalities of people or groups of people were pushedinto the centre of interest. This new direction of historical studies was borne in theAnnales circle and was rapidly accepted and practised over most of Europe and theUnited States.

When postmodernism was transferred from the literary to the historical field, astill more complicated situation arose. The question was raised if history as adiscipline or learned profession could ever be so liberated from the entanglementsof language that it could be said to show anything beyond the historian’s mind.Linguistic theory of French and Russian origins was applied to history and itssources and, finally, the USA contributed with Hayden White’s theory of history asrhetoric strongly supported by many others, among them Hans Kellner and FrankAnkersmit55. For some time in the 1990s it seemed that the postmodern perspectivewas winning ground to a degree that might challenge the historicalprofessionalisms in their totality. If White’s and Ankersmit’s theories would gainthe upper hand, history would in fact be subsumed under the same label as literaryfiction. Iggers, in his book from 1997, concludes in a meditative mood about thepossible end of historical scholarship and of enlightenment.

It did not end in disaster. The members of the historical discipline are stillpursuing research and writing their books. Language continues to be their medium,but postmodernism has become relegated to one of many directions of thought that

55 H. White, Metahistory. The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Baltimore,Maryland: Johns Hopkins U.P., 1973); H. White, Tropics of Discourse. Essays in Cultural Criticism(Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins U.P., 1978); H. White, The Content of the Form. NarrativeDiscourse and Historical Representation (Baltimore & London: Johns Hopkins U.P., 1987); H. Kellner,Language and historical representation: getting the story crooked (Madison, Wis.: U. of Wisconsin P.,1989); F. Ankersmit, History and Tropology. The Rise and Fall of Metaphor (Berkeley & Los Angeles& London: U. of California P., 1994).

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have passed their zenith. It is viewed by many young researchers as one option ofmany, in spite of its potential challenge to the whole structure.

The community of historians that had started to be built in Ranke’s life-time byhimself and his disciples had reached its peak in the late nineteenth and the earlytwentieth centuries. Then competition had started, first from specialities, such aseconomic history, and later from reformers of the discipline itself. The communitydefinitely split with the success of the different sorts of social history that wantedto be social science. In the last two decades of the twentieth century and thebeginning of the twenty-first other new directions of thought have become reallyinfluential in historical writing, yet without reaching a general acclaim. Thecommunity is not any longer only divided into two parts but is split into several,each with its own agenda.

The professionalism of historians has no longer a clear foothold in one generalcommunity. Formally the discipline is still there, but the differences between itspractitioners and their different communities are great. If you can be professionalaccording to several different models – partly conflicting as they are – it is difficultto profess that your professionalism gives to you a specific standing and is makingyou into a ‘certified historian’.

Uppsala University

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A COMMENT ON ROLF TORSTENDAHL,«HISTORICAL PROFESSIONALISM: A CHANGING PRODUCT

OF COMMUNITIES WITHIN THE DISCIPLINE»

Georg G. Iggers

I find Rolf Torstandahl’s essay is an excellent interpretative survey andanalysis of major trends in professional historical writing from Ranke to thetwenty-first century beyond post-modernism. Nevertheless I have some criticismsand I would recommend that one or more reactions to the article be published.

The primary purpose of the article, Torstendahl writes, «is directed against theidea of one process of ‘professionalization’ that made history ‘scientific’» andagainst definitions of «historical professionalism» in terms of such criteria asemployment at universities or research institutions, educational prerequisites, and«the utilization of certain methods». In their place Torstendahl offers an «idea ofhistorical professionalism». However, none of the authors he has in mind, GabrieleLingelbach1, Pim Den Boer2, and myself3 as adherents to a notion of progressiveprofessionalization saw professionalization in such terms; on the contraryLingelbach’s thesis is that professionalization in France and the United States eachwent different ways and that both differed from the German model. Den Boer dealswith the specific character of the professionalization of historical studies in France.I have similarly argued for the limitations of the German model ofprofessionalization. He nevertheless recognizes an element which all professionalhistory has in common, adherence to a basic method which they share, namelysource criticism (Quellenkritik) as a sine qua non of scholarship. In my opinion hein this connection overestimates the role of Ranke in international and even inGerman historical scholarship. He stresses correctly that Ranke’s histories werenarratives, as were almost all the great and the lesser historical works of thenineteenth century, and that Ranke dealt little with questions of methodology and


1 Gabriele Lingelbach, Klio macht Karriere: Die institutionalisierung der Geschichtswissenschaft inFrankreich und in den USA in der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck undRuprecht, 2003).2 Pim Den Boer, History as a Profession:The Study of History in France 1818-1914 (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1998).3 E.g. Georg G. Iggers, «Ist es in der Tat in Deutschland früher zur Verwissenschaftlichung derGeschichte gekommen als in anderen europäischen Ländern?» in Wolfgang Küttler, Jörn Rüsen andErnst Schulin, eds., Geschichtsdiskurs, Band 2: Anfänge modernen historischen Denkens (Frankfurt amMain: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag. 1994), 73-86.4 See Georg G. Iggers and Konrad Von Moltke, eds., Leopold von Ranke: the Theory and Practice ofHistory (Indianapolis: Bobbs Merrill, 1973); a revised edition will appear in 2011 with Routledge.

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theory in his narrative histories. But Ranke treated methodology and theoryseparately4 and they served as the basic assumptions of his well annotatednarratives. For many nineteenth-century German historians, e.g. Sybel, Droysen,and Treitschke, Ranke belonged to an earlier, outdated, pre-nation-orientedgeneration, although they accepted his methodological assumptions. AsTorstendahl notes, «Rankeanism had petered out already before Ranke’s owndeath». Yet he argues that «before 1900 there were no other alternatives toprofessionalism than Rankeanism», not recognizing, as I have tried to show, thatprofessional historical studies, e.g. in France, were little affected by Ranke. ThusTorstendahl’s statement that «the prevailing notion in history of historiography,standardized through the works of Georg Iggers, that Rankean professionalism wasthe one that won the ground after 1870 in Western Europe is therefore misleading»rests on a misreading of my work and is itself misleading.

I have few objections to Torstendahl’s discussion of twentieth-centuryhistoriography, except that they do not relate directly to historical professionalism.To be sure, the major historians of the twentieth century were professionals,although in both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries there were, of course,historians who were not. The strength of the second part of Torstendahl’s essay isthat he points at the diversity of historical studies and touches on all the importantWestern historians of the twentieth century. The period starting around 1900,which witnessed the reaction against Rankean politically oriented history and itsreplacement by the preoccupation with social history, for Torstendahl marked ahistoriographical turning point. Torstendahl then follows the varieties of socialscience history, the postmodernist reaction against them, and finally in theincipient twenty first century the move against postmodernism. He rightly pointsout that there have always been historians who have clung to older, traditionalways of writing history, and who never accepted the social science models. Heargues that in contrast to the older Rankean historiography for which method andmethodology were marginal – something I cannot buy – they were central tohistoriography in the twentieth century – with which I also do not agree. From myperspective he works with too narrow a conception of method. Differenthistoriographical approaches, let us say Marxist or culturalist, require their ownmethodologies.

Torstendahl correctly points out the role which communities play in theprofessionalization of historical studies. In this connection he stresses the rolewhich the international historical congresses have played since 1898 in furtheringtransnational communication. On the other hand, he says little about theglobalization of historical studies across civilizational and disciplinary borders inthe post-colonial world since the end of World War II.

These things having been said, I still think this is an excellent article, better forthe twentieth than for the nineteenth century.

SUNY, Buffalo

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BERNARDINO CORIO E LE FONTI DELLA STORIA DI MILANO (1503)

Stefano Meschini

Sono noti gli sforzi intrapresi da Francesco Sforza per mandare alle carte e farecelebrare le proprie gesta di condottiero unitamente a quelle del padre Muzio At-tendolo, onde conferire maggiore solidità al suo nuovo ruolo di duca di Milano,che aveva invero ottenuto nel 1450 più in virtù della sua abilità di capitano di ven-tura che non per i deboli legami di parentela con la dinastia viscontea. Da questanecessità nacquero così le prime opere umanistico-encomiastiche di un AntonioMinuti, di un Lodrisio Crivelli, di un Giovanni Simonetta, che così bene sono statestudiate come veicolo di celebrazione e di propaganda dagli studi di Gary Ianziti1.

Quasi un ventennio dopo la morte di Francesco Sforza, anche il figlio Ludovi-co, dopo il consolidamento del suo potere a seguito della decapitazione di CiccoSimonetta e dell’estromissione della reggente Bona di Savoia, si diede da fare peravere un’opera storica ufficiale che, attraverso la glorificazione della stirpe viscon-tea e le gesta dei predecessori, assicurasse, per così dire, una legittimazione a lui ealla giovane dinastia che egli rappresentava. Per adempiere a questo compito erastato chiamato dal Moro fin dal 1483 l’umanista Giorgio Merula, il quale, benefi-ciando per un decennio di larghe commendatizie ducali che gli aprirono i principaliarchivi pubblici e privati dello stato milanese, pose mano alle Antiquitates Vice-comitum, un’opera storico-encomiastica in latino che, ripercorrendo le vicende deiVisconti attraverso i secoli, doveva nello stesso tempo celebrare la dinastia alpotere. Il Merula, nonostante il favore ducale, fu piuttosto lento nell’elaborazionedel suo lavoro, e quando morì, il 18 marzo 1494, la sua opera storica era lungidall’essere terminata, non giungendo se non ai primi anni del Trecento, con lamorte di Azzone Visconti2. Lo Sforza allora, sembrandogli opportuno che l’opera


1 Si fa qui soprattutto riferimento a G. Ianziti, Humanistic Historiography under the Sforzas. Politicsand Propaganda in Fifteenth-century Milan (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), 87-102 (per Antonio Mi-nuti), 103-126 (per Lodrisio Crivelli), 127-230 (per Giovanni Simonetta); ma tutta l’opera è da tenere inconsiderazione per l’uso della propaganda da parte della cancelleria ducale di Francesco Sforza.2 Per Giorgio Merula si veda soprattutto il vecchio ma ricchissimo studio di F. Gabotto-A BadiniConfalonieri, «Vita di Giorgio Merula», Rivista di storia, arte e archeologia per le province di Alessan-dria e Asti, 3, (1894): 7-69, 153-173, 229-350; si vedano anche, per una prima valutazione dell’opera,E. Cochrane, Historians and Historiography in the Italian Renaissance (Chicago: University of Chica-go press, 1981), 114-117 e la voce «Merula Giorgius», Repertorium fontium historiae Medi Aevi,(RFHM), 7 (Romae: Istituto storico italiano per il Medioevo, 1997), 574-575. Le Antiquitates Vicecomi-tum vennero pubblicate postume per la prima volta a Milano dal Minuziano nel 1500 e in seguito varievolte nel corso del ‘500 e ‘600, tranne gli ultimi quattro libri relativi alle vicende tra la morte di Matteoe quella di Azzone Visconti che, ignoti fino allora, vennero stampati dal Muratori nei Rerum ItalicarumScriptores (RIS), 25 (Mediolani: In Aedibus Palatini, 1744), 73-148.

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fino allora compiuta fosse continuata, fece mettere da parte le carte e le cronacheusate dall’umanista alessandrino, e gli assegnò in capo a due anni un successorenella persona di Tristano Calco, già noto negli ambienti ducali per aver riordinatoin quegli anni la biblioteca e l’archivio ducale del castello di Pavia e per aver com-posto alcuni poemetti a lode dei celebri matrimoni che avevano allietato in queltempo la famiglia sforzesca. Il Calco naturalmente, oltre a beneficiare del materialelasciatogli in eredità dal Merula, godette parimenti di alcuni salvacondotti per en-trare in archivi e biblioteche del dominio3. Anche l’opera del Calco dunque, comequella del suo predecessore, nasceva sotto gli auspici del duca mecenate, e dovevaessere negli intenti altrettanto celebrativa della dinastia al potere.

Diverso sembra il caso della Storia di Milano di Bernardino Corio, il quale,com’è noto, negli stessi anni, fu il primo storico milanese a scrivere una storia dellapropria città in volgare, che comincia con le origini e arriva fino ai suoi tempi. IlCorio, nato nel 1459 in seno ad un’antica famiglia milanese e pressoché coetaneodel Calco, era il figlio di un importante ambasciatore dell’età di Francesco Sforza,ed aveva ricoperto uffici prima in seno alla corte come cameriere ducale, poi neirami dell’amministrazione periferica del dominio in qualità di podestà4. Secondoquanto affermato dallo stesso autore, che ama ricordare talvolta i propri casiall’interno della narrazione degli eventi, l’inizio della stesura dell’opera gli fu sug-gerito dal forzato periodo di inattività causato dallo scoppio di una pestilenza nel14855. Dunque, stando alla testimonianza dell’autore, l’ispirazione a comporrel’opera storica sarebbe del tutto personale e indipendente rispetto alle volontà delduca. Ma certo, proprio in concomitanza all’incirca con l’incarico conferito al Cal-co, anche la sua opera, già iniziata, venne posta, per così dire, sotto la protezione diLudovico Sforza: l’1 ottobre 1497 infatti una commendatizia del duca, redatta pro-

3 Per Tristano Calco, già cancelliere ducale e poi, dal 1490 al 1496, prefetto della biblioteca e del-l’archivio pavese, si vedano: A. Belloni, «Tristano Calco e gli scritti inediti di Giorgio Merula», ItaliaMedievale ed umanistica, 15, (1972): 283-328; F. Petrucci, «Calco Tristano», Dizionario Biografico de-gli Italiani (DBI), 16, (Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1973), 537-541; A. Belloni, «L’Histo-ria Patria di Tristano Calco fra gli Sforza e i francesi: fonti e strati redazionali», Italia Medievale e uma-nistica, 23, (1980): 179-233. Le tre operette composte fra il 1489 e il 1493 per i matrimoni di GiovanGaleazzo Maria Sforza, Ludovico Sforza e Bianca Maria Sforza sono le Nuptiae Mediolanensium du-cum, le Nuptiae Mediolanensium et Estensium principum e le Nuptiae Augustae. L’Historia Patria delCalco, frutto del lavoro di revisione e riscrittura dell’opera del Merula e di nuove ricerche, rimase poiinedita fino al 1627, quando furono pubblicati i primi 20 libri, che giungono fino al 1313, mentre altridue libri, che comprendono i fatti dal 1313 al 1322, vennero ritrovati nella casa di Lucio Cotta ed editi,unitamente alle tre composizioni sulle nozze di casa Sforza, nel 1644, sempre per i tipi del Malatesta.4 Per la biografia del Corio ci sia concesso di rinviare a S. Meschini, Uno storico umanista alla cortesforzesca. Biografia di Bernardino Corio (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 1995); ma si veda anche l’articolo diL. Besozzi, «Bernardino Corio podestà dei Borromeo ad Omegna (luglio-dicembre 1496)», Novarien,25, (1995): 267-272.5 B. Corio, Storia di Milano, ed. A. Morisi Guerra, I (Torino: Utet, 1978), 41, II, 1460. La Storia diMilano o Patria Historia uscì nella magnifica edizione del Minuziano il 15 luglio 1503 vivente l’autore,e in seguito conobbe due altre stampe nel corso del Cinquecento, una nel Seicento, e, prima dell’ultimaa cura della Morisi Guerra, un’altra nell’Ottocento. L’Editio princeps del 1503 comprendeva anche leVitae Caesarum, biografie degli imperatori da Cesare ad Enrico VI.

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prio da Tristano Calco, gli apriva gli archivi della Valtellina e del comasco mentrenel corso dell’anno successivo, ben due salvacondotti consentivano a lui unita-mente al Calco l’accesso alla biblioteca del castello di Pavia e gli permettevano,sempre con il collega, di recarsi a Casale per esplorare libri e documenti6. Nel mag-gio 1499 inoltre l’opera del Corio era già in avanzato stato di composizione perchéil duca, per facilitargli la ricopiatura, gli metteva a disposizione un copista e a ri-compensa delle fatiche impiegate nel lavoro storico lo nominava giudice dellestrade di Milano7. Anche l’opera storica del Corio perciò, a partire certamente dal1497, ricevette per così dire l’avallo del Moro, pronto a favorire con ogni mezzochiunque intraprendesse un lavoro di celebrazione della dinastia viscontea esforzesca. È facile poi ipotizzare che non solo i due colleghi, Calco e Corio, i quali,come visto, fecero delle perlustrazioni in comune, consultassero e si scambiasseroil materiale documentario rinvenuto nel corso delle loro ricerche, ma che inoltre ilCorio avesse in qualche modo accesso ad alcune delle cronache e documenti giàutilizzati dal Merula e che erano in possesso del Calco. Le tre opere del Merula, delCalco e del Corio, pur con tutte le diversità che derivano loro da una differente im-postazione, conservano a mio parere un retroterra documentario e cronachistico ingran parte comune perché il duca di Milano era così interessato ad avere un’operastorica che legittimasse la propria posizione, che era lo stesso governo ducale inquegli anni a fare cercare per tutto il dominio le fonti storiche necessarie.

Una breve esemplificazione tenterà di mostrare come l’opera storica del Corio,sebbene scritta in volgare e posta verosimilmente dal governo ducale su un pianoinferiore rispetto alle analoghe imprese del Merula e poi del Calco, sia in realtà ab-bastanza legata a livello di fonti a queste due opere e molto sia debitrice, in terminidi documentazione, agli sforzi compiuti dal governo ducale per favorire l’allesti-mento della celebrazione dinastica.

Nel maggio-giugno 1488 il Merula si recava in esplorazione nel Monferrato enell’astigiano e prendeva visione del Memoriale de gestis civium astensium,cronaca, scritta da Guglielmo Ventura, che riferisce principalmente, non senza ac-cenni a fatti italiani e europei di ordine più generale, le vicende di Asti e delPiemonte fra il 1260 e il 1325: e l’umanista, che si servì poi largamente di queltesto nelle Antiquitates Vicecomitum, ne elogiava pubblicamente l’autore in unalettera che indirizzava in quel mese al segretario ducale Jacopo Antiquario8; sem-

6 Meschini, Uno storico umanista, 111-112, 114, 116: un’altra missiva sempre del 1498 gli permette-va di spostarsi nelle città del ducato per entrare in biblioteche ed archivi.7 Meschini, Uno storico umanista, 118-119; S. Meschini, «Bernardino Corio storico del Medioevo edel Rinascimento milanese», Le cronache medievali di Milano, ed. Paolo Chiesa (Milano: Vita e Pen-siero, 2001), 103 nota 15, 113-114; L. Besozzi-A Martegani, «Francesco Bianchi sfortunato copistadell’Historia del Corio», Libri e documenti, 21, (1995/1): 48-49.8 La lettera del Merula all’Antiquario, ove si fa il resoconto del viaggio in Piemonte e ove è contenu-ta la positiva valutazione dell’opera venturiana, è pubblicata in G. B. Vermiglioli, Memorie di JacopoAntiquario e degli studi di letteratura esercitati in Perugia nel secolo XV con un’appendice di monu-menti (Perugia: Baduel, 1813), 387-391 ed è parzialmente ripubblicata, per la parte relativa, da Gabotto-Badini Confalonieri, Vita di Giorgio Merula, 162 nota 1 per gli accenni al Ventura (160-162 per la mis-sione esplorativa del Merula nel Monferrato e nell’astigiano). Per il cronista astigiano del primo trecen-

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pre nella stessa occasione aveva modo di conoscere a Valenza da un giureconsultoil Chronicon imaginis mundi del frate domenicano Jacopo d’Acqui, opera, solo inparte contenente accenni al Monferrato, ritenuta però da lui favolosa e piena di er-rori9; orbene, in base a riscontri interni, si può affermare con sicurezza, che, nono-stante solo la seconda opera risulti citata nel testo, di entrambe le cronache si servìpure Bernardino Corio nella Patria Historia. Il Corio infatti ricorda «JacoboAquinense ne li suoi annali», una sola volta, per le vicende del VI secolo, a propo-sito dell’edificazione dei monasteri di S. Colombano di Bobbio, di S. Pietro in Ac-qui Terme, e di S. Gallo, i cui 400 monaci, secondo la tradizione, furono tutti santi,eccetto uno10; ma l’autore si servì dell’opera del frate domenicano per altre notizie,soprattutto nella trattazione dell’epoca longobarda. Ricalcate sulle orme di Jacoposembrano infatti le antiche leggende del popolo longobardo che lo storico nondesume qui, come sembrerebbe più logico, da Paolo Diacono, il quale in parte ave-

to Guglielmo Ventura, per la sua opera storica, per i problemi di allestimento di una moderna edizionecritica, anche a causa della mancanza dell’autografo, si vedano: G. Gorrini, Il comune astigiano e la suastoriografia (Firenze: Ademollo, 1884), 174 ss.; F. Gabotto, Asti e la politica sabauda in Italia al tempodi Guglielmo Ventura secondo nuovi documenti (Pinerolo: Chiantore-Mascarelli, 1903), 267 ss.; A. Go-ria, Studi sul cronista astigiano Guglielmo Ventura (Roma: Tipografia del Senato, 1937); Cochrane, Hi-storians and Historiography, 94; il Memoriale fu edito una prima volta, con l’aggiunta di numerosi bra-ni interpolati, dal Muratori in Rerum Italicarum Scriptores (RIS), 11 (Mediolani: In Aedibus Palatini,1727), 153-268 ed una seconda volta, sempre in modo insoddisfacente per la scarsità e poco valore deimanoscritti utilizzati, dal Combetti, negli Historiae Patriae Monumenta, scriptores (HPM, SS), 3 (Au-gustae Taurinorum: Bocca, 1848), 701-816. Per l’uso che il Merula fece del Ventura nelle AntiquitatesVicecomitum cfr. Gabotto-Badini Confalonieri, Vita di Giorgio Merula, 261, 267, 272-276, 282, 284,289-293, 295, 297, 315.9 Per i giudizi del Merula sull’opera di Jacopo d’Acqui, tenuta in molta considerazione dai marchesidi Monferrato, cfr. Vermiglioli, Memorie di Jacopo Antiquario, 387 ss., e Gabotto-Badini Confalonieri,Vita di Giorgio Merula, 161-162 nota: l’umanista criticava in specie le leggende accoltevi intorno adAleramo, a Carlo Magno, alle rovine di Antile e alle spedizioni degli imperatori Federico I e FedericoII. Per il Chronicon Imaginis Mundi, vasta cronaca universale dal respiro chiaramente medievale, che,trattando principalmente di avvenimenti piemontesi e lombardi, va dalla creazione del mondo alla finedel ‘200, e il suo autore, il frate domenicano Jacopo d’Acqui, vissuto fra la seconda metà del XIII e glianni ‘30 del XIV secolo, si vedano: A. D’Ancona, «La leggenda di Maometto in Occidente», Giornalestorico della letteratura italiana, 13, (1889): 199-281; F. Gabotto, «Les légendes carolingiennes dans leChronicon Ymaginis Mundi de frate Jacopo d’Acqui», Revue des langues romaines, 37, (1894): 251-267, 355-373; D. Bianchi, «Jacopo d’Acqui», Nuovi studi medievali, 1, (1923-1924): 138-143; G. GascaQueirazza, «La leggenda aleramica nella Cronica Imaginis Mundi di Jacopo d’Acqui», Rivista di storiaarte e archeologia per le province di Alessandria e Asti, 76, (1968): 39-50; T. Kaeppeli, Scriptores Or-dinis Praedicatorum Medii Aevii, 2 (Romae: Istituto storico domenicano, 1975), 298; la voce «JacobusAquensis» in Repertorium fontium historiae Maedii Aevi (RFHM), 6 (Romae: Istituto storico italianoper il Medioevo, 1990), 107-108, cui si rinvia per ulteriore bibliografia; anche C. Fiorina, «Gli Annalesin historiam finariensis belli di Gian Maria Filelfo», Aevum, 71, (1997): 578, 581-590. Buona parte delChronicon Imaginis Mundi è edita da G. Avogadro in HPM, SS, 3 (Augustae Taurinorum: Bocca 1848),1357-1626; altre parti inedite furono stampate da F. Massimelli, Pagine inedite della Chronica ImaginisMundi di Jacopo d’Acqui (Asti: Brignolo, 1913), 7-54. Il Merula, coerentemente con le proprie idee,non sembra avere utilizzato l’opera del frate domenicano nelle Antiquitates Vicecomitum: Gabotto-Ba-dini Confalonieri, Vita di Giorgio Merula, 229, 315.10 Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 86. Il ricordo dei tre monasteri si trova in effetti nella stessa successionenel Chronicon Imaginis Mundi in HPM, SS., 3, 1449-1450.


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va avuto un atteggiamento critico rispetto alla tradizione del suo popolo: prese dafrate Jacopo, più che dal Diacono o da altre fonti, sono così le origini scandinavedei longobardi; le vicende dei fratelli Yvor e Gyor e di re Algemondo; la leggendadei sette bambini abbandonati e di Lamisio; quella dell’origine del nome dei Lon-gobardi; la successione dei re longobardi prima del passaggio in Italia (anche la nu-merazione dei sovrani longobardi coincide); il ricordo inesatto dell’aprile 588come data della spedizione di Alboino in Italia; l’episodio del cavallo di Alboinoche si ferma improvvisamente all’entrata in Pavia e il giuramento del re revocatoper intervento di una donna cristiana; l’intero episodio, che trova corrispondenzaanche nei nomi (che nel Diacono sono diversi), dell’uccisione di Alboino e dellamorte di Rosmunda: a proposito di quest’ultimo fatto, sono riportati identici i versiche sarebbero stati posti sul sepolcro della principessa; il nome delle città che eleg-gono i duchi dopo la morte di Alboino11. Per le vicende longobarde successive adAutari il testo del Chronicon diviene invece progressivamente meno preciso e ilCorio sembra seguire con maggiore fedeltà il Diacono, che era del resto la stessafonte di Jacopo d’Acqui12. Il debito della Patria Historia nei confronti del Chroni-con sembra, ad una prima scorsa, finire qui, e dalle numerose leggende carolinge emaomettane narrate nell’opera di Frate Jacopo il Corio non sembra desumere piùnulla. Prese invece dal Chronicon sono invece certamente le notizie che si rinven-gono nelle Vitae Caesarum relativamente ad esempio al preteso privilegio del 22marzo 967 concesso dall’Imperatore Ottone I ad Aleramo, al mitico scudiero diCarlo Magno Giovanni Del Tempo, che sarebbe vissuto per 361 anni, all’uccisionedi Tommaso di Canterbury13.

Per quanto riguarda l’opera del Ventura, essa non è invece mai citata nella Pa-tria Historia. Già il Goria14 rilevava però come il Corio si fosse servito del Memo-riale, anche se sosteneva che lo usasse assai poco, e solo relativamente alla guerrafra Asti e Savoia del 1255 e ai fatti monferrini del 1290-1292, per i quali ultimifaceva poi notare come il Corio citasse come testimonianza per errore l’Azario, chenon poteva essere stato presente a quelle vicende. Invero, in base ad un esame deltesto venturiano, si può affermare che il Corio conobbe abbastanza bene il Venturae che se ne servì in maggior misura rispetto a quanto creduto dal Goria, anche seoccorre dire che la disposizione generale della cronaca astigiana, che non procedegeneralmente secondo un criterio cronologico, bensì logico e per concatenazioneanalogica degli eventi, nonché le frequenti ripetizioni che vi si ricontrano, furonocerto di ostacolo al suo utilizzo, specialmente ove si pensi che il Corio invece hal’abitudine di presentare i fatti in ordine rigorosamente cronologico anche

11 Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 79-84 e J. D’Acqui, Chronicon imaginis mundi in HPM, 3, 1439-1448.12 Cfr. però taluni particolari simili come in Corio, Storia di Milano, 89 e in J. D’Acqui, ChroniconImaginis Mundi, 1453, per la specificazione, ad esempio, dell’officio fatto cantare da Gregorio Magnonel giorno della festività dei santi Gervasio e Protasio, nel quale, tramite la regina Teodolinda, era avve-nuta la pace tra il pontefice e il re Agilulfo.13 Cfr. B. Corio, Historia Patria (Mediolani, Apud Alexandrum Minutianum, 1503), cc. ff i v., ii r e J.D’Acqui, Chronicon Imaginis mundi, 1538, 1552.14 Goria, Studi sul cronista artigiano, 45.

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all’interno dei singoli anni in cui quelli si verificarono. Derivano comunque abbas-tanza scopertamente dal Ventura, benché talvolta riassunti e abbreviati nel con-tenuto, i passi relativi alle vicende del marchese Guglielmo di Monferrato, allabattaglia di Vignale, e alla cattura del marchese (1290); allo sviluppo delle fazionia Genova a partire dal 1270 (sotto l’anno 1317 nel Corio); all’arrivo ad Asti delprocuratore di Carlo II d’Angiò Egidio e alle vicende del senescalco Rinaldo diLeto, di Filippo principe d’Acaia, del marchese di Monferrato e alla presa del conteFilippo di Langosco (1307); alla venuta di re Roberto d’Angiò a Cuneo e poi adAsti (1310); alla morte di Filippo IV di Francia e alla successione di Luigi X e suevicende (1315)15.

Nel maggio 1490 il duca Ludovico Sforza prendeva visione di un libro, eviden-temente manoscritto, che gli era «summamente piaciuto», ove si faceva menzionedella dote di Valentina Visconti (la celebre figlia del duca Giovan Galeazzo, cheandando sposa nel 1389 al duca Luigi d’Orléans, fu poi, per l’estinzione della linealegittima dei Visconti, all’origine della pretesa dinastica sul ducato di Milano daparte della branca laterale della famiglia regnante sul trono di Francia) e ordinavache fosse esaminato dal Merula, pensando che il contenuto potesse rientrare nelsuo lavoro16. Lo storico alessandrino, che non poté, come detto, proseguire la nar-razione oltre il 1339, non sfruttò mai quel libretto, ma quasi certamente di esso siservì Bernardino Corio, il quale, riferendo appunto nel 1389 del viaggio di Valenti-na in Francia, ne fornisce anche con precisione il prezioso corredo, comprendenteuna nutritissima e lunga gamma di gioielli, pietre preziose, abiti, raffinati paramen-ti da camera e da cappella17; in quel libretto si trovava probabilmente anche copia

15 Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 538-540, 582-584, 594-596, 637, 645-647, e G. Ventura, Memoriale degestis civium astensium in RIS, 11 (Mediolani: In Aedibus Palatini, 1727), 168-169, 180-183, 194-195,211-213, 224-226. Da rimarcare poi che, secondo Goria, Studi sul cronista artigiano, 7, 25, 31, 42-45,46-47, 55, 62, 67, 88, il Merula, il Calco e il Corio fecero uso di un codice non interpolato dell’operaventuriana: per l’autore anzi il codice che fu adoperato dal Merula e dal Calco era lo stesso, mentre eglinon sa fornire maggiori indicazioni su quello visto dal Corio; il Memoriale fu poi tenuto presente anchedagli storici monferrini del tempo, come Galeotto Del Carretto e Benvenuto di San Giorgio. In ogni ca-so Merula e Calco utilizzarono certo con maggior dovizia la cronaca astigiana rispetto al Corio (per il ri-cordo del Ventura da parte del Calco, che probabilmente utilizzò il cronista anche attraverso la rielabo-razione fatta dal Merula, cfr. ad esempio T. Calco, Historia Patria (Mediolani: Malatesta, 1627), prefa-zione, 6).16 Gabotto-Badini Confalonieri, Vita di Giorgio Merula, 165: la lettera che il duca scriveva a questoproposito al primo segretario Bartolomeo Calco il 4 maggio è pubblicata in nota.17 La descrizione del lungo corredo di Valentina Visconti si trova in Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 903-908 (anno 1389). In realtà però questo inventario, come lo chiama il Corio stesso, ricalca l’analogo do-cumento che venne steso a Parigi il 15 dicembre 1389 per volontà del duca d’Orléans come ricevuta eprova giustificativa della consegna della dote, che si trova ora pubblicato nella compilazione nota comeAnnales Mediolanenses ab anno 1230 usque ad annum 1402: si legge ancora in RIS, 16 (Mediolani: InAedibus Palatini, 1730), 806-813. Quindi o Ludovico Sforza, accennando, nella lettera che indirizzavaal Calco, al libro sulla dote di Valentina Visconti, faceva riferimento a questa compilazione e al docu-mento in essa contenuto (posto naturalmente che in quel tempo il documento vi fosse già stato inserito)oppure bisogna ammettere che i due documenti, quello visto dal duca e quello ricopiato negli AnnalesMediolanenses e poi tradotto e sunteggiato dal Corio, non fossero gli stessi. Gli Annales Mediolanenses,che il Muratori pubblicò in base ad un codice del XV secolo esistente presso l’archivio capitolare di No-


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di uno dei testamenti (verosimilmente l’ultimo) del primo duca di Milano, che èparimenti puntualmente riassunto dal Corio nella sua opera sotto l’anno 140218.

Nel dicembre 1496 il duca Ludovico richiedeva al castellano di Pavia, nella let-tera in cui gli annunciava la restituzione del testamento dell’arcivescovo di MilanoGiovanni Visconti, alcuni documenti riferentisi alla divisione dello stato operatadapprima, nel 1354, fra i fratelli Matteo II, Galeazzo II e Bernabò Visconti, figli diStefano, e due anni dopo, a causa della morte del primo, fra i soli Galeazzo e Ber-nabò19: il Corio, rispettivamente agli anni 1354 e 1356 della sua opera, menzionan-do esattamente le città toccate in sorte ad ognuno dei fratelli nelle due circostanze,sembra in questo caso essere dipendente, più che da una fonte narrativa, da un do-cumento simile20. Non pare invece che il Corio abbia utilizzato il documento, rela-

vara, meglio conosciuto come codice Valison, sono in realtà una compilazione posta insieme negli ulti-mi anni del ‘400, forse dal vescovo di Tortona, poi di Piacenza, Fabrizio Marliani, sulla base della Gal-vagnana di Galvano Fiamma (fino al 1338), dell’opera di Pietro Azario (fino al 1364), del ChroniconPlacentinum del Mussi, di un’anonima cronaca parmense, dell’opera perduta del parmigiano GiovanniBalducchino: cfr. L. A Ferrai, «Gli Annales Mediolanenses e i cronisti lombardi del secolo XIV», Ar-chivio storico lombardo, 17, (1890): 277-297; L. A. Ferrai, «Le cronache di Galvano Fiamma e le fontidella Galvagnana», Bullettino dell’Istituto storico italiano, 10, (1891): 99, 102; I. Raulich, «La cronicaValison e il suo autore», Rivista storica italiana, 8, (1891): 1-11; M. T. Liuzzo, «Il manoscritto del Va-lison di Fabrizio Marliani vescovo di Piacenza. Raccolta di cronache di Milano, Novara, Piacenza e Par-ma (1496)», Novarien, 22, (1992): 197-244. Il Corio ebbe molto a servirsi di questa compilazione, prati-camente a lui coeva.18 Gabotto-Badini Confalonieri, Vita di Giorgio Merula, 165 nota; F. Gabotto, Giasone Del Maino egli scandali universitari nel quattrocento (Torino: La Letteratura, 1888), 208-209, 292: il noto giure-consulto Giasone Del Maino, sulla base del testamento, o forse di una sua copia, di Giovan GaleazzoVisconti, contenente il fedecommesso a favore di Valentina Visconti, aveva proferito nel 1498 un cele-bre consulto per stabilire la fondatezza o meno delle pretese del duca d’Orléans sul ducato di Milano.Per i tre testamenti di Giovan Galeazzo Visconti (dei quali solo due noti nelle disposizioni, di cuil’ultimo, quello del 1401, grazie al riassunto lasciatone dal Corio), e per i codicilli, si vedano: Docu-menti diplomatici tratti dagli archivi viscontei, ed. L. Osio, 1, parte I (Milano: Bernardoni, 1864), 318-338; G. Romano, «Di una nuova ipotesi sulla morte e sulla sepoltura di Gian Galeazzo Visconti», Archi-vio storico italiano, serie V, tomo XX, (1897): 250-253; D. M. Bueno De Mesquita, Giangaleazzo Vi-sconti Duke of Milan (1351-1402). A Study in the Political Career of an Italian Despot (Cambridge: Atthe University, 1941), 258, 298, 316; F. Cognasso, «Il ducato visconteo da Gian Galeazzo a Filippo Ma-ria», Storia di Milano, 6 (Milano: Treccani degli Alfieri, 1955), 69-72. Il Corio, oltre ad accennare al te-stamento del 1388 e a quello del 1397, riassume largamente quello del 1401 e riferisce più sbrigativa-mente del codicillo del 25 agosto 1402: Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 899, II, 968-970.19 La lettera del duca al castellano di Pavia, unitamente ad un’altra di qualche giorno precedente conla quale lo Sforza richiedeva il testamento dell’arcivescovo Giovanni Visconti, è stata pubblicata daEdoardo Fumagalli nella sua recensione al libro di E. Pellegrin, Bibliothèques retrouvées: manuscrits,bibliothèques et bibliophiles du Moyen age et de la Renaissance (Paris: Editions du centre national de larecherche scientifique, 1988), Studi petrarcheschi, n. s. 8, (1991): 289: tutti i documenti, che dovevanoessere consegnati al primo segretario Bartolomeo Calco, erano conservati nella libreria del castello diPavia.20 Cfr. Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 789 (divisione delle città dello stato nel 1354), 792 (divisione dellecittà dello stato nel 1356): soprattutto per la prima divisione, anche in base alle parole usate («... e nelmedesmo giorno - 11 ottobre - in uno sabato per Boschino Mantigacio, nobile milanese, fu facta unatranslatione de tutte le città e terre lasate per il condam arcivescovo tra Mattheo, Bernabò e Galeazo...»)sembra di poter dire che il Corio ebbe dinanzi un documento originale. In ogni caso della divisione del

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tivo a Jacopo Bussolari, il famoso frate agostiniano che governò con pugno di ferroPavia fra il 1356 e il 1359, che Tristano Calco faceva richiedere a nome del ducaagli agostiniani di Pavia nel dicembre 149821. Non sono poi da sottovalutare, re-stando in tema di interventi o sollecitazioni usate dal governo, e sebbene non siafacile individuare gli autori e di conseguenza valutarne l’utilizzo, altre asportazionidi cronache, che furono effettuate ad esempio a Piacenza nel 1491 (in questo caso idue scritti relativi furono sicuramente fatti pervenire al Merula), e a Tortona e aPavia rispettivamente nel novembre 1496 e nell’aprile 149922. Difficile parimentiidentificare con precisione, a meno di ammettere che fosse la nota opera di PaoloDiacono, quella cronaca sui Longobardi che il commissario transpadano, su ordinedel 22 maggio 1488 del primo segretario ducale Bartolomeo Calco, era invitato aprelevare dal cittadino di Alessandria Giovan Antonio Lanzavecchia perché essapotesse essere esaminata dal Merula23; in ogni caso questi, nell’aprile 1493, as-

dominio, sia di quello del 1354 che del 1356, e con la specificazione delle città toccate in sorte nelle duecircostanze ai fratelli, riferisce anche Pietro Azario, che comunque il Corio non conobbe direttamente,ma attraverso il riassunto che ne era stato fatto nella compilazione degli Annales Mediolanenses: cfr. P.Azario, Liber gestorum in Lombardia, ed. F. Cognasso, RIS (2° edizione), XVI/4 (Bologna: Zanichelli,1925-1939) 66, 72 e, per la conoscenza che il Corio ebbe dell’Azario, XXVIII dell’introduzione: il Co-rio comunque alla prima lista dell’Azario aggiunge anche altre città. Nulla invece dice il Corio a propo-sito del testamento dell’arcivescovo Giovanni Visconti.21 E. Fumagalli, Studi Petrarcheschi, 8, (1991): 289-290: il documento relativo al Bussolari dovevaessere consegnato a Bartolomeo Calco e doveva servire verosimilmente a Tristano Calco. La vicenda diJacopo Bussolari, personaggio al quale non sembra andare la simpatia dello scrittore, sembra basarsi nelCorio esclusivamente su fonti narrative: cfr. Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 793, 797-798, 801.22 Al Merula erano pervenute nel febbraio 1491 alcune voci circa l’esistenza presso il monastero diSanta Savina di Piacenza di una cronaca assai ampia ove erano narrati gli avvenimenti a partiredall’arcivescovo Ottone Visconti e fino al duca Giovan Galeazzo Visconti: per intervento a suo favoredel governo ducale, che ingiungeva immediatamente all’abate del monastero stesso la consegnadell’opera al primo segretario Bartolomeo Calco, tale opera, che il Gabotto suppone debba trattarsi dellacronaca piacentina del Mussi, fu certo spedita a Milano e vista dall’umanista; nel luglio 1491 poi il go-verno ducale ordinava al vescovo di Piacenza, che era allora, si badi bene, Fabrizio Marliani, il suppostocompilatore degli Annales Mediolanenses, di consegnare allo stesso primo segretario un’altra cronaca,che si diceva essere del giureconsulto piacentino Luigi Benedetto Fontana, perché potesse essere utiliz-zata dal Merula nel proprio lavoro: Gabotto-Badini Confalonieri, Vita di Giorgio Merula, 166-167. Or-mai dopo la morte del Merula invece, il 3 novembre 1496, Tristano Calco, benché si mascherasse dietroun ordine ducale e con una reticente perifrasi, faceva richiedere al referendario di Tortona una cronaca,già vista ma non utilizzata dal Merula, relativa a Federico Barbarossa, che era posseduta dal giuristaRaffaele da Busseto, ingiungendo parimenti la consegna di quello scritto al segretario Bartolomeo; il 15aprile 1499 era invece il governo ducale a domandare alla vedova e ai figli del pavese Giovan AgostinoTorti, con la solita promessa di pronta restituzione e senza specificare a chi fosse destinata, una cronaca«assai grande»: cfr. Gabotto-Badini Confalonieri, Vita di Giorgio Merula, 172-173, e, per la secondalettera, che non è propriamente, come invece dice Petrucci, Calco Tristano, 537 ss., una commendatiziaa favore del Calco, anche C. Magenta, I Visconti e gli Sforza nel castello di Pavia, I (Napoli-Milano:Hoepli, 1883), 582 nota. Forse la cronaca di proprietà di Raffaele da Busseto relativa a Federico Barba-rossa va identificata, considerando il luogo dove si conservava, con il De ruina civitatis Terdone, unoscritto, relativo agli anni 1154-1155, utilizzato in effetti dal Calco: cfr. Belloni, L’historia Patria di Tri-stano Calco, 184; Bernardino Corio invece non si servì di tale cronaca.23 Per questa lettera del 22 maggio 1488 cfr. Gabotto-Badini Confalonieri, Vita di Giorgio Merula,160 nota: la cronaca in questione vi veniva definita «Cronica Longobardorum». Non credo d’altra parte


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portava poi dalla libreria del castello di Pavia, insieme ad altre cronache, pure lafamosa Historia Langobardorum di Paolo Diacono, della quale ebbe a fare co-munque un uso moderato nella propria opera24: caso opposto a quello del Corio, ilquale invece si servì abbondantemente dello scrittore di Cividale. Si è già dettocome per la prima parte della storia dei Longobardi, quella relativa alle miticheorigini scandinave, all’origine del nome dall’episodio leggendario di Godan e Frea,alle imprese dei re prima della discesa in Italia, alle vicende di Alboino e di Ros-munda, agli eventi fino ad Autari, il Corio segua non tanto il Diacono quanto Ja-copo d’Acqui. È a partire dalle vicende di Autari (in corrispondenza con la metàcirca del terzo libro dello storico longobardo) che il Corio segue più da vicino, perl’ampiezza delle informazioni fornite, lo storico di Cividale; comunque, fino allevicende di Grimoaldo, il Corio riprende dal Diacono in genere, anche se in det-taglio, solo le vicende principali dei vari re, tralasciando le notizie, che pure sitrovano nella fonte, relative agli eventi dell’impero d’Oriente e, normalmente, delPapato e degli altri regni barbarici; invece, il libro quinto del Diacono, che iniziacon l’affermarsi di Grimoaldo e finisce con la vittoria di Cuniberto su Alachis, èseguito in genere minutamente dal Corio, che riporta anche gli eventi relativi aiducati di Spoleto e di Benevento, tralasciando solo la materia saracena e bizantina;il Corio invece riprende a sunteggiare brevemente, spesso brevissimamente, nelsesto e ultimo libro dell’opera dello storico longobardo, eliminando dalla narra-

che possa trattarsi dell’Origo gentis Langobardorum, perché tale anonimo scritto del VII secolo, perve-nuto inoltre in poche copie, e tutte contenenti pure l’editto di Rotari, nella tradizione manoscritta, e co-nosciuto dallo stesso Diacono, non è altro che una brevissima storia leggendaria sull’origine del popololongobardo, con pochissime notizie, anche se fondate, sui re longobardi in Italia fino a Grimoaldo; né ilMerula, né il Calco, né il Corio (nonostante le asserzioni della Morisi Guerra nell’introduzione e in notaalla Patria Historia), poterono veramente servirsi di un tale scritto: cfr. l’edizione dell’anonima operettadell’Origo gentis langobardorum in Monumenta Germaniae Historica (MGH), Scriptores rerum Lango-bardicarum et Italicarum (Hannoverae: Hahn, 1878) ed. G. Waitz, 2-6, e Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 23,80 nota. il Corio piuttosto fece uso, come ho già detto, per la prima parte, quella più leggendaria, dellastoria longobarda, dove accoglie molti elementi del mito, di Jacopo d’Acqui.24 Per la commendatizia, diretta al castellano di Pavia, che permetteva al Merula l’entrata nella libre-ria del castello di Pavia e l’asportazione temporanea, a Milano, in prestito, oltre che dell’opera di PaoloDiacono, anche di quella del Fiamma (probabilmente il Manipulus florum), della Historia Gothorum diGiordane, e della Cronica quae dicitur Malabayla, si veda Gabotto-Badini Confalonieri, Vita di GiorgioMerula, 168-169 e nota. L’Historia Langobardorum di Paolo Diacono, il Manipulus Florum di GalvanoFiamma, l’Historia Gothorum di Giordane e il codex astensis sono registrati come presenti nella biblio-teca pavese anche nei due inventari della stessa recentemente pubblicati da M. G. Ottolenghi, «La bi-blioteca dei Visconti e degli Sforza: gli inventari del 1488 e del 1490», Studi Petrarcheschi, n. s. 8,(1991): 109 (D 578 ed E 839), 111 (D 590 ed E 777; D 591 ed E 846), 122 (D 695), 147 (D 908 ed E440): le lettere D ed E indicano i due inventari rispettivamente del 1488 e del 1490 e il numero che se-gue invece la posizione occupata dai libri secondo gli inventari stessi. Per l’uso che fece il Meruladell’opera di Paolo Diacono, cfr. G. Merula, Antiquitatis Vicecomitum Libri X (Mediolani: Malatesta,1629), 9-15: l’umanista, coerentemente all’impianto dell’opera, dedicata alla celebrazione dei Visconti,non concede infatti molto spazio alle vicende longobarde e riassume in poche pagine gli eventi salientinarrati dallo storico di Cividale. Il Corio non fece quasi sicuramente uso dell’opera di Giordane. Per lealtre ricerche effettuate dal Merula ai fini della composizione delle Antiquitates Vicecomitum, cfr. Ga-botto-Badini Confalonieri, Vita di Giorgio Merula, 160, 163-164.

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zione, oltre le vicende bizantine, papali e saracene, anche in genere quelle deiducati longobardi di Spoleto e di Benevento25. L’opera del Diacono comunque,dato l’elevatissimo numero di esemplari conservato, era abbondantemente cono-sciuta e nota e probabilmente se ne potevano ritrovare manoscritti direttamente inMilano anche ai tempi del Corio. Il Corio comunque descrive, sulle orme del Dia-cono, assai più minutamente la vicenda longobarda rispetto al Merula e al Calco:anche quest’ultimo infatti, che pur ebbe certamente presente lo storico dei Longo-bardi, è comunque più conciso nel trattare della loro storia; critica anzi lo stessoDiacono, e tutti gli storici umanisti, Merula compreso, che l’avevano seguito, aproposito dell’origine scandinava di quel popolo e dell’origine del loro nome dallalunga barba26.

Insomma verosimilmente il Corio, quando a partire dal 1497 ricevette le primecommendatizie ducali e poté accedere agli archivi pubblici e privati, poté anche, incompagnia del Calco, usufruire di almeno parte del materiale libresco e documen-tario accantonato dal Merula, e godere di ogni appoggio del governo nell’avere adisposizione i documenti e le cronache rintracciati dalla cancelleria. Se poi siesaminano anche sommariamente alcune parti delle tre opere del Merula, del Calcoe del Corio non si potrà fare a meno di rilevare alcune analogie di contenuto e rela-tivamente all’uso delle fonti che è difficile giudicare occasionali: comune ai trestorici, anche se con una marcata abbondanza nel Calco, è ad esempio lo stesso si-stema di abbellire l’inizio delle rispettive opere con dotte citazioni classiche preseda Tito Livio, Strabone, Tolomeo, Plutarco, Plinio, Cassio Dione, Claudiano, Au-sonio27; il Calco e il Corio, sempre restando alle prime pagine, prendono senz’altro

25 Cfr. Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 86-118 e Pauli, Historia Langobardorum in MGH, Scriptores rerumLangobardicarum et Italicarum (Hannoverae: Hahn, 1878), eds. L. C. Bethmann-G. Waitz, 47-187, inspecie a partire da 108; lo scrittore longobardo è anche citato dal Corio come fonte (cfr. Corio, Storia diMilano, I, 93-94).26 Cfr. Calco, Historia Patria, 75-96 (76 per il rifiuto dell’origine dei Longobardi descritta dal Diaco-no). Il Merula e il Calco poi, rispetto al Corio, sorvolano rapidamente su molti episodi romanzeschi, co-me ad esempio su quello celebre di Alboino e di Rosmunda. Per l’Historia Langobardorum si rimandaalmeno a P. S. Leicht, «Paolo Diacono e gli altri scrittori delle vicende d’Italia nell’età carolingia», Attidel II congresso internazionale di studi sull’Alto Medioevo (Spoleto: Presso la sede del Centro studi,1953), 51-74; D. Bianchi, «Da Gregorio di Tours a Paolo Diacono», Aevum, 34, (1961): 150-166; E. Se-stan, «La storiografia dell’Italia longobarda: Paolo Diacono», La storiografia altomedievale, I (Spoleto:Presso la sede del Centro studi, 1970), 357-386; O. Capitani, «La storiografia altomedievale», La cultu-ra in Italia fra tardo antico e alto Medioevo, I (Roma: Herder, 1981), 123-147.27 Il Merula ad esempio accoglie, sulle orme di Tito Livio, la fondazione di Milano ad opera di Bello-veso; nega che essa debba ascriversi all’epoca in cui Brenno discese in Italia contro Roma; definisce laposizione geografica della città e della Lombardia secondo Strabone e Tolomeo; cita Plinio il vecchio;riferisce la leggenda della porca lanuta appoggiandosi anche ai versi, che riporta, di Claudiano; rifiuta laversione di coloro che vogliono che la città derivi da Noé; cita Plutarco e Floro; accenna brevemente al-le guerre puniche e al console Marcello; afferma milanese l’Imperatore Didio Giuliano sulla scorta diErodiano e Dione; parla di Cecilio Stazio e della sua possibile nascita a Milano; si sofferma brevementesull’insegnamento di S. Agostino a Milano e sulla presenza a Milano di Virgilio e del retore novareseAlbuzio; parla dei vecchi edifici e delle antiche chiese come S. Maria al Circolo e S. Paolo in Compido;riporta infine, per il IV secolo, l’epigramma famoso di Ausonio dedicato a Milano: Merula, AntiquitatisVicecomitum, 1-5. Il Calco, che già nella prefazione dell’opera aveva criticato il Merula per avere fatto


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da una fonte comune la notizia, mancante invece nel Merula, relativa alla suppostaderivazione della città da Medio e da Olano28, e inoltre alcuni componimenti e ver-

un uso assai parco di citazioni di classici per l’età antica, è molto più preciso relativamente alle vicendedella Milano antica: dopo essersi rifatto a Trogo Pompeo, a Plinio e a Tito Livio per la fondazione dellacittà, si sofferma, sempre in base alle testimonianze dei classici, sull’origine dei Galli; tenta di precisare,rifacendosi a Livio, a Eusebio, a Solino, ad Ammiano Marcellino, l’anno nel quale venne fondata lacittà, stabilendo che questo dovesse porsi 600 anni prima della nascita di Cristo, cioè a 2.100 anni di di-stanza dalla sua epoca; circa l’origine del nome di Milano riferisce, in base alle testimonianze di Clau-diano, del quale riporta i noti versi, e di Sidonio Apollinare, la tradizione secondo la quale essa lo derivòdalla porca lanuta; si riferisce a Strabone e a Tolomeo per precisare la delimitazione geograficadell’Insubria; respinge, sull’autorità di Livio e Polibio, la congettura di coloro che vogliono Milano fon-data da Brenno; è molto più dettagliato rispetto al Merula, che non esita a criticare per vari errori, sullevicende della conquista romana, della seconda guerra punica e sulla fondazione di altre città nell’Italiasettentrionale; si diffonde su alcune antiche iscrizioni romane da lui vedute in varie città lombarde e suiprimi martiri della chiesa milanese; afferma anch’egli l’imperatore Didio Giuliano milanese sulla basedi Cassio Dione; segue molto più analiticamente, rispetto al Merula, la vicenda di S. Ambrogio e di S.Agostino e riporta anch’egli i versi di Ausonio dedicati a Milano ma apportandovi, grazie ad un codicedell’autore rinvenuto nella biblioteca viscontea, alcune emendazioni testuali; riferisce alcuni versi delpanegirico di Claudiano dedicati all’arrivo di Onorio a Milano: Calco, Historia Patria, 2-46 e 4 dellaprefazione. Il Corio si affida a Tito Livio, del quale sunteggia il testo, per la fondazione di Milano adopera di Belloveso, ma, a proposito degli Insubri, cita anche la testimonianza di Plinio il vecchio; si rifàa S. Gerolamo, Solino, Livio ed Eusebio per la datazione della fondazione della città, che pone nel 595a. C., a 2.095 anni di distanza dalla sua epoca; rifiuta anch’egli la tradizione della fondazione della cittàad opera di Brenno e cita Strabone e Plutarco per il ricordo di Milano al loro tempo; si sofferma an-ch’egli a descrivere la collocazione geografica dell’Insubria sulla base degli antichi, citando Tolomeo ePlinio; riferisce la leggenda della porca lanuta che avrebbe dato origine alla città, rifacendosi a Dazio,del quale riporta alcuni versi, e a Claudiano, del quale pone nel testo gli stessi versi citati da Merula eCalco; riferisce in dettaglio, pur non commentandola e non dando un giudizio, la leggenda, desunta pro-babilmente dal Fiamma, che voleva la città fondata da Subres, considerato un discendente di Noé, e cheriferiva pure la fondazione del castello della Martesana e l’arrivo, in epoca più tarda, di Belloveso; sullascorta del Fiamma, e forse della cronaca di Daniele, sono riportate le notizie della conquista romana adopera del console Marcello e della sua vittoria su Viridomaro; riferisce, ritengo sempre avendo il Fiam-ma come fonte, dei primi tempi della presenza romana, parlando degli antichi edifici fattivi edificare, ericorda i versi che sarebbero stati posti sulla porta Romana, ove Milano era considerata come secondaRoma; accenna anch’egli alla presenza a Milano di Virgilio, del retore Albuzio novarese, di S. Agosti-no; parla della collocazione delle sette porte antiche della città; riferisce brevemente dei primi martiricristiani e delle chiese edificate sulle loro tombe; afferma anch’egli l’imperatore Didio Giuliano milane-se, appoggiandosi ad Erodiano e a Dione Cassio; riporta infine anch’egli il solito epigramma di Ausonioa lode di Milano: Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 55-66. In complesso si può dire che il Calco, il quale,com’é noto, prese poi a rifare l’opera meruliana, accresca di molto le testimonianze arrecate dal Merulae si dilunghi con grande interesse sulla storia antica della città, traendo tutte le notizie dagli amati classi-ci; si deve rilevare tuttavia nelle tre opere un certo numero di citazioni comuni, anche se il Corio, rispet-to ai due umanisti, riporta anche altre versioni e notizie desunte dal Fiamma.28 Si confrontino Calco, Historia Patria, 4 e Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 57: in verità comunque, men-tre il Calco rigetta completamente come falsa questa notizia, che era stata recentemente trasmessa daRoma, e che era stata spacciata sotto il nome dei frammenti delle Origines di Marco Porcio Catone, ilCorio riferisce soltanto il fatto dandolo come possibile, attribuendolo generalmente ad «alcuni», e senzadarne un suo giudizio. Il frammento di Marco Porcio Catone delle Origines in questione era stato pub-blicato nel 1498 a Roma nelle Antichità di Beroso Caldeo, falsificazione di testi antichi scritta dal do-menicano Annio da Viterbo: cfr. R. Weiss, «Traccia per una biografia di Annio da Viterbo», Italia me-dievale e umanistica, 5, (1962): 425. Anche il giudizio dei due storici sull’immagine della porca lanuta

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si, pur differenti, citati dai due scrittori, appartenenti al poeta Draconzio, della cuiopera si arrogano entrambi il rinvenimento, provengono sicuramente dallo stessocodice di quell’autore portato alla luce casualmente nel 1493 a Bobbio per effettodelle esplorazioni fatte condurre dal Merula29.

Per quanto riguarda più da vicino le fonti cronachistiche utilizzate, si deve se-gnalare ad esempio l’uso in tutti i tre autori, oltre che del già citato Guglielmo Ven-tura, del Chronicon Modoetiense di Bonincontro Morigia, opera che riferisce minu-tamente delle vicende lombarde e più specialmente monzesi dal 1300 al 1349.Questo scrittore è citato espressamente dal Corio come fonte, ed è da lui menziona-to come «homo diligente in scrivere le cose achadeano in quegli giorni»30;L’utilizzo del Morigia da parte del Corio in realtà risulta massiccio a partire dalsecondo libro dell’opera (divisa in quattro libri), che comincia ad essere partico-lareggiata con la calata di Arrigo VII in Italia. Presi dal Morigia sono ad esempio,fra i molti, i seguenti episodi narrati dal Corio: vicenda dell’eretica Guglielma;breve discorso di Guido Torriani ai suoi sostenitori per opporsi ad Arrigo VII; let-tera di Arrigo VII ai canonici di S. Giovanni Battista di Monza; lettere del vicarioimperiale alla comunità di Monza; opera di Matteo Visconti per il tesoro della cat-tedrale di Monza; lettere di Galeazzo Visconti ai monzesi; vicende del 1323 ebattaglia di Trecella; battaglia di Vaprio e miracolo delle taccole ed episodio di En-rico di Fiandra che si affida a S. Giovanni Battista; assedio e resa di Monza e ap-parizione di S. Giovanni Battista a Galeazzo Visconti; battaglia di Altopasso fraCastruccio Castracani e i fiorentini; lettera di Ludovico il Bavaro a Galeazzo eMarco Visconti; arrivo di Ludovico il Bavaro a Milano, morte di Stefano Visconti,

scolpita al loro tempo nell’arco del palazzo comunale, di cui il Merula non fa parola, è profondamentediverso: il Calco la dice «rudi seculo incisa», anche se giudica che sia indegno che sia difficilmente visi-bile perché coperta dal tetto di una locanda, mentre il Corio afferma che essa è «in pietra vetustissima...exsculpta» e sembra meravigliato per la sua antichità: cfr. Calco, Historia patria, 4; Corio, Storia di Mi-lano, I, 58.29 Il Corio nella Patria Historia riporta i due componimenti del poeta Draconzio intitolati de mensi-bus e de origine rosarum, affermando di avere trovato egli stesso l’opera di quel poeta scritta in «caratteLangbard», che sarebbe poi stata tradotta in lettere latine da Giovan Cristoforo Daverio: Corio, Storia diMilano, I, 95. Il Calco invece, nella sua opera, nell’arco di una digressione sulle immagini dei serpenti,riporta due brevi versi dello stesso Draconzio, la cui opera, egli dice, «quamvis alius sibi gloriam arro-get, nos tamen ex bobiensi penetrali retulimus, et ex barbaricis characteribus in consuetis transcriben-dum formas dedimus»: Calco, Patria Historia, libro III, 55. Evidente, in questo passo, il riferimento alCorio. Ma l’opera di Draconzio in realtà era stata portata alla luce casualmente a Bobbio, con altri scrittidella tarda antichità, dal copista del Merula Giorgio Galbiati, spedito nel 1493 negli Appennini dal suopadrone al fine di verificarvi l’esistenza di cronache o antichi documenti; gli scritti rinvenuti, dopo lamorte del Merula, pervennero nelle mani del Calco, e in seguito, tranne alcuni, che furono pubblicati, sidispersero: Gabotto-Badini Confalonieri, Vita di Giorgio Merula, 64-65, 168, 170; M. Ferrari, «Le sco-perte a Bobbio nel 1493: vicende di codici e fortuna di testi», Italia Medievale e umanistica, 13, (1970):139-152; M. Ferrari, «Spigolature bobbiesi», Italia medievale e umanistica, 16, (1973): 17, 33-37; G.Morelli, «Le liste degli autori scoperti a Bobbio nel 1493», Rivista di filologia e istruzione classica,117, (1989): 5-33. È quindi praticamente certo, come suggerisce del resto anche Mirella Ferrari, che ilcodice di Draconzio utilizzato dal Calco e dal Corio per le loro citazioni fosse il medesimo rinvenutodal Galbiati a Bobbio.30 Cfr. ad esempio Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 682, 694, 716 .


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e imprigionamento dei fratelli Visconti; vicende dei Vistarini a Lodi; lettera di Gio-vanni e Azzone Visconti ai 24 capitani di Milano e lettera del Bavaro ai monzesi;assedio del Bavaro a Monza e a Milano; morte di Marco Visconti e vicenda diBice; matrimonio di Azzone Visconti e sue costruzioni a Milano; vicende dei Ru-sca a Como e presa della città ad opera dei Visconti; battaglia di Parabiago; mortedi Azzone Visconti; vicenda di Francesco e Margherita Pusterla; vicenda delladuchessa di Carinzia; dal Morigia è poi presa tutta la vicenda relativa al trafuga-mento e alla restituzione del tesoro di Monza31. Il Merula invece utilizzò il Morigiaa grandi linee per gli stessi episodi ma con una marcata superiorità per i fatti cheintercorrono dalla morte di Matteo Visconti a quella di Azzone Visconti32; TristanoCalco conobbe e si avvalse del Morigia, filtrato anche tramite la redazione delMerula33.

Il Corio curiosamente, a proposito del secondo matrimonio, nell’anno 1300, diBeatrice d’Este con Galeazzo I Visconti, riporta, pur in un contesto argomentativodiverso, gli stessi celebri versi danteschi cui alludeva, per lo stesso episodio, ilMerula, il quale, con l’autorità del poeta fiorentino e del sepolcro milanese dellaprincipessa, affermava vedova e non fanciulla la sposa estense: e non deve stupirepiù di tanto che pure il Calco, nella narrazione di quel matrimonio, si riferisca, puravendo come scopo principale quello di riprendere il Merula, del quale aveva presoa rifare il lavoro, implicitamente a quei versi34.

31 Cfr. B. Morigia, Chronicon Modoetiense ab origine Modoetiae usque ad annum MCCCXLIX, inRIS, 12 (Mediolani: In Aedibus Palatini, 1728) 1091-1092, 1098-1099, 1106-1107, 1114, 1121-1123,1130-1182 e Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 563-564, 594, 604-605, 615-616, 663, 682-688, 690-694, 695-704, 707-710, 713-718, 723, 730-731, 735-740, 742, 744-746, 748-750, 755, 757-758, 759.32 Cfr. Gabotto-Badini Confalonieri, Vita di Giorgio Merula, 288, 297-306, 308-309, 311-315.33 Cfr. Calco, Historia Patria, 6 della prefazione, e, ad esempio, T. Calco, Residua (Mediolani: Mala-testa, 1644), libro XXI, 31. Per il Chronicon Modoetiense di Bonincontro Morigia, il quale, a partiredalla spedizione di Arrigo VII, riferisce in genere fatti dei quali fu testimone e che era molto informatodelle gesta dei Visconti, dei quali la sua famiglia era, come ghibellina, sostenitrice, si vedano: L. A. Mu-ratori, Praefatio, in RIS, 12 (Mediolani: In Aedibus Palatini, 1728), 1055-1056; A. Viscardi-M. Vitale,«La cultura milanese nel secolo XIV», Storia di Milano, 5 (Milano: Treccani degli Alfieri, 1955), 589ss.; A. Paredi, «Dall’età barbarica al comune», Storia di Monza e della Brianza, eds. A. Bosisio-G. Vi-smara, I (Milano: Il Polifilo 1973), 85-86, 123, 135, 146; G. Barni, «Dall’età comunale all’età sforze-sca», Storia di Monza, I, 189-190, 208, 261-265, 272-273, 287, 289, 293, 295; A. Belloni-M. Ferrari, Labiblioteca capitolare di Monza (Padova: Antenore, 1974), LXIV, XCII, 40; per gli ultimi aggiornamentibibliografici anche la voce Morigia Bonincontrus, in RFHM, VII (Romae, Istituto Storico Italiano per ilMedioevo, 1997), 626.34 Il Merula, parlando del secondo matrimonio di Beatrice d’Este con Galeazzo Visconti, contrattonell’anno 1300, appare incerto sul nome della principessa, che alcuni dicevano si chiamasse Agnese, esul suo stato precedente, visto che, secondo lui, era definita da alcuni vergine, da altri vedova;l’umanista però, appoggiandosi ai celebri versi danteschi di Purgatorio VIII 73-75, comunque non ri-portati, e sul sepolcro della principessa, che esisteva ancora nella chiesa di S. Francesco e sul qualeerano poste le insegne dei Gallura e dei Visconti, stabilisce certamente vedova Beatrice; prima di de-scrivere le feste fatte in occasione dello sposalizio, trova il tempo di criticare velatamente Dante(l’allusione è a Purgatorio VIII 79-81) per avere considerato inferiori i Visconti ai Gallura, e cerca diindagarne il motivo: Merula, Antiquitatis Vicecomitum, 150-152 e cfr. Gabotto-Badini Confalonieri,Vita di Giorgio Merula, 263 e nota, 264. Il Calco, nel ricordare il matrimonio di Galeazzo Visconti con

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La Patria Historia del Corio, fatto questo più ovvio ma mai segnalato con pre-cisione, è largamente debitrice nei confronti delle varie opere del frate domenicanoGalvano Fiamma. Bernardino Corio conobbe sicuramente, fra le opere del Fiam-ma, il Manipulus florum e il Chronicon Maius, e probabilmente anche la Chronicaextravagans e la Politia novella, anche se non cita mai il frate domenicano fra lesue fonti. Risultano quasi certamente di derivazione dal Fiamma i seguenti passi:leggenda della fondazione di Milano ad opera di Subres e origine del nome diMartesana35; Milano detta seconda Roma e versi riportati sull’arco di Porta Ro-mana36; vari edifici costruiti a Milano in epoca romana37; vicende dei Longobardidopo Liutprando e battaglia di Mortara, prima detta Silva Bella38; pestilenza di ver-mi all’epoca di Arnolfo39; serpente di bronzo portato a Milano da Costantinopolidall’arcivescovo Arnolfo40; il Carroccio escogitato da Ariberto d’Intimiano41; asse-dio di Milano da parte dell’Imperatore Corrado e duello del duca Baverio conEriprando Visconti42; vicende di Ariberto d’Intimiano e di Lanzone da Corte43;

Beatrice d’Este, critica il vano argomentare del Merula sul nome e sullo stato della principessa, che eraevidentemente vedova, e nota l’errore compiuto dal suo predecessore, il quale aveva considerato comeuna famiglia pisana il termine Gallura; ricorda, ma senza citarli, i versi danteschi relativi al doppio ma-trimonio e annota la critica mossa dallo storico alessandrino al poeta fiorentino: Calco, HistoriaPatria, libro XVIII, 405-406. Il Corio apre l’episodio con la narrazione delle origini toscane della fa-miglia di Nino di Gallura, del quale ricorda l’avo e alcuni possessi in Sardegna; la morte di Nino segnail ritorno della moglie, la principessa Beatrice d’Este, a Ferrara, la quale, per volontà di Matteo Vi-sconti, viene scelta come sposa per il figlio Galeazzo; ed è a questo punto che il Corio cita il giudiziodi Dante su questo matrimonio, e riporta i versi di Purgatorio VIII 79-81, chiudendo poi conun’annotazione che suona implicitamente a correzione del poeta: «La sepultura di questa pare di pre-sente con l’arma di Gallura e la vipera nel templo dedicato al seraphico Francesco in Milano, a manosinistra entrando, ne la magior capella a nostro tempo constructa dal magnanimo et illustre capitanio,signore Roberto da Sanseverino...»: Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 561-562. Anche il Corio si sofferma poisulle cerimonie e sulla pubblica corte che si fecero a Milano per quelle nozze. Per ricapitolare, il Cal-co, nella narrazione di quest’episodio, ebbe davanti certamente il testo del Merula, che non esita però ariprendere; il Corio invece sembra narrare in maniera autonoma la vicenda ed è anche possibile che lacitazione dantesca sia indipendente dal testo meruliano, visto anche il diverso argomentare e il tonodifferente; ma è pure possibile che egli avesse ben presente quanto detto dal Merula, con il riferimentoai versi danteschi: in ogni caso, rispetto al Merula, e anche al Calco, il narrato del Corio è in questo ca-so assai più spontaneo e sicuro nelle affermazioni, e anche meno involuto, e non conserva, come nelMerula, una vena di pedanteria.35 G. Fiamma, Manipulus florum, in RIS, 11 (Mediolani: In Aedibus Palatini, 1727), 541-543 e Corio,Storia di Milano, I, 58-61.36 Fiamma,Manipulus florum, 552 e Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 63.37 Fiamma,Manipulus florum, 555 ss. e Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 62-63.38 Fiamma, Manipulus florum, 600 ss; G. Fiamma, Chronicon Maius, ed. A. Ceruti, Miscellanea diStoria Italiana, 7, (1869): 549 ss.; Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 122-123.39 Fiamma,Manipulus florum, 609 ss; Fiamma, Chronicon Maius, 593; Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 128.40 Fiamma, Chronicon Maius, 600-601 e Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 130.41 Fiamma, Manipulus florum, 619-620; Fiamma, Chronicon Maius, 605-606; G. Fiamma, Chronicaextravagans, ed. A. Ceruti,Miscellanea di storia italiana, 7, (1869): 495; Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 131.42 Fiamma, Manipulus florum, 618-619; Fiamma, Chronicon Maius, 611-612; Corio, Storia diMilano, I, 131-132.43 Fiamma, Manipulus florum, 621-623; Fiamma, Chronicon Maius, 615 ss; Corio, Storia di Milano,I, 133-134.


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duello fra Ottone Visconti e il saraceno in Terrasanta e origine dell’insegna dellavipera44; vicende di Federico Barbarossa dopo il 1168, battaglia di Legnano, versidi Sicardo, e leggenda di Alberto da Giussano e della compagnia della morte45; leporte e le pusterle di Milano e loro distanze46; pace di Costanza e trattato diReggio47; i tre domini di Milano48; nascita della Credenza di S. Ambrogio e speci-ficazione delle famiglie nobili milanesi49; scomunica di Federico II da parte di In-nocenzo IV50; crudeltà di Ezzelino da Romano, sua morte e nascita di Guido DellaTorre51; prodigi al momento della nascita di Matteo Visconti52. Galvano Fiamma, ein particolar modo il Manipulus florum, fu utilizzato in maniera veramente note-vole anche dal Merula, che riportò anch’egli, ad esempio, le leggende intorno aEriprando e a Ottone Visconti, e che anzi ne aggiunse anche altre, come quella diGalvano Visconti, non accolta invece dal Corio53. Sono noti i rimproveri che ilCalco, nella prefazione della propria opera, mosse al Merula per avere accettato lefavole narrate dal Fiamma, da lui rigettate in blocco; e in effetti, anche all’internodella narrazione, egli non esita a riprendere il Merula ogni volta che scopre chequesti, nel riportare un racconto favoloso, si è avvalso del domenicano54; ma certoanch’egli dovette servirsi del Fiamma quando gli parve evidente che alla base delracconto vi fossero documenti o testimoni attendibili; il Calco del resto riferisce inparte della leggenda della nascita di Matteo Visconti55.

Fra le fonti narrative che non furono utilizzate dal Merula (ricordiamo infattiche l’umanista alessandrino, più che una storia di Milano, era stato incaricato dalMoro di comporre una storia dei Visconti, appunto le Antiquitates Vicecomitum, eche quindi nella propria opera egli accenna solo superficialmente a molti eventi

44 Fiamma,Manipulus florum, 617-618; Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 135.45 Fiamma, Manipulus florum, 650-651; Fiamma, Chronicon Maius, 718-719; Corio, Storia di Mila-no, I, 243-245.46 Fiamma, Chronicon Maius, 723-725; Fiamma, Chronica extravagans, 472-474; Corio, Storia diMilano, I, 240-241.47 Fiamma, Manipulus florum, 652-655; Fiamma, Chronicon Maius, 726-727: Corio, Storia di Mila-no, I, 247, 249.48 Fiamma,Manipulus florum, 657-658 e Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 285.49 Fiamma, Manipulus florum, 660 ss; Fiamma, Chronicon Maius, 743-744; Corio, Storia di Milano,292-293.50 Fiamma,Manipulus florum, 680-681 e Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 386.51 Fiamma,Manipulus florum, 689-690 e Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 429-432.52 Fiamma,Manipulus florum, 710-711 e Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 402-403.53 Cfr. per questo Gabotto-Badini Confalonieri, Vita di Giorgio Merula, 234-315.54 Cfr. Calco, Patria Historia, 6 della prefazione, 52, 127, 147-148, 213-214.55 Calco, Patria Historia, libro XVI, 353-354. Per la figura di Galvano Fiamma e per le sue opere sto-riche dedicate a Milano, si rinvia a: L. A. Ferrai, Le cronache di Galvano Fiamma e le fonti della Galva-gnana, 93-128; L. Grazioli, «Di alcune fonti storiche citate ed usate da fra Galvano Fiamma», Rivista discienze storiche, 4, I, (1907): 3-22, 118-154, 261-269, 355-369, 450-463, 4, II, 42-48; T. Kaeppeli, Scrip-tores ordinis praedicatorum, II, 6-10; «Flamma Galvaneus», RFHM, IV (Romae: Istituto storico italiano,1976), 463-465; P. Tomea, Tradizione apostolica e coscienza cittadina a Milano nel Medioevo. La leg-genda di S. Barnaba (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 1993), 112-127, 129-135, 161-162; mentre, per ogni piùapprofondito riferimento bibliografico si rimanda alla ricca voce di P. Tomea, «Fiamma Galvano», Di-zionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI), 48 (Roma: Istituto della enciclopedia italiana, 1997), 331-338.

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che, pur essendo pertinenti alla storia milanese, in specie a quella più antica, non loerano però ai fini della celebrazione della dinastia) e che invece lo furono dal Calcoe dal Corio, si possono invece segnalare alcune cronache: innanzi tutto la cronacadell’anonimo comasco, che riferisce gli eventi della guerra comasco-milanese fra1118 e 1127, usata più dal Corio che dal Calco56; poi la cronaca lodigiana di Ot-tone e Acerbo Morena, continuata da un anonimo, che tratta, da un punto di vistaimperiale, le lotte fra Federico I Barbarossa e i comuni lombardi degli anni 1153-116857: il Corio, che cita onorevolmente la propria fonte («li suoi grandissimi factirecitaremo secondo lo exemplo de dui nobili Lodegiani, l’uno chiamato Otho el’altro Acerbo, suo figliolo, cognominato Murena, li quali per quatordeci continuianni come nuncii imperiali seguitarono la corte de Federico e dicono essere inter-venuti a quelle cose di presente serano recitate»58) e che ricorda spesso anche i casidei due autori quali si desumono dalle loro opere, ebbe a fare un uso massiccio so-prattutto di Ottone Morena, che appare quasi unica fonte dello storico per il perio-do da lui trattato, vale a dire per gli anni 1153-116059; invece Acerbo Morena (la

56 Per mostrare quanto di quest’opera si servirono sia il Corio che il Calco, basterà riportare ciò chedice al proposito Giuseppe Maria Stampa nella prefazione di essa nell’edizione muratoriana: «Quod etCalchus et Corius hoc poema perlegerint, ipsa eorum historia testis est, quamvis alter, ut paucis multacomplecterentur, plura silentio praeterierit; alter autem, ne quid omitteret, saepe malus interpres a veri-tate aberrarit»: Anonimi Novocomensis Cumanus sive poema de bello et excidio urbis Comensis ab annoMCXVIII usque ad MCXXVII, RIS, 5 (Mediolani: In Aedibus Palatini, 1724), 405-406, e cfr. anche laprefazione del Muratori a pagina 403 (l’opera è stampata invece alle colonne 413-458). Il Corio, in ef-fetti, come segnala lo Stampa, servendosi di questo testo assai più del Calco, commise però alcuni erroridi traduzione, in specie per quanto concerne il nome dei luoghi; in realtà però, anche a detta degli edito-ri, il poema, scritto in esametri ma in una lingua rozza, risultava non di facilissima lettura. Perl’inserzione, tratta dall’anonimo, delle vicende belliche fra milanesi e comaschi fra 1118 e 1127, cfr.Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 144-166 e Calco, Historia Patria, 5 della prefazione (per il ricordodell’opera), e libro VII, 152-157: il Calco fa precedere la narrazione del conflitto da una bella descrizio-ne della regione comasca e della Valtellina. Per l’opera dell’anonimo comasco, testimone contempora-neo della sventura della propria patria, si rinvia a: P. Zerbi, «La chiesa ambrosiana di fronte alla Chiesaromana», Studi medievali, s. III, 4, (1963): 192-194; A. A. Settia, «I milanesi in guerra. Organizzazionemilitare e tecniche di combattimento», Milano e il suo territorio in età comunale (XI-XIII secolo) (Spo-leto: Presso la sede del centro studi, 1989), 265-289; complessivamente, oltre alle prefazioni del Mura-tori e dello Stampa, anche alla voce «Liber cumanus de bello Mediolanensium adversus Comenses»,RFHM, 7 (Romae: Istituto storico italiano, 1997), 250-251, cui si rimanda per ogni altro riferimento bi-bliografico. Dell’opera è stata curata nel 1985 una traduzione italiana a cura di Enrico Besta.57 Che il Corio si sia servito largamente dell’opera dei Morena e del loro continuatore era già statonotato, prima che dall’ultima curatrice della Patria Historia, Anna Morisi Guerra (cfr. Corio, Storia diMilano, 23-24 dell’introduzione), da Ferdinand Güterbock nella ricca introduzione all’edizione dei cro-nisti lodigiani: anzi, in quell’introduzione e nelle note al testo, egli cercò di identificare il codice delquale ebbe a servirsi lo storico milanese: cfr. O. Morena et Continuatorum, Historia Frederici I, MGH,Scriptores rerum Germanicarum, nova series in usum scholarum, 7 (Berolini: Gruyter, 1930), XXXI,XXXVI, XXXVIII-XXXIX, ove il Corio è ricordato sempre in compagnia del Calco, perché è assaiprobabile, secondo l’autore, che il manoscritto utilizzato dai due milanesi, nonostante un diverso uso,fosse lo stesso; l’introduzione è stata poi tradotta in italiano da Alessandro Caretta in Archivio storicolodigiano, 96, (1975): 55-91 (76, 79, 83, 86 per Corio e Calco).58 Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 167.59 Cfr. Morena Et Continuatorum, Historia Frederici I, 1-29 e Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 167-207.


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cui narrazione comprende gli anni 1161-1164) e l’anonimo (che copre gli anni1164-1168) costituiscono sempre la linea portante del racconto del Corio, che peròè integrato sempre di più da notizie provenienti da altre parti60. Anche la perdutacronaca di Antonio Retenate, la cui narrazione, analitica e minuta per i fatti internimilanesi e anche lombardi del tempo, copriva almeno il periodo 1266-1302, fu usa-ta in modo ampio sia dal Corio che dal Calco. Il Corio, sotto l’anno 1302 della suaopera, ricorda infatti come, alla fine del mese di novembre, era stato eletto notaiodel podestà di Milano «Antonio da Racenate, scriptore de le cose poche avantescripte per mi, Bernardino Corio, auctore de l’opera presente...»61. Il Calco, nellaprefazione della sua storia, affermava di essersi avvalso, fra gli scritti non usati dalMerula, di «Antonium Recenatem notarium mediolanensem, qui quadraginta anno-rum res suae memoriae complexus est», e, nel corpo della narrazione degli eventi,si rifaceva ancora a questo autore per un episodio, del 1266, relativo alla vendettadei Torriani contro i fuorusciti viscontei e all’intercessione di un figlio di NapoTorriani a favore di uno dei condannati, Bono da Tabiago, che l’aveva precedente-mente curato da una malattia62. Il Corio comunque cita verosimilmente allusiva-

60 Cfr. Morena Et Continuatorum, Historia Frederici I, 130-218 e Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 207-239.Per quanto riguarda l’uso che dei Morena e del loro continuatore fece il Calco, cfr. Calco, Historia Pa-tria, 5 della prefazione, e soprattutto Belloni, L’Historia Patria di Tristano Calco, 181, 187-188, 203,222-230. Per le figure dei lodigiani Ottone e Acerbo Morena, entrambi giudici imperiali, che ricopriro-no uffici in Lodi, e partigiani di Federico Barbarossa, e per le loro opere e per la continuazionedell’anonimo, che forse va identificato nel segretario di Acerbo, si rimanda a: F. Guterbock, «Introdu-zione» a Morena Et Continuatorum, Historia Frederici I, IX-XLV; F. Guterbock, «Ottone e AcerboMorena», Archivio storico Italiano, serie VII, 13, (1930): 61-99; A. Caretta, «Nell’ottavo centenario diOttone e Acerbo Morena», Archivio storico lodigiano, 96, (1975): 3-91 (che offre la traduzione in italia-no, oltre che della citata introduzione, anche di altri due saggi dello storico tedesco); G. M. Cantarella,«I ritratti di Acerbo Morena», Milano e il suo territorio in età comunale, 990-1010; per gli ultimi ag-giornamenti bibliografici si veda «Morena Otto et Acerbus», RFHM, 7 (Romae: Istituto storico italiano,1997), 625-626. Una traduzione italiana dell’opera compare nel volume Il Barbarossa in Lombardia.Comuni ed imperatore nelle cronache contemporanee, eds. F. Cardini, G. Andenna e P. Ariatta (Nova-ra: Europia, 1987), 35-157.61 Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 575.62 Calco, Historia Patria, 7 della prefazione, e libro XVI, 341 (lo stesso episodio è raccontato da Co-rio, Storia di Milano, I, 445). G. Giulini, Memorie spettanti alla storia al governo ed alla descrizionedella città e campagna di Milano ne’ secoli bassi, IV, (Milano: Colombo, 1855 [1773]), 569-570, ricor-dando queste tre citazioni, stimava che la perduta opera del Retenate dovesse coprire all’incirca gli anni1266-1302 e sosteneva che la narrazione del Corio e del Calco, per quegli anni, proprio perché si avvaledi questo scritto, risulta più attendibile e verosimile rispetto a quella di Stefanardo da Vimercate e diGalvano Fiamma, che invece non lo conobbero (cfr. anche le osservazioni, sulla simiglianza per questianni del racconto di Corio e Calco, dello stesso Giulini, Memorie, IV, 580, 608, 699-700, 705, 817-818).Le annotazioni del Giulini sono state sostanzialmente confermate da G. Biscaro, «Note biografiche didue antichi cronisti milanesi. II: Antonio da Retenate», Archivio storico lombardo, 34, (1907): 393-398:questi, sulla base di una nuova documentazione proveniente dalle pergamente di conventi e monasterimilanesi, ricostruisce l’attività professionale del notaio milanese, e afferma che dovette nascere verso il1240 e morire intorno al 1320; per quanto riguarda la sua opera storica, sostiene che essa doveva essereuna specie di cronaca puntuale degli avvenimenti giornalieri relativi a Milano e alla Lombardia del tem-po, con un taglio, nonostante le umili origini dell’autore, non troppo favorevole ai Torriani, e che essaprobabilmente cominciava con il 1258, finendo invece, come già voleva il Giulini, nel 1302.

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mente un’altra volta il Retenate, sotto l’anno 1305, quando ricorda un tentativo dicongiura antitorriana, cui interveniva anche «il notaro de Turriani», il quale in unsecondo tempo tradì i compagni rivelando tutto ai signori di Milano63.

Nei casi di queste ultime tre cronache (anonimo comasco, Morena, Retenate),pur essendo in genere diverso il metodo di utilizzo dei testi, è quasi certo che i co-dici di tali opere di cui si servirono Corio e Calco fossero i medesimi. Anche al-meno un’altra nuova fonte, rispetto al Merula, il Chronicon regiense del monacodel tardo ‘300 Pietro Gazata, il quale, sulla scorta di un precedente scritto compiutodall’avo Sagacino Levalossi, narrò le principali vicende italiane e in particolar mo-do emiliane e reggiane fra il 1272 e il 1388, fu utilizzata parimenti dal Calco e, inmisura molto maggiore, dal Corio. Vicenda intricata quella di questa cronaca. Essacosì come si conosce, appare divisa nettamente in tre parti: una prima parte, che vadall’800 al 1303, appare rielaborata da Pietro Gazata sulla base di alcune fonti mis-cellanee e annali di Reggio che erano in possesso dell’avo Sagacino Levalossi; laseconda parte, che copre gli anni 1303-1353, fu dovuta al notaio e avo del GazataSagacino Levalossi, il quale, vissuto a Reggio fra il 1272 e il 1357, annotò giornal-mente, e forse in volgare, i fatti accaduti non solo a Reggio ma anche in Italia perquegli anni; la terza parte infine, che è relativa agli anni 1353-1388, è dovuta allapenna di Pietro Gazata. Ma questi non si limitò soltanto a continuare l’operadell’avo, ma interpolò anche la seconda parte, che inoltre perse nel 1371 in occa-sione del sacco di Reggio e che poi recuperò mutila, con notizie personali e ag-giuntive, forse inoltre traducendola in latino; in ogni caso l’ultima parte, la terza,presenta delle notevoli lacune fra 1355 e 1372 e fra 1378 e 1382, dovute al forzatoesilio da Reggio di Pietro per la distruzione del monastero di S. Prospero ad operadi Feltrino Gonzaga. Il Muratori, pubblicando l’opera nel 1731 (e la sua rimane an-cora oggi l’unica edizione), avvertiva che il manoscritto utilizzato era mutiloall’inizio (partiva in effetti dal 1272), a metà, per le segnalate lacune, e alla fine; inseguito, in base ad altri codici, fu rinvenuta la parte più antica dell’opera, relativaagli anni 800-1272, e vari studiosi formularono l’ipotesi che la cronaca fosse pro-seguita da Pietro fino al 139564. Il Corio, che cita alcune volte nella sua opera

63 Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 579. In ogni caso, come faceva già rilevare G. Giulini, Memorie, IV,818, quello che si può dedurre della cronaca del Retenate lo si ricava oggi solo dalle vicende di queglianni narrate dal Corio e dal Calco, in misura superiore nel primo rispetto al secondo. Del Retenate, sullabase delle citazioni del Calco, aveva già tracciato una breve scheda Ph. Argelati, Biblioteca scriptorumMediolanensium, I/2 (Mediolani: In Aedibus Palatini, 1745), 1197.64 Per i due autori del Chronicon Regiense e per il problema della sua compilazione, si rimanda a: F.E. Comani, «Il terzo autore del ‘Chronicon Regiense’», Studi storici, 12, (1903): 3-39, 141-169; G. Ber-toni, «Un nuovo codice del ‘Chronicon Regiense’ dei Gazata», Archivio muratoriano, I, (1913): 226-227; A. Cerlini, «Fra Salimbene e le cronache attribuite ad Alberto Milioli. II. I codici e la ricostruzionedel ‘Chronicon Regiense’», Bullettino dell’Istituto storico Italiano, 48, (1932): 67-104, 106-130; A.Cerlini, «Le ‘gesta Lombardiae’ di Sagacio Levalossi e Pietro Della Gazata», Bullettino dell’Istituto sto-rico italiano, 55, (1941): 1-206; «Gazata Pietro», RFHM, IV (Romae: Istituto storico italiano 1976),654; O. Rombaldi, «Della Gazata Pietro» in DBI, 37 (Roma: Istituto della enciclopedia italiana, 1989),5-8; P. Rossi, «Levalossi Sagacino, Della Gazata Pietro», Repertorio della cronachistica emiliano-ro-magnola (secoli IX-XV) (Roma: Istituto storico italiano per il Medioevo, 1992), 234-238, al quale ulti-mo si rinvia per ulteriore bibliografia.


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Sagacio e Pietro Gazata, che dice suo nipote e continuatore65, probabilmente si av-valse di un apografo perduto dell’opera, che non doveva essere molto diverso dalmanoscritto utilizzato dal Muratori: infatti lo storico milanese, in un punto del suolavoro66, pone come inizio del Chronicon il 1277, e perciò non conobbe quasi sicu-ramente la prima parte della sua fonte; inoltre si può affermare che egli utilizzòquasi solamente la parte dovuta a Sagacio Levalossi, poiché, anche se,sull’esempio del testo che aveva sotto gli occhi, ricorda l’inizio della narrazione diPietro67, di quest’ultima, avendo notato la grossa lacuna fra il 1355 e il 1371, nonne fece che un modesto uso, non riprendendola probabilmente più per gli ultimi an-ni del ‘300. Il fatto poi che nello stesso ultimo passo citato lo storico ricordi Saga-cio come vecchio di 91 anni (mentre il corrispondente brano del Muratori, sottol’anno 1353, lo dice invero di anni 81) sembra indicare che il codice usato dalCorio sia lo stesso visto dal Calco: infatti anche questi, nella prefazione della suaopera, menziona Sagacio Levalossi come nonagenario68.

Il Corio ebbe a fare un notevole uso, forse anche per la precisione cronologicacon la quale vengono annotati i singoli eventi, del Chronicon regiense; si segna-lano qui alcuni passi fra i più evidenti ad un primo raffronto, tenendo anche pre-sente che quasi tutti i fatti relativi a Reggio Emilia, Parma, Bologna e alla Ro-magna derivano al Corio per la prima metà del trecento da questa fonte: creazionedi Ugolino Rossi di Parma primo capitano del popolo di Reggio Emilia; conquistaad opera di Obizzo d’Este di Modena e di Reggio; fatti di Giberto da Correggio ediscordie per l’elezione papale del 1314; morte di Giberto da Correggio; vicendedei perugini contro Spoleto; occupazione di Borgo San Donnino da parte di Azzo-ne Visconti e vicende di Passerino Bonacolsi a Modena; incoronazione di Filippodi Valois a re di Francia, uccisione di Passerino Bonacolsi, corte di Cangrande Del-la Scala; battaglia fra Filippo di Francia e i fiamminghi; presa di Treviso da partedi Cangrande Della Scala e sua morte; entrata di Giovanni di Boemia a Reggio e aModena; vicende di Giovanni di Boemia; inondazione del fiume Arno; dedizionedi Parma e Reggio ai Della Scala e poi ai Gonzaga; vicende varie della guerraveneto-scaligera del 1336-1337 e morte di Pietro Rossi; creazione di Simone Boc-canegra a doge di Genova e corte gonzaghesca a Mantova; vendita di Parma daparte di Azzo da Correggio al marchese Obizzo d’Este; sconfitta francese controgli inglesi e morte di Giovanni di Boemia; inizio dell’ascesa di Cola di Rienzo esuccessione di Napoli; pestilenza del 1348; ribellione di Faenza; morte di Obizzod’Este; presa di Verona ad opera di Fregnano Della Scala e sua uccisione al ritornodi Cangrande II; versi-epitaffio in onore dell’arcivescovo Giovanni Visconti69. Il

65 Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 719, 767, 780.66 Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 767.67 Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 780.68 Calco, Patria Historia, prefazione, 6.69 P. Gazata, Chronicon regiense ab anno MCCLXXII usque ad MCCCLXXXVIII, RIS, 18 (Mediolani:In Aedibus Palatini, 1731), 9, 12-13, 26-27, 32, 35, 36, 39-40, 41-42, 45, 47-49, 51-53, 55-56, 59, 63, 65-66, 69, 71, 73-74, 76, e Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 505, 536, 629-630, 671, 697, 704-705, 711-712, 714,718-719, 726, 728-730, 733, 735-736, 739, 741-742, 747-748, 756, 762-766, 771, 778, 783-786, 788.

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Calco conobbe invece senza dubbio il Gazata, come si deduce dalla precisa men-zione che ne fa nella prefazione; però ne fece un uso minore nella sua opera, ancheperché l’umanista termina il proprio lavoro con il 1322, mentre gli annali di Reggioiniziano ad essere più particolareggiati con l’inizio del ‘30070.

Anche per quanto riguarda la documentazione inserita o comunque annotatanelle due opere del Calco e del Corio, talvolta si fa fatica a credere che gli esem-plari consultati dai due storici, e da entrambi citati, fossero differenti. Troppi, e inparticolar modo relativamente alla narrazione degli eventi del XIII secolo, sono in-fatti i parallelismi che si riscontrano nei due testi per poter veramente credere che lefonti narrative e la documentazione utilizzate siano indipendenti: ciò naturalmente aprescindere dal diverso tono conferito nella narrazione dalla diversa personalità deidue autori: molto più antiquaria e critica verso le testimonianze che provengono dalpassato, quella del Calco, più corriva e meno sorvegliata nei riguardi dellatradizione, ma anche forse più artisticamente letteraria, in diversi episodi, quella delCorio.

Ad un primo superficiale raffronto, si possono rilevare alcuni punti che sonocomuni ai due storici, e che soprattutto rimandano ad una documentazione analoga:ricordo della fondazione, posta dal Calco nel 1118, dal Corio nel 1119, del cenobiodi S. Giacomo di Pontida ad opera di S. Bernardo, con accenno all’esenzione rice-vuta71; privilegio della cittadinanza milanese e di immunità concesso nell’agosto1160 dai milanesi agli abitanti di Erba ed Orsenigo a ricompensa del loro interven-to contro il Barbarossa nella battaglia di Carcano72; fondazione del cenobio diBernate per volontà, secondo il Calco, di Lucio III, secondo il Corio, di Urbano III,e giurispatronato ad opera della famiglia Crivelli73; apertura nel 1232, ad opera delpodestà Pietro Vento, della porta detta Algisia, cui venne poi messo il nome di Por-ta Beatrice da Ludovico Sforza74; nuovo palazzo pubblico fatto erigere dal podestàOldrado da Tresseno nel 1233, ricordo dell’immagine del podestà scolpita a caval-lo, inizio della costruzione della chiesa di S. Francesco75; origine delle fazioniguelfe e ghibelline76; arrivo dei carmelitani a Milano nel 126877. Il Calco inoltre

70 Cfr. Calco, Historia Patria, 6 della prefazione, e libro XIX, 420 e Calco, Residua, libro XXI, 17 ss.71 Calco, Historia Patria, libro VI, 139; Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 140.72 Calco, Historia Patria, libro X, 204-205; Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 204, 206, 499. Cfr. per tale fattoG. Biscaro, «La battaglia di Carcano e i privilegi concessi dal comune di Milano agli abitanti di Erba e diOrsenigo nell’agosto 1160», Archivio Storico Lombardo, 36, (1909): 305-308, 310-313 e Gli atti del co-mune di Milano fino all’anno MCCXVI, ed. C. Manaresi (Milano: Capriolo e Massimino, 1919), 68-69.73 Calco, Historia Patria, libro XII, 253; Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 247.74 Calco, Historia Patria, libro XIII, 282; Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 241, 363.75 Calco, Historia Patria, libro XIII, 282; Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 363.76 Calco, Historia Patria, libro XIV, 296, sotto l’anno 1242; Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 383, sottol’anno 1243.77 Calco, Historia Patria, libro XIV, 303; Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 463. Inoltre Giulini, Memorie,IV, 164-165, afferma che il Calco e il Corio pubblicano una stessa lettera scritta nel gennaio 1209 daOttone IV ai milanesi per esortarli ad accogliere il patriarca di Aquiileia, suo legato per l’Italia: in realtàperò non si tratta della stessa missiva in quanto a testo, anche se certo non solo il significato della cartaè il medesimo, ma essa coincide in quanto al tempo: il Calco infatti dice che la lettera in questione ven-


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conosceva una buona parte degli statuti cittadini, come si deduce dalle citazioniche ne fa, che il Corio pubblica nella sua opera per il XIII secolo78.

Questi che si indicano sono naturalmente pochi, e di necessità, incompleti ele-menti di raffronto e solo una estesa e capillare ricerca fra i tre testi e le fonti utiliz-zate permetterebbe di avere un panorama più chiaro al riguardo e confermare origettare tali supposizioni. Il Calco del resto, che rivide e reimpostò la propria operadurante gli anni della dominazione francese (infatti, egli, secondo il Moro, avrebbedovuto solo continuare e portare a compimento le fatiche del Merula, quindi com-piere non una storia di Milano ma una storia dei Visconti) ebbe a servirsi, oltre aquelle utilizzate dal Merula e a quelle che ebbe in comune con il Corio, di ulteriorifonti, e la sua storia è, al contrario di quella del collega, tanto più apprezzabile perl’età tardo antica, alto medievale e per l’età del Barbarossa quanto l’altra lo è in-vece per l’epoca successiva e in special modo per il trecento e per il quattrocento79.Però a mio avviso è innegabile che il Corio, pur componendo un’opera in linguavolgare, avviata verosimilmente per sua iniziativa e indipendentemente dal governoducale, nel momento in cui ebbe a godere del favore del Moro e a beneficiaredell’apertura degli archivi e delle biblioteche del dominio, si venne a trovare, pro-prio perché in definitiva identico era il progetto ducale per tutte le tre opere, quasi

ne scritta ad Augusta nel gennaio e che fu recapitata nel marzo successivo dal patriarca di Aquileia,quando questi si recò a Milano (Calco, Historia Patria, libro XIII, 268); il Corio, dopo avere fatto men-zione nell’anno precedente dell’ambasciata dei milanesi all’Imperatore, riferisce il testo della lettera chevenne consegnata ai milanesi dal patriarca di Aquileia nel marzo 1209, pur non dicendo nulla in quantoal tempo in cui fu scritta (Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 303-305).78 Per altre analogie fra i due storici, relative al XIII secolo, e per qualche differenza intorno ad alcunifatti marginali, cfr. G. Giulini, Memorie, IV, 166, 209, 318, 459, 474, 522-523, 533, 544, 552, 555, 562,567, 579-580, 583, 700-701, 703, 729.79 Fu in epoca francese, durante la quale egli ebbe l’agio di ricoprire l’incarico di segretario regio, cheil Calco ampliò le ricerche per l’età antica e scrisse la parte, comprendente ben cinque libri, e considera-ta il suo fiore all’occhiello, dedicata ai tempi del Barbarossa; ma anche il resto dell’opera, benché sfrut-tasse una documentazione accumulata in gran parte all’epoca del Moro, fu rielaborata probabilmentenegli anni di Luigi XII: credo che anche la decisione di rifare da capo il lavoro del Merula e di demolirele leggende viscontee contenute nella sua opera, non sia indipendente dalle mutate contingenze storiche:cfr. per tutto ciò Belloni, L’Historia Patria di Tristano Calco, 179-219. Fra le fonti narrative che il Cal-co cita nella prefazione dell’Historia (Calco, Historia Patria, 4-7), il Corio non usò certamente Arnolfo,Sire Raul, la maggior parte di quelle attinenti all’epoca del Barbarossa (salvo i Morena e, forse, Giaco-mo Doria), il processo fatto ai cospiratori della congiura contro Pietro da Verona, probabilmente Rolan-dino da Padova, il Bruni, il Platina; qualche dubbio ho personalmente, benché non abbia fatto dei ri-scontri, riguardo a Ricobaldo da Ferrara e a quelli che il Calco chiama come annali genovesi e parmen-si. È noto che del Calco, a partire dall’agosto 1508, quando risulta ancora segretario regio, non si ha piùalcuna notizia, e che comunemente la sua scomparsa si pone appunto fra questa data e l’ottobre 1516:cfr. Belloni, Tristano Calco e gli scritti inediti, 298. Si segnala qui che un interessante documento nota-rile da me rinvenuto permette di affermare con sicurezza che lo storico era già defunto nel gennaio1515: in quel mese infatti la vedova Susanna Calcaterra, nominata tutrice dell’unico figlio Giovan Fran-cesco, stipulava una serie di atti patrimoniali; in uno di questi compare addirittura l’inventario, ricchissi-mo, della casa milanese del Calco: fra i molti oggetti elencati, vale la pena di ricordare i «libri IIII ne lostudio, volumi tra picholi e grandi numero 60», purtroppo, senza una più illuminante annotazione; daldocumento si ricava inoltre che il Calco era deceduto, forse tempo prima, senza fare alcun testamento:Archivio di Stato di Milano (ASMi), Notarile, filza 6435, Pietro Martire Pusterla, 11 gennaio 1515.

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sullo stesso piano in cui era stato il Merula e in cui si trovava il Calco, tanto dapotere esaminare le carte del primo e suddividersi la documentazione, che manmano si rendeva disponibile anche per la sollecitazione del governo, con il secondo.Il problema delle fonti, che, come indica Anna Morisi Guerra, è uno dei maggioriinterrogativi del Corio80, penso dunque che vada in parte analizzato in questa di-rezione, e ciò tanto maggiormente se si considera che, a partire dalle vicende delXIII secolo e poi fino al termine dell’opera, lo storico fa uso, di volta in volta in-serendola, traducendola o riassumendola, di una vasta documentazione quasi sem-pre di prima mano e di matrice a volte statutaria a volte diplomatico-cancelleresca,che ben difficilmente egli avrebbe potuto esaminare senza godere dell’aperturadegli archivi pubblici. Il testo del Corio poi appare importante di riflesso per la ri-costituzione ideale di quelle cronache perdute che vengono ricordate dallo storicocome sue fonti: si può qui fare l’esempio, oltre che della già citata opera di AntonioRetenate, anche della cronaca del parmense Giovanni Balducchino, ripetutamentecitata dal Corio nella narrazione delle vicende fra il 1360 e il 138581 e di quella diAntonio Vimercati, autore di due scritti perduti sulle vicende milanesi dell’iniziodel XV secolo82.

Curiosamente l’opera del Corio, che, rispetto alle altre due, quella del Merula equella del Calco, che erano state poste sotto l’egida ducale, era certamente la menopretenziosa, fu l’unica che, nonostante il mutare delle contingenze politiche, venne

80 Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 22 dell’introduzione.81 Il Corio cita per la prima volta nella sua Historia Giovannni Balducchino a proposito della sua te-stimonianza circa la calata in Italia delle truppe ungheresi nel 1360; in seguito lo ricorda parecchie altrevolte, sempre come testimone di vista, fino al 1385: cfr. Corio, Storia di Milano, I, 803, 807, 809, 813,834, 836, 840, 871, 882. I. Affò, Memorie degli scrittori e letterati parmigiani, II (Parma: ducale tipo-grafia, 1789), 94-96, del Balducchino fornisce le notizie ricavabili in base alle citazioni del Corio, soloaggiungendo che, in base ad un documento del 1393, egli era in quell’anno vicario del podestà di Pia-cenza: questa notizia comunque si completa bene con quanto detto dal Corio, il quale aveva più volte ri-cordato il Balducchino come funzionario visconteo. Secondo L. A. Ferrai, Gli Annales Mediolanenses ei cronisti lombardi del secolo XIV, 293-297, la perduta cronaca del Balducchino fu sunteggiata e in par-te inserita anche nell’ultima parte della già citata compilazione degli Annales Mediolanenses; il Ferraisostiene inoltre che si trattava di uno scrittore informato e vivace narratore degli eventi contemporanei,vivo ancora nel 1402, quando era giudice dei malefici in Milano, e che il Corio, come appare chiara-mente da diverse citazioni, conobbe direttamente, non attraverso gli Annales, la cronaca del Balducchi-no. In effetti l’utilizzo del Balducchino nell’opera coriana appare anche evidente per gli anni che vannodal 1360 al 1385 dalle frequenti allusioni a fatti parmigiani.82 Il Corio cita la testimonianza di Antonio Vimercati, «che in quegli giorni per causidico praticava alconcilio de iusticia», a proposito dei torbidi accaduti in Milano immediatamente dopo l’uccisione del du-ca Giovanni Maria Visconti: cfr. Corio, Storia di Milano, II, 1028. Ph. Argelati, Bibliotheca scriptorum,I/2, 1660, ricordando la testimonianza del Corio, sostiene che Antonio, avvocato, era figlio del senatoreducale Taddeo e che scrisse due opere storiche perdute, rispettivamente sull’uccisione del duca GiovanniMaria Visconti, e sui fatti del suo tempo. Se il personaggio in questione si identifica, come è probabile,con quel Giovan Antonio Vimercati che richiedeva da Pier Candido Decembrio, durante la signoria diFilippo Maria Visconti, la Laudatio urbis Mediolanensis, egli intrattenne anche una corrispondenza epi-stolare con l’umanista lombardo, del quale il figlio Ottavio era amicissimo: cfr. M. Borsa, «Pier CandidoDecembrio e l’umanesimo in Lombardia», Archivio storico lombardo, 20, (1893): 17-18, 34, 49; V. Zac-caria, «L’epistolario di Pier Candido Decembrio», Rinascimento, 3, (1952): 103-104, 117. Per altre fontistoriche usate dal Corio cfr. Meschini, Bernardino Corio storico, 142 nota, 155 nota, 156, 167 nota.


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condotta fino ai suoi tempi e che riuscì a vedere la luce vivente l’autore: la mag-nifica edizione del 1503 del Minuziano, che probabilmente portò al dissesto fi-nanziario lo scrittore, era dedicata al cardinale Ascanio Sforza, fratello del Moro,allora in prigionia in Francia, e conservava, nonostante il tono severo e le ram-pogne che l’autore muoveva ai suoi duchi responsabili, a suo giudizio, dellecalamità d’Italia di fine secolo, una disposizione d’animo sinceramente favorevolealla dinastia, pur nell’ora della sconfitta83.

Ho già indicato in altri studi quelle che sono le caratteritistiche principali delCorio come scrittore di storia: fedeltà alla tradizione municipale milanese, con-cezione alta ed eroica dell’agire umano, meticolosità nel ricopiare iscrizioni e do-cumenti, la tendenza ad affidarsi ciecamente alle fonti di cui si serviva, l’emergere,nel corso della narrazione dei vari eventi descritti, di un sentimento di italianità e diun senso di avversione verso le genti straniere, un forte legame con le dinastie vi-scontea e sforzesca84. Certamente l’opera coriana, sponsorizzata almeno in parte daLudovico Sforza, se pubblicata all’apice delle fortune sforzesche, si sarebbe con-clusa con una marcata celebrazione dell’età ludoviciana, così ricca di fastigi lette-rari e artistici85. Ma, edita quando ormai da tre anni il duca mecenate era prigio-niero e il nuovo dominio francese gravava sul ducato di Milano, per quanto con-servi, forse dimenticate nel lavoro di revisione imposto dagli eventi, non piccoletracce della celebrazione encomiastica a favore degli Sforza86, doveva mutaresubitamente la primitiva concezione ottimistica della storia. Ecco che, certamenteassegnabili dopo il crollo sforzesco di fine secolo e rimodellate proprio in virtù deitragici eventi del 1499-1500, appaiono le pagine che descrivono la calata di CarloVIII in Italia e il primo introdursi delle armi francesi in Italia. Ed è certamente pereffetto della caduta sforzesca che venne rivista e reimpostata almeno l’ultima partedell’opera e che si acuì il tono antistraniero del racconto così bene colto dalla criti-ca storiografica, che nota come il Corio sia il primo storico italiano, insieme alfiorentino Bernardo Rucellai, a comprendere l’importanza dei fatti del 1494-1495ai fini delle «calamità d’Italia» e dei successivi eventi della penisola87. E certo la

83 Cfr. per la stampa dell’opera, i debiti, l’enigmatica fine dell’autore, Meschini, Uno storico umani-sta, 138-147, 151-227.84 Meschini, Bernardino Corio storico del Medioevo, 131-136, e 138-173 per l’analisi delle varie par-ti dell’opera. Si vedano anche E. Cochrane, Historians and Historiograpy, 117-118 e G. Soldi Rondini-ni, «Spunti per un’interpretazione della Storia di Milano di Bernardino Corio», in G. Soldi Rondinini,Saggi di storia e storiografia visconteo-sforzesche (Bologna: Cappelli, 1984), 205-220.85 È certamente da ricordare al proposito il suggestivo e noto quadro della corte sforzesca nel momen-to del suo massimo fulgore inserito proprio all’inizio dell’ultima parte dell’opera: B. Corio, Storia diMilano, II, 1479-1481.86 Per alcuni dei passi che ci sembrano rivelatori si rinvia a Meschini, Bernardino Corio storico delMedioevo, 120-121 (per Ludovico Sforza come dedicatario originale dell’opera), 153-155 (per gli elogidi tipo encomiastico a Francesco Sforza).87 E. Fueter, Storia della storiografia moderna, I, traduzione italiana a cura di A. Spinelli (Napoli:Ricciardi, 1943), 55-56; F. Gilbert, Machiavelli e Guicciardini. Pensiero politico e storiografia a Firen-ze nel Cinquecento, traduzione italiana di F. Salvatorelli (Torino: Einaudi, 1970), 220-222, 226; Cochra-ne, Historians and Historiography, 118.

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Storia di Milano, progettata nel quadro della celebrazione visconteo-sforzesca inatto alla fine del XV secolo, se giunge a raccontare i fatti che posero fine alla di-nastia per la quale il Corio scriveva, termina tuttavia con l’ammissione di una scon-fitta, che intacca anche la serena visione che l’autore aveva della storia, e che certa-mente contribuisce a rendere tragiche e intimamente vissute le pagine finalidell’opera88.

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RESENTMENT AND HISTORY IN THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT

Neil Hargraves

I. RESENTMENT AND SCOTTISH HISTORY

The Scottish Enlightenment is usually associated with the idea of sociability, itsvery conviviality a crucial component of its project to modernize Scottish society.The Scottish literati hoped to provide a model for social relations that would rootout the coarseness and bellicosity that, they believed, had too often characterizedScotland’s past. Yet the Scottish Enlightenment’s emphasis on a philosophy ofsociability was not without a pained awareness of the limitations of thatsociability1. This was most obvious in the attempt to write narrative history.Indeed, for many the Scottish past was a storehouse of memorialized conflict, andhad a power to perpetuate a sense of grievance and tribal hatred that seemed tothreaten to undo the entire project of the Scottish Enlightenment. In choosing towrite his enormously popular History of Scotland (1759) largely in a language ofresentment, William Robertson was openly confronting one of the key problems ofthe Scottish Enlightenment: the extent to which the mere recital of Scottish historyfostered factional resentment in contemporary society, and therefore served toundermine the culture of politesse and magnanimity that the literati had striven tocreate. The use by Robertson, and to a lesser extent David Hume in his History ofEngland (1754-1762), of resentment as a signifier of character and motive can tooeasily be dismissed as a linguistic tic or a barren convention. Robertson’s prose inparticular has sometimes been criticized as too abstract and formulaic2. With theexception of Gibbon, the language that composed much of eighteenth-centuryhistorical narrative has received little sustained attention, too often overlooked orassumed to be lacking in interest. Yet a study of the actual workings of resentmentas a passion in these narratives can help to disclose a more complex and nuancedpicture of the relation between passions, motives and historical action. This paperwill argue that it constituted a deliberate and sustained attempt to link historicalnarrative with the emerging study of resentment as a passion in the work of socialtheorists such as Lord Kames and Adam Smith, and thereby to enrich it. Moreimportantly, in addressing the question of resentment historians were seeking tomake sense of one of the most disturbing forces in human history, and one that in

1 I. Hont, «The language of sociability and commerce: Samuel Pufendorf and the theoreticalfoundations of the ‘4-stages Theory’», in Pagden, A., ed., The Languages of Political Theory in EarlyModern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 253-276.2 To a modern critic such as James McKelvey he is simply «pompous and overblown»: «WilliamRobertson and Lord Bute», Studies in Scottish Literature, 6, (1968-1969): 238-247.


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the eighteenth-century might still pose a serious threat to the order and progressthat the Scottish Enlightenment championed.

Narrative history was problematic to an eighteenth-century audience for anumber of reasons. Its affective quality – its ability to excite passion – wasobviously intended to be used for good effect: to stimulate virtue, or patriotism, orin the more modish formula of eighteenth-century historiography, sympathy andcompassion. It was a profoundly moral function of the historian to arouse strongfeeling in the reader. Yet this could lead the historian into falsification or excessiverhetoricisation. Mark Phillips has shown the extent to which the appeal ofeighteenth-century historical narratives lay in what the novelist Elizabeth Hamiltontermed the «instructive portrait of the human passions» that they provided. In thisway, history was analogous not only to classical rhetoric but also to the emergingforms of the novel and of biography, especially in its interest in the delineation ofcharacter3. J. Paul Hunter has noted that in the case of biography, the developmenttowards more complex and interior representations of character was inexorable,«chronicling movements of the mind, offering deep explanations of behaviour».History underwent a similar progress. Chantal Grell has made the point, echoingindeed Adam Smith in his Lectures on Belles-Lettres, that it was the novelistic orquasi-biographical models of historical composition, such as Tacitus and Sallust,that appealed most to an eighteenth-century audience4. The language of characteremployed by the historian was often strikingly similar to that used by the novelist,and likewise grounded in a precise study of the passions: thus, the critic HenrySteuart wrote of Sallust that his work constituted

an attempt to penetrate the human heart, and to explore, in its recesses, the true springs, that actuate theconduct of men. By a study of character, he perceived that habits and propensities might be traced totheir source; that secret motives, and busy passions, might often be seen at work, and the whole humanmind, as it were laid open and anatomized, by the acute observer5.

Historical characterisation was increasingly not merely self-enclosedportraiture, but was instead communicated through «a language of unseen innermotivations», as Frank Shuffelton has described it, which contrasted with the‘language of the external world’, but served also to illuminate it6. The eighteenth-century historian faced the problem of how to participate legitimately in the newmodes of characterisation, without forfeiting the essential identity of the historian

3 M. Phillips, Society and Sentiment: Genres of Historical Writing in Britain, 1740-1820 (PrincetonUniversity Press, 2000), esp. 103-128.4 J. P. Hunter, Before Novels: The Cultural Contexts of Eighteenth Century English Fiction (NewYork, 1990), 346. C. Grell, «Le Dix-huitième siècle et l’antiquite en France 1680-1789», Studies onVoltaire and the Eighteenth Century, 330 (1995): 992-999.5 H. Steuart,Works of Sallust (London, 1806), 1:274.6 F. Shuffelton, «Endangered History: Character and Narrative in early American HistoricalWriting», Eighteenth Century Theory and Interpretation, 34, 3, (1993): 221-242. On the subject ofcharacter and historical narrative, see N. Hargraves, «Revelation of Character in Eighteenth CenturyHistoriography and William Robertson’s History of the Reign of Charles V», Eighteenth Century Life,27, 2, (2003): 23-48.


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with truth. Certainly, there was a concern, reiterated throughout the criticalwritings of the period, that history was becoming corrupted by the techniques offiction, and that this new history of motives gave too much scope for thepenetrative talents of the historian to invent an unsubstantiated internalisednarrative of motives7.

Historians’ representations of character and motive frequently led to theassumption of starkly partisan positions, a tendency felt to be deeply damaging toBritish political culture. Gibbon, with the bitter dispute concerning Hume’s Historyof England very much in mind, expressed his own objections to the writing ofmodern British history entirely in terms of the problems presented by therepresentation of character8. One answer to this problem was the cultivation of afastidious impartiality. Yet this too could be problematic. In his essay «On thePopulousness of Ancient Nations» Hume expressed the view that the historianhimself should naturally both feel and express resentment, as well as prompt it:

APPIAN’S history of their civil wars contains the most frightful picture of massacres, proscriptions, andforfeitures, that ever was presented to the world. What pleases most, in that historian, is, that he seemsto feel a proper resentment of these barbarous proceedings; and talks not with that provoking coolnessand indifference, which custom had produced in many of the GREEK historians9.

Hume’s nice irony, «a provoking coolness and indifference», is intended toshow that the neutral style of absolute impartiality and moral abdication did notproduce the desired effect of quietening the reader, or removing his prejudices.Robertson made a similar point in upbraiding Knox and Buchanan for lacking theindignation natural to a historian in recording the crimes of the past, although thiscould be partly excused by contextualizing them as part of a society of unrefinedmanners, lacking modern sensibility and humanity10. Thus, while resentment wasin some senses an unrefined, primitive passion, properly belonging to a disorderedpast, conversely a restrained and proper resentment towards the injustices of thepast could also be the signifier of modernity, and a crucial duty for the historian.

Every critic was aware that the power of affect could be used negatively, todistort and manipulate. Then it could be accused of rousing party feeling, offuelling the resentments and discords of the Scottish past. This was what madeScottish narrative history so particularly combustible; it was a tradition which,according to David Allan, «remained, at bottom, a vehicle for factional bickeringand the fiercest polemic»11. This was especially true in accounts of the

7 On the sceptical critique of historical narrative in the eighteenth-century, see N. Hargraves, «TheLanguage of Character and the Nature of Events in the Historical Narratives of William Robertson»,Ph.D. Dissertation (University of Edinburgh, 1999), 74-98.8 E. Gibbon, Miscellaneous Works with Memoirs of his Life and Writings (London, 1837), 69.9 D. Hume, Essays Moral, Political and Literary, ed. E. F. Miller (Liberty Fund, Indianapolis,1987), 414.10 Robertson, Scotland, 1:314-315.11 D. Allan, Virtue, Learning and the Scottish Enlightenment (Edinburgh, 1993), 165.

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Reformation period that Robertson tackled12, although it remained a constant in allScottish history. The playwright John Home had Lady Randolph, his femaleprotagonist in Douglas, lament the way in which «implacable resentment» hadstamped itself irremovably on her features. Walter Scott, in the preface to OldMortality, picked up this same phrase in another passage from Douglas as part ofPeter Pattieson’s plea for mutual understanding between the descendants of theCovenanters and Episcopalians:

‘O rake not up the ashes of our fathers!Implacable resentment was their crime,And grievous has the expiation been’13.

The ‘enlightened’ narrative histories of William Robertson and David Humeattempted not so much to mediate between conflicting partial accounts as tosupervene, to raise the level of historical writing far beyond this grubby politicalsquabbling and provide Scotland (and Britain) with authoritative and politesyntheses of their pasts. Since the writing of history could so easily accused ofperpetuating resentment, this enlightened history had to be equipped to quieten oreliminate the destructive resentments aroused by Scottish history.

Nonetheless, the cult of impartiality that the ‘enlightened’ historians cultivatedcould be seen merely as another form of partiality, one more refined but no lesspernicious for that14. A good example of this concern is William Tytler’s responseto both historians, published in 1759, An Inquiry, Historical and Critical, into theEvidence against Mary Queen of Scots and an Examination of the Histories of DrRobertson and Mr Hume, with respect to that evidence15. His motive in writing thistract was explicitly to provide «an apology or vindication» of Mary Stuart. Heaimed to «rescue from infamy an illustrious, injured character» against the attackson her fostered by these «pleasant, eloquent, and plausible» histories16. His view ofRobertson and Hume was respectful: he acquiesced in the prevailing opinion thatthey had raised Scottish historiography to a higher literary plane. Yet his ultimateverdict on them both is damning. Tytler’s response to Robertson in particular isworth following for the assumptions it reveals about the nature and purpose of

12 The key text was still that of a highly biased participant in the drama, John Knox. M. Fearnley-Sander, «Philosophical History and the Scottish Reformation: William Robertson and the KnoxianTradition», Historical Journal, 33, 2, (1990): 323-338.13 J. Home, Douglas; A Tragedy (London, 1757), 3. W. Scott, The Tale of Old Mortality (Edinburghand New York: Edinburgh and Columbia University Presses, 1993), 14.14 J. Smitten, «Impartiality in Robertson’s History of America», Eighteenth-Century Studies, 19,(1985): 56-77.15 Tytler was an Edinburgh lawyer destined to be the sire of a dynasty of Scottish historians, such asAlexander Fraser Tytler, professor at the University of Edinburgh, and Patrick Fraser Tytler.16 W. Tytler, An Inquiry, Historical and Critical, into the Evidence against Mary Queen of Scots andan Examination of the Histories of Dr Robertson and Mr Hume, with respect to that evidence (2volumes, fourth edition; Edinburgh: W. Creech, 1790), 1:27-28.


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historical narrative; and for its explicit references to the operation of resentment inhistorical writing (and reading).

Tytler’s focus on Mary Stuart established the field of battle, that of charactercontroversy.

He aligned himself with those pro-Marian historians and antiquaries whopreferred to cast the history of Mary in a mixed language of martyrology andsentiment17. Robertson himself occasionally employed the language of sentimentto depict more vividly and affectingly Mary’s plight, but this did not in hisjudgement inoculate her from the criminal motives that he believed actuated her18.Tytler is constantly exasperated by what he regards as a perverse even-handednessin Robertson’s handling of Mary, which in any case (he believes) amounts to afull-blown condemnation. His complaint against Robertson is essentially twofold:that the treatment of Mary in Scotland is partial, despite Robertson’s strenuousattempts to mediate between conflicting positions; and that, as a result of thismisplaced effort of mediation, the resulting picture of Mary is inconsistent andindeed monstrous, unnatural, «a phenomenon scarce to be accounted for»19.Focusing on the mismatch between Robertson’s narrative and his explicitcharacterisations, Tytler imputes Robertson’s failure of perspective to his«ingenuity», his delight in «establishing systems», and to his method of inferringor conjecturing motive from actions, thereby elevating the history of motives abovethat of facts. To Tytler, this sophisticated narrative of motives, and the intricate«chain of argument» that it produced, was not mere conjecture but outrightdeception20. Nonetheless, Robertson had a saving fault: the bias of his narrativemethod was overturned by his «sketches of character». Indeed Tytler’s argument isessentially grounded in questions of character: «Robertson’s system is contrary tohuman nature & utterly inconsistent with the character which he himself had drawnof the Queen Mary»21.

«Merciful heaven! can such a character have ever existed? Yet such, accordingto Dr Robertson, is the gentle, tender-hearted, & affectionate Queen Mary! now theinhumane, deliberate, & remorseless murderess of her husband»22.

Tytler also – and crucially – sets up a polarity between the imperatives of‘resentment’ and those of ‘pity’. He implicates Robertson’s narrative in aresentment against Mary, inherited from her first opponents, and altogether typicalof Whiggishly inclined historians23. Indeed, Tytler implies, the entire historiography

17 Thus, in his 1790 edition he endorsed Gilbert Stuart’s anti-Robertsonian History of Mary Queen ofScots (1782), for finally placing «the character of that unfortunate princess upon a solid basis»: Tytler,1:14.18 On Robertson and sentiment in connection with Mary, see K. O’Brien, Narratives of Enlightenment:Cosmopolitan History from Voltaire to Gibbon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 114-122.19 Tytler, 2:301.20 Tytler, 2:52.21 Tytler, 2:81.22 Tytler, 2:81.23 On Scottish ‘Whig’ history, see C. Kidd, Subverting Scotland’s Past: Scottish Whig Historians and

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of Scotland has been marred by this intrusion of resentment, which Robertson’sapparent equability cannot disguise. This, essentially, is the failure of these eleganthistories: they are not free of the errors they condemn in their predecessors, andthus they merely perpetuate what they claim to expel. Furthermore, one of theprincipal sources of error in Robertson’s Scotland is the way in which it not onlyarouses resentment against Mary through careful use of language, but also imputesit to her, invoking it as one of her principal motives. By weaving resentment intohis language of motivation, Robertson has cast upon Mary one of the greatdestructive forces of Scottish history. Tytler absolutely rejects this. For him, Maryis in fact free of resentment to a remarkable, even heroic degree. Indeed, readingRobertson’s narrative attentively, Tytler shows how Mary’s entirely justifiedresentment against her opponents «dissolves into tears»; her «sensibility» triumphsover her impulses to revenge; and her susceptibility to feeling results in openexpressions of «grief and sorrow» rather than betraying symptoms of anger,aversion, resentment or hatred, the natural feelings towards which she isprovoked24. This compelling vision of the dissipation of resentment into pity by anhistorical actor sways even the partisan historian himself; the reason for theinconsistency of Robertson’s account lies in his inability to sustain his resentmentagainst Mary. Just as her «resentment for the most atrocious offences committedagainst her soon melted away, and left not a trace behind», so we are compelled todo likewise by contemplating the facts and circumstances of her story25.

Tytler and Robertson shared the desideratum of a history purged of resentment.For the former, this would occur through the metaphor of a dissolution throughtears, sentiment, ‘sensibility’, adopting Mary as the model for a heroic rejection ofthe privilege of revenge. For the latter, it would work through a more complex andnuanced reinterpretation of the events of Scottish history, through the medium of apolite and pure style, and a more detached and analytical rhetorical stance,neutralising resentment by distancing the reader from the events depicted, ratherthan by placing them within the events, and by exposing what Robertson termed«the groundless murmurs of antiquated prejudices»26. Interestingly, however,others connected Robertson with the Tytlerian stance, as Horace Walpole noted:«some have thought that, tho’ he could not disculpate her, he has divertedindignation away from her by his art in raising up pity for her and resentmentagainst her persecutress»27. As Walpole implied, however, this diversion ofresentment was not in fact its dissipation, but merely a perpetuation of the game of

the Creation of an Anglo-British Identity 1689-c.1830 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993);«The ideological significance of Robertson’s History of Scotland», in S.J. Brown, ed., WilliamRobertson and the expansion of empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 122-144.24 Tytler, 2:67-68.25 Tytler, 2:53.26 W. Robertson, The History of Scotland during the Reigns of Queen Mary and of King James VI tillhis Accession to the Crown of England (London: A. Millar, 1759), 1:87.27 To Sir David Dalrymple. 3 February 1760. H. Walpole, The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl ofOrford, ed. J. Wright (Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard, 1842), 3:40.


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partisanship (and this despite Walpole’s earlier praise for Robertson’s impartiality).The imperatives of pity and resentment dominated the way in which many people,already well-versed in the events, responded to any new intervention into thehistorical record.

II. RESENTMENT, PHILOSOPHY AND PHILOSOPHICAL HISTORY

The word resentment, from the French ressentiment, originally signifiednothing more than strong feeling, either «for good or ill». Thus unqualified it wasthe essence of passion, and could attach itself to all other passions. Gradually, itwas refined into a «deep sense of injury», and closely associated therefore with theidea of justice. It possessed a positive force as a «just resentment» against injury, ora «manly resentment» at slights against a person’s dignity and consequence.However, the «resentful» man, one with a marked tendency towards resentment,was held by Samuel Johnson to be «malignant, easily provoked to anger and longretaining it». Thus, resentment, even more than most passions, requiredqualification and specific contextualisation28. By the eighteenth-century, it hadgained an association heavily in contrast to its original meaning of deep feeling,that of pettiness, triviality, evanescence, often being associated with trifling amoursand acquiring thereby a cast of ‘womanly’ impotence, although, as in the case ofDelarivier Manley’s The Wife’s Resentment, female resentment could still be apowerful, if lurid and disorderly passion29. As a means of grasping psychologicallythe nature of apparently irreconcilable opposition, the notion of resentment hasprovided a remarkably enduring and flexible explanatory model. Yet it remainsdeeply ambiguous: either a fundamentally illegitimate and misguided reactionagainst social change (as in the case of racist resentments), or a perfectly rationalresponse to injustice, loss of status, and the structural contempt of elites. Eric Ganshas explored the role that he sees resentment has played in the formation of culture,viewing indeed culture as in a sense a strategy by emerging elites to sublimate (orotherwise contain, neutralise or cow) the resentment created by the progressivedifferentiation produced by ever more complex social forms. For Gans, resentmentis the inevitable product of social and political change, and is so powerful in itseffects (or threatened effects) that it is fundamentally constitutive of westernliterature and cultural forms30. To an eighteenth-century historian such as Hume orRobertson, this class or social dimension of resentment was less apparent: rather,resentment was something that could only really be held to exist between

28 S. Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language: in which the words are deduced from theiroriginals, and illustrated in their different significations (6th edition; London, 1785), volume 2:«Resentment».29 W. L. Chernaik, Sexual Freedom in Restoration Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1995), 155.30 E. Gans, Signs of Paradox: Irony, Resentment and other Mimetic Structures (Stanford: StanfordUniversity Press, 1997), 67-68.

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comparative equals whose claims pressed against each other in a shared politicalworld. Hume had indeed adumbrated this position in his earlier philosophicalwork31. Thus, for Robertson, resentment exists within a narrow framework ofinteraction and observation, which encompasses such elements as the crown,nobility, clergy and the nation itself (the idea of a «national resentment»). Theresentments of ‘the people’ are occasionally invoked, but not as those of the pooragainst the wealthy, who are held to exist, as Don Herzog has observed, as toodistant to be capable of this level of interaction with their superiors32. It was as ifthey were almost another species altogether: no one would attribute the passion ofresentment, however basic it might otherwise be held to be, to a dog or a cow. Onlyafter the French Revolution did elites become concerned – to the point of hysteria –at the lower orders feeling effectual resentment towards them. Even then, theseresentments were fractured and individual, and certainly did not function as that ofa collective agent demanding justice. Hume and Robertson are interested ashistorians in the flux and reflux of individual resentments between actors in hisnarrative, princes, nobles, bishops, politicians; but that is not to say that they do notdetect structural resentments buried deep into the political system, which to anextent predetermine the pattern of resentment in the narrative history. Indeed, this isin part the purpose of Robertson’s account of the Scottish feudal polity in Book I ofScotland, and of Hume’s discursive essays on constitution and government.

Resentment figures only intermittently in the early classic works of the ScottishEnlightenment. Francis Hutcheson, in his account of the passions and affections,mentions it only in passing, in a discussion of the way in which resentment formsone of the sources of salutary shame33. In An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideasof Beauty and Virtue Hutcheson, ever the moderate, is at pains to assure us that theresentment we feel towards others naturally ebbs in us once we see that it has hadits admonishing, corrective effect. To persist with resentment beyond this limit is aperversion and an error34. Yet he also posits «sudden resentment» as one of thosepetty but corrosive principles that can give us unjustly negative views of our fellowmen, thus weakening our natural benevolence and providing an inlet toviciousness35. Similarly, Hume’s philosophical work includes resentment only invarious obiter dicta. When it does surface, as on occasion in the Enquiries, Hume’sview of it is notably benign, despite describing it as one of the «darker passions»(alongside enmity)36. It is in fact one of the social passions, a moral force, a

31 A. C. Baier, «Hume on Resentment», Hume Studies, 6, 2, (1980): 133-149.32 D. Herzog, Poisoning the Minds of the Lower Orders (Princeton: Princeton University Press,1998), 330.33 F. Hutcheson, An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections, withIllustrations on the Moral Sense, ed. A. Garrett (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2002), 22.34 F. Hutcheson, An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, ed. W. Leidhold(Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2004), 79.35 Hutcheson, Inquiry, 90.36 D. Hume, Enquiries concerning Human Understanding and concerning the Principles of Morals,ed. P. H. Niddich (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), 302.


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necessary antidote to coldness and narrowness of heart. Indeed, Hume classifies italongside justice, «love of life» and «attachment to offspring» as «a simple originalinstinct in the human breast, which nature has implanted for like salutarypurposes»37. It is usually invoked as a generous, noble instinct of sympathy withanother’s suffering or misery; we feel resentment on the behalf of the wronged.Moreover, in a striking thought-experiment on the nature of inequality, Humemakes it clear that resentment is what enables justice:

Were there a species of creatures intermingled with men, which, though rational, were possessed ofsuch inferior strength, both of body and mind, that they were incapable of all resistance, and couldnever, upon the highest provocation, make us feel the effects of their resentment; the necessaryconsequence, I think, is that we should be bound by the laws of humanity to give gentle usage to thesecreatures, but should not, properly speaking, lie under any restraint of justice with regard to them, norcould they possess any right or property, exclusive of such arbitrary lords38.

Fear of resentment is what compels justice. This is a crucial insight, and apointer to the more extensive uses that Lord Kames and Adam Smith were to makeof resentment.

There is an interesting disjunction here in the uses of the term resentment; informal philosophy it was a relatively neglected passion, yet in daily discourse,resentment was constantly invoked as an animating factor, an explanatory tool, partof the ever-present common currency of human relations. Resentment was adominant fact of social life, but one rarely acknowledged or analysed39.

In the late 1750s, at the same time that David Hume and William Robertsonwere completing their narrative histories of England and Scotland, there appearedtwo works by two closely linked writers working in different genres, both of whichtestify to the increasing interest of the Scottish Enlightenment in creating whatmight be called a natural history of resentment: Lord Kames’ Historical Law-Tracts (1758) and Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759). Both stroveto use the idea of resentment to make sense of history, law and social relations. Thefirst was an attempt to transform Scots law into an object of «rational study»performed by «men of taste», by applying philosophical and historical perspectivesto what had previously been regarded as a «crabbed» and illiberal discipline40. Inthe first tract, Kames used resentment as a means of tracing the principles andevolution of criminal law, punishment and jurisdiction. In this he was veryprobably influenced by Adam Smith’s unpublished but hugely influential Lectureson Jurisprudence, which also gave resentment a crucial explanatory place in thedevelopment of justice. Indeed, Smith had invoked resentment as the psychological

37 Hume, Enquiries, 201.38 Hume, Enquiries, 190. See A. C. Baier, «Hume on Resentment», Hume Studies, 6, 2, (1980): 133-149.39 M. S. Pritchard has recently argued that Hume does not dwell on the significance of resentmentprecisely because it poses major problems for his theory of justice, a weakness exploited by ThomasReid in his more extensive account of resentment: «Justice And Resentment In Hume, Reid, AndSmith», Journal of Scottish Philosophy, 6, (2008): 59-70.40 H. Home, Lord Kames, Historical Law-Tracts (2nd edition; Edinburgh, 1761), vi.

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foundation of criminal law: «Now in all cases the measure of the punishment to beinflicted […] is the concurrence of the impartial spectator with the resentment ofthe injured»41. Smith’s own wider interest in the workings of resentment as apassion was demonstrated fully in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, where itfigured as both an inescapable cog in the elaborate mechanism of sympathy,propriety and judgement that Smith sought to describe, and more dubiously as aresidual threat to the sociability that regulated Smith’s moral world.

Kames and William Robertson had both attended and been deeply influencedby Smith’s lectures. Moreover, Robertson had apparently read and composed areview of the Historical Law-Tracts for the Critical Review shortly after thepublication of The History of Scotland, a review which especially foregroundedKames’ treatment of resentment42. Certainly, if Robertson wrote the review, itshows that he and Kames converged on the subject of the importance of resentmentto the progress of law and society, whatever the reciprocal influences might havebeen, and whatever their mutual debt to Smith. As the reviewer commented,Kames’ method was to ground the formation of legal systems and laws in theexamination of human nature and «those passions which render them necessary»,so that institutions which had «formerly appeared to be inexplicable, accidental, orcapricious are seen to be the natural effects of powerful causes»43. The first step,therefore, was to arrive at an accurate delineation of the passions, in order toestablish their qualities, variations and mutual influences. Thus, in seeking tounderstand the nature of the origin of criminal law, Kames recurred to firstprinciples, «the foundation of resentment in human nature», before examiningmore fully its operation, «coregularities» and «irregularities»44. For Kames, «acursory view of this remarkable passion is not sufficient. It will be seen […] thatthe criminal law in all nations is entirely founded upon it; and for that reason itought to be examined with the utmost accuracy»45.

The first point to emerge unequivocally from such discussions of resentment isits sheer power. As Robertson maintains in The History of Scotland, «Resentmentis, for obvious and wise reasons, one of the strongest passions in the humanmind»46. Kames wrote, and the Critical Review eagerly echoed, that «No passion ismore keen or fierce than Resentment; which, at the same time, when confinedwithin due bounds, is authorised by conscience»47. The latter point is also

41 A. Smith, Lectures On Jurisprudence, eds. R. L. Meek, D. D. Raphael and P. G. Stein(Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1982), 117. Echoed in Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, eds.D. D. Raphael and A. L. Macfie (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1984), 343. On Smith on resentment, seeS. J. Pack and E. Schliesser, «Smith’s Humean Criticism of Smith’s Account of Justice», Journal of theHistory of Philosophy, 44, 1, (2006): 47-63.42 W. Robertson, Miscellaneous Works and Commentaries, ed. J. Smitten (London: Routledge, 1997),95-114.43 Robertson,Miscellaneous Works, 95-114.44 Robertson,Miscellaneous Works, 95-114.45 Kames, Historical Law-Tracts, 5.46 Robertson, Scotland, 1:311-312.47 Kames, Historical Law-Tracts, 4.


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important: resentment possesses a two-fold nature, both disruptive and yet capableof being directed towards, and made to serve, order and justice. Resentment can beseen as a Providential passion (and Kames, much more readily than Robertson,invokes Providence as a direct explanation of its peculiar operation and nature),because of its extraordinary and unintended effects. That one of the mostdestructive, turbulent and uncontrollable passions should be so tamed as to becomethe foundation of order and justice is proof of both deep irony and deep wisdom inthe construction of the universe. Indeed, in this way the operation of resentmentbecomes one of the clearest illustrations of the doctrine of unintendedconsequences48. Smith described it as both natural and beneficial: «Resentmentseems to have been given us by nature for defence, and for defence only. It is thesafeguard of justice and the security of innocence»49.

Most importantly, like all of the passions, but perhaps most evidently andconsequentially, it is possessed of a history. Resentment amongst savages isqualitatively different from that felt by people in «a civilized State»50. It alsoshapes that history: it «makes a great figure in the history of mankind»51. AdamFerguson showed how resentment was the natural principle of the savage, a socialglue and a supremely communicative, energizing force, closely linked to friendshipand productive of unity within a small, tightly-knit society52. By learning to controland refine their resentments, through the medium of the impartial spectator (asSmith would have it), resentment became transformed into almost a completelydifferent motive. Before this benign progression from blind impulse to anessentially just order can be created, however, the dangers inherent in the passionof resentment first have to be mastered and neutralised. This is difficult, sinceresentment is especially prone to excess and «irregularities»: «The man who isinjured, having a strong sense of the wrong done him, never dreams that hisresentment can be pushed too far»; he feels «that natural partiality which magnifiesevery injury done to a man himself, and which therefore leads to excess inrevenge»53. For Kames, there are different species of resentment: principally, the«rational and useful passion» which answers to our basic desire for justice, andwhich, to be effectual, must remain moderate; and the «savage and irrational»passion which while responding to transgressions itself transgresses, and which canbecome «absurd» if unchecked54. Unlike other active passions, such as love,

48 On unintended consequences, see D. Francesconi, «William Robertson on Historical Causationand Unintended Consequences», Cromohs, 4 (1999): 1-18; Ch. Berry, Social Theory of the ScottishEnlightenment (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997), 39-47.49 Smith, Theory, 123.50 Kames, Historical Law-Tracts, 13.51 Kames, Historical Law-Tracts, 20.52 A. Ferguson, An Essay on the History of Civil Society (6th edition; London, 1793), 291: «Thesimple passions, friendship, resentment, and love, are the movements of his own mind, and he has nooccasion to copy. Simple and vehement in his conceptions and feelings, he knows no diversity ofthought, or of style, to mislead or to exercise his judgement».53 Kames, Historical Law-Tracts, 24.54 Kames, Historical Law-Tracts, 8-9.

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gratitude, friendship (all «social passions», of course), the excess of resentmentdoes not simply extend its operations, but in reality changes it into something quiteother, almost a different passion entirely. There seems, on occasion, to be little incommon between a ‘proper’ resentment and its improper corollary other than anaccident of nomenclature.

The dissocial nature of improper or excessive resentment distorts observation,preventing objects from being correctly perceived. While the key question to whichKames and Smith both addressed themselves was how resentment could bebrought under restraint, it was clear that in the early stages of mankind’sdevelopment it was simply allowed free rein. For Kames, it was «too fierce apassion to be subdued till man be first humanized and softened in a long course ofdiscipline»55; «the passion of resentment, fortified by universal practice, is tooviolent to be subdued by the force of any government»56. Its peculiarlycommodious nature enabled it to dominate all social and political arrangements:«resentment, allowed scope among Barbarians, was apt to take flame by theslightest spark»57. Where government is weak, or virtually non-existent, theobjective of fledgeling judicial authorities was not the restraint of resentment butthe correct identification of its object, so that the injured could then «gratify hisresentment to the full»58. If no object were found, it would demand- and find- one,however irrational or unsuitable: most egregiously, animals and inanimate objects.Resentment is also regarded by Kames as, in a sense, a form of property, possessedby the individual against whom wrong is committed: what he termed the «privilegeof resentment»59. Private punishment thus resembles a debt, the exaction of whichis, in terms of justice, a «natural right»60. This property is antecedent to, and formsthe psychological basis for, all other forms of property. It also has a peculiarinverse relationship to the history of property: as other forms of property areacquired and multiply, the property of private resentment must be surrendered.This process, of the restraint of resentment, its passage into public hands, isextremely slow: the history of unrestrained resentment extends until very recenttimes, as all Scots were aware. Assassination, the «crime in fashion» of thesixteenth century, is invoked as an example of how resentment continued topossess individuals even after the establishment of more regular government.Nonetheless, Kames seems sanguine that resentment has, by the eighteenthcentury, been tamed and no longer poses a significant threat to the social order:«Resentment was no longer allowed to rage, but was brought under somediscipline». This discipline, «however burdensome to an individual during a fit ofpassion, was agreeable to all in their ordinary state of mind»61.

55 Kames, Historical Law-Tracts, 42.56 Kames, Historical Law-Tracts, 35.57 Kames, Historical Law-Tracts, 31.58 Kames, Historical Law-Tracts, 24.59 Kames, Historical Law-Tracts, 8.60 Kames, Historical Law-Tracts, 18.61 Kames, Historical Law-Tracts, 37.


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This is the key to modern resentment, that it is always brought into an«ordinary state of mind», and it is the workings of resentment in this modern,domestic condition that Adam Smith investigates in the Theory of MoralSentiments. Smith retains a sense of the horror to be attached to unqualified, bareresentment: «though, in the degrees in which we too often see it, the most odious,perhaps, of all the passions, [resentment] is not disapproved of when properlyhumbled and entirely brought down to the level of the sympathetic indignation ofthe spectator»62. However, as Smith shows, resentment can be an extremelyvariable passion, requiring complex qualification and contextualisation.Resentment can be raised in different degrees, depending upon perspective andespecially the connection of he who feels resentment with the person injured63. It isemphatically not an absolute. The distinction between just and unjust resentmentdepends not simply on cause, but on effect: excessive resentment, however justlygrounded, cannot be approved of by an impartial observer. Smith paints anextremely pessimistic picture of the potential effects of unchecked resentment.Mutual resentment can dissolve the bonds of society:

Society, however, cannot subsist among those who are at all times ready to hurt and injure one another.The moment that injury begins, the moment that mutual resentment and animosity take place, all thebands of it are broke asunder, and the different members of which it consisted are, as it were, dissipatedand scattered abroad by the violence and opposition of their discordant affections64.

This Hobbesian state cannot last: even a society of robbers and murdererswould have to restrain themselves. Smith shows in acute psychological detail theinternalization of a socially sanctioned ‘just resentment’, an inherently socialpassion that we, as individuals, are keen to communicate to others. It is in thenature of the sufferer of resentment to reach out to others, to have them understandthe causes of this disagreeable passion that we are exhibiting before our fellowmen. Thus, with an emphasis slightly different from that of Kames, Smith arguesthat resentment searches out not only its own gratification but also the sympathy ofothers: this is crucial if our resentment is not to repel others, and be branded unjustor ill-grounded. The apparently unsocial passion of resentment is therebysocialised. This process effectively irons out the excesses of resentment, providingthat essential balance that seems lacking in its nature. Indeed, we resent the manpossessed by excessive resentment: «this too violent resentment, instead ofcarrying us along with it, becomes itself the object of our resentment andindignation. Revenge, therefore, the excess of resentment, appears to be the mostdetestable of all the passions»65. Only resentment sympathised with is at alljustified, or effectual. The positive power of this mediated, socially sanctionedresentment is every bit as remarkable as that of its primitive analogue: it can eraseprejudices; it eclipses estimates of character; it is a powerful social adhesive:

62 Smith, Theory, 361.63 Smith, Theory, 21.64 Smith, Theory, 129.65 Smith, Theory, 362.

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We enter into the resentment even of an odious person, when he is injured by those to whom he hasgiven no provocation. Our disapprobation of his ordinary character and conduct does not in this casealtogether prevent our fellow-feeling with his natural indignation66.

Smith’s highest conception of resentment is that of a judge who «appears toresent the greatest injuries, more from a sense that they deserve, and are the properobjects of resentment, than from feeling himself the furies of that disagreeablepassion»: an impersonal, distant and muted sense more than a furious, clamouringpassion67. This intellectualised notion of resentment is far removed from the originalmeaning of resentment as pure feeling; it is more apprehended than felt. It is perhapsin this sense that Hume meant to depict the ‘proper’ resentment of the historian; notpossessed by disorderly feeling, but filled with an abstracted sense of it.

Smith however is far from complacent about the possibility of inappropriateresentment entrenching itself and frustrating all the beneficial effects that can flowfrom a proper resentment. Indeed, he seems at times to underline the self-reinforcing nature of incorrect resentment, the way in which it entwines with the«mysterious veil of self-delusion»:

Rather than see our own behaviour under so disagreeable an aspect, we too often, foolishly and weakly,endeavour to exasperate anew those unjust passions which had formerly misled us; we endeavour byartifice to awaken our old hatreds, and irritate afresh our almost forgotten resentments: we even exertourselves for this miserable purpose, and thus persevere in injustice, merely because we once wereunjust, and because we are ashamed and afraid to see that we were so68.

For Smith, it is not merely time and distance that lessens resentment (or anyfeeling), but society and conversation. However, here too there is the contagion ofexample to deal with. This is perhaps the reason that, of all resentments, nationalresentment – being entirely tribal in origin, and reinforced by all society – is themost intractable.

Kames and Smith both view the history of society through the medium ofresentment. They are perhaps unusual amongst eighteenth-century thinkers inplacing so much stress on this difficult, contradictory passion. Adam Ferguson andJohn Millar both treated it more perfunctorily, but nonetheless with interestinginsights. Ferguson linked it closely with the savage state of society. He saw adichotomy between «love and compassion» and «resentment and rage», as well astheir peculiar kinship as powerful motives and as essentially irrational impulses aptto be «urged by the most irresistible vehemence» and characterized by a willing«sacrifice of interest»69. Like friendship, resentment is the natural principle of thesavage: «The simple passions, friendship, resentment, and love, are the movementsof his own mind, and he has no occasion to copy. Simple and vehement in hisconceptions and feelings, he knows no diversity of thought, or of style, to mislead

66 Smith, Theory, 132.67 Smith, Theory, 194.68 Smith, Theory, 182.69 Ferguson, Essay, 59-60.


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or to exercise his judgement»70. In a sense, in savage society, resentment is thenatural product of friendship, a token of the feeling that friendship arouses. Morenovel is Ferguson’s discussion of the sense in which resentment has two temporalaspects. It can be an immediate and unmediated instinct, a fugitive motive thatmust be satisfied instantly. Or, in a more sinister fashion, it can take on a quality ofsmouldering subterranean endurance. Thus, Ferguson wrote that «the friend of thedeceased knows how to disguise, though not to suppress, his resentment; and evenafter many years have elapsed, is sure to repay the injury that was done to hiskindred or his house»71. There is an interesting point here about the relationshipbetween resentment and disguise. Resentment, in Ferguson’s reading, is somethingsupremely authentic, even if it has to be driven underground and take on a mask.The mask of civility is inauthentic, but not the resentment itself, which survives allthe falsehood it is forced to generate in order to protect and eventually fulfill itself.Ferguson is peculiar only in his insistence that the savage is actuated as much bylove as by resentment; yet even here he underlines the crucial role of resentment asa social cohesive and a supremely communicative, energizing force in savagesociety.

John Millar showed how the operation of resentment could work tocircumscribe potentially harmful actions. While Millar invokes infanticide, «themost barbarous of all actions», as the natural result of the savage’s intemperate andoverbearing resentment, «easily kindled and raised to an excessive pitch»72; he alsoillustrates the use of resentment as a moderating force. Here the idea of propriety iscrucial: men «became extremely cautious, lest by any insinuation or impropriety ofbehaviour, they should hurt the character of another, and be exposed to the justresentment of those by whom she was protected»73. This is important, as it showsthat the state’s ability to rein in the effect of resentment relied on an internalizedfear of the effects of the resentment of others. Resentment enables the respect dueto another’s character to be upheld, through the mechanism of mutuality: that is,the belief that by eroding respect for another’s character, you are threatening therespect that others would have for you. Millar thus shows how issues of resentmentwere bound up even in the earliest societies with questions of character.

William Robertson, in his lengthy theoretical preamble to the History ofCharles V known as A View of the Progress of Society in Europe (1769), makes asimilar point to that of Ferguson concerning the relationship between resentmentand social cohesion:

The insults of an enemy kindle resentment; the success of a rival tribe awakens emulation; thesepassions communicate from breast to breast, and all the members of the community, with united ardour,rush into the field in order to gratify their revenge, or to acquire distinction74.

70 Ferguson, Essay, 291.71 Ferguson, Essay, 144-145.72 J. Millar, The Origin of the Distinction of Ranks, or an Inquiry into the circumstances which giverise to influence and authority in the different members of society (4th edition; Edinburgh, 1806), 111.73 Millar, Origin, 79.74 W. Robertson, The History of the Reign of Charles V (London, 1769), 1:84.

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In the dark ages, however, private resentment undermines public order,subverting it from within: «Private wars were carried on with all the destructiverage which is to be dreaded from violent resentment, when armed with force andauthorized by law»75. Resentment is one of the constitutive social forces of earlysociety, but in more extensive modern societies it is a fractious force. How to dealwith resentment is therefore the first task of the modern state (or proxy for thestate); indeed, it is the key to the process of state formation itself. If an authoritycannot master the impulses of resentment of its subjects, then it is rightly speakingno authority, but rather a shell. The nature of the expression of resentment becomestherefore the sign of a successful, or a failed state; and the curbing of resentment asign of progress. At first the state’s task is modest: it interposes itself betweenindividuals, for the purpose of buying time, to allow the violence and «rage» ofresentment to subside76. Gradually the state acquires more force with which tosubdue the private resentments of its subjects. In Robertson’s account of thedevelopment of the European state, the French King Louis XI plays a crucial,pivotal role. He represents the triumph of policy, interest, and public order over thetraditional, individual rights of the noble order. In more abstract terms, herepresents the victory of public over private resentment. The nobility are unable toact in concert or sustainably against the king, except «during one short sally ofresentment at the beginning of his reign»77. Resentment here is easily dissipated;its capacity to stimulate social action is weak, since it is naturally divided anddistracted. By the modern era, therefore, the ‘sallies’ of individual resentment aretoo sporadic to enable them to compete against a modern monarch, armed withpolicy and interest. Resentment does not disappear, of course, but it is controlledand regulated by an authority that deprives the individual of his property ofresentment. The nobility may be left initially with an impotent, self-torturingresentment at this act itself that leaves the monarch untouched, while theirresentments (individual and corporate) are branded illegitimate. Eventually,prudence and a sense of self-preservation will dictate the stifling of this vestigial,passive, unfulfilled resentment78. Thus, we arrive at a reversal of Ferguson’sparadigm of the savage society: instead of the sacrifice of interest to resentment,modernity has given incentives to sacrifice resentment for interest or policy.

Yet this is not the entire story. The power of resentment remains, ineradicableif distracted. In the modern era, resentments can no longer build, but they can stilldissolve.

The burden of Robertson’s argument is that in modern society resentment canno longer play the cohering role, because there is «little intercourse between thedistant members of the community». A passion like resentment cannot create thebasis of a «united strength»79. The implication, worked out in the History of

75 Robertson, Charles V, 1:277.76 Robertson, Charles V, 1:298-299.77 Robertson, Charles V, 1:99-100.78 Robertson, Charles V, 1:101-103.79 Robertson, Charles V, 1:184.


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Scotland, is that it can only work to fracture and fissure the community.Resentment in the modern world is still a powerful force, occasionallyoverwhelming all others, but it is one primarily at the service of factionalism anddisunity. Robertson, elsewhere in the View, outlined the near apocalypticconsequences of a predominating resentment: «perpetual private wars, which werecarried on with all the violence that usually accompanies resentment, whenunrestrained by superior authority. Rapine, outrage, exactions, became universal.Commerce was interrupted; industry suspended; and every part of Germanyresembled a country which an enemy had plundered and left desolate»80.Resentment is a force inimical to authority or unity; it is disorder incarnate. It maybe, in Ferguson’s terms, a simple passion, but it in a more complex society itscommunication can only be divisive, since a single cohering resentment cannot beshared by the entire community. Without the role of the state to manageresentment, to convert it to a proper, salutary end, its consequences are potentiallydisastrous. That in a sense is the burden of narrative history, to dramatise thiseffect.

III. RESENTMENT AND HISTORICAL NARRATIVE: HUME AND ROBERTSON

Moral philosophy and philosophical history could show how mutualresentments locked into a stasis, and how true or ‘just’ resentment became theproperty of the state. The depiction of uncontrolled resentment, and its disastrouseffects, was left to the field of narrative history. The flexibility of resentment as amotive, and its capacity for modulation when combined with other motives,certainly enhances its uses for narrative purposes. In Hume’s History of England,resentment features as a powerful motivating force, an explanatory tool, andperhaps also an imprisoning category. Contrary to his own maxim, Hume preservesa distance from the feeling of resentment precisely by invoking it regularly as aspring of action: by naming it, and to an extent exposing it, with the forensic (andpotentially ironic) attention of the philosophical historian, he forestalls anycomplicity in the passions he presents. There is no room for sympathy in such adistanced account of resentment. For Hume, resentment in the political world is adangerous element, which needs to be restrained: he shows how easily it cantransform itself from a form of ‘piety’– a just resentment – into a «barbarous andunrelenting» force, and a deeply imprudent one. Thus, Philip II of Spain is«transported by resentment and ambition beyond his usual cautious maxims»81.Too great a show of resentment can lead to the proliferation of resentments inothers, and it is the task of the prudent politician to temper his resentments. JamesVI suppresses what might be seen as a just resentment at his mother’s execution,partly out of prudential considerations, but partly also because of James’ «peaceful,

80 Robertson, Charles V, 1:179.81 Hume, England, 4:180.

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unambitious temper»82. In his account of the wars of the Roses, Hume shows howresentment could be deployed as a political tool to goad an enemy into imprudence.Clarence’s enemies attempt to provoke resentment in him: if he did not rise to theprovocation, he would be humiliated as a coward; if he gave way to it «andexpressed resentment, his passion would betray him into measures, which mightgive them advantages against him»83. Resentment is thus a crucial point ofweakness in the armour of any politician, and one that must be handled carefully.

In the medieval volumes of his History, Hume shows resentment in delicateinterplay with authority. Kings threaten resentment in order to assert their authorityover their subjects; they feel resentment if denied the obedience that is due to them.Thus resentment and the fear of it is a crucial part of the king’s attempt to securehis authority. Given however the limited nature of medieval kingship, kings arealso vulnerable to the resentments of their subjects, particularly the nobles and theclergy, and to a great extent they are hemmed in by this consideration84. Kings areforced to preside over «an unruly aristocracy, always divided by faction, and […]inflamed with […] resentments»85. The tension between public resentment andprivate resentment is particularly marked in the medieval period, characterised as itis in Hume’s account by the intimate histories of aristocratic cliques, necessarilyintertwined with the ongoing history of particular resentments. Medieval societyallows the easy gratification of resentments, and actively promotes theirtransmission and inheritance from generation to generation. William the Conqueroris propelled into his conquest by the interaction of ambition with personalresentment, and his later history continues to be governed by an «implacable»resentment towards his sons, which overcomes any familial tenderness86.Resentment motivates unnatural actions – disloyalty towards a father, the murderof a brother – and it incites the mob or «common people» to fury and outrageswithout bounds. Richard I’s strong propensity to resentment opens up the prospectof a «perpetual scene of violence and bloodshed»87, and he is caught in a constantflux and reflux of resentment and ambition with the French King Philip Augustus.Resentment makes a mockery of the concept of mutuality, and in the relationsbetween kings it destroys the basis of confidence. For instance, of the interactionbetween Edward III and the French king, Hume writes: «Thus resentmentgradually filled the breasts of both monarchs, and made them incapable ofhearkening to any terms of accommodation»88. Resentment has the power todeepen conflict, infecting all relationships and reducing them to chaotic conflict.

82 Hume, England, 4:166.83 Hume, England, 2:408-409.84 Hume, England, 1:189: for instance, Hume writes of William the Conqueror’s situation after theconquest: «as the great body of the clergy were still natives, the king had much reason to dread theeffects of their resentment».85 Hume, England, 2:286.86 Hume, England, 1:199-200.87 Hume, England, 1:353.88 Hume, England, 2:169.


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Resentment moreover breeds factionalism within the kingdom. The origin of thewars of the Roses is located the «strong attachments» forged by aristocratic houses,in combination with the «vindictive spirit» which was «considered a point ofhonour». All of this «rendered the great families implacable in their resentments»and made civil war virtually unavoidable89. Hume thus uses resentment as a meansof explaining and dramatising the dysfunctions of the medieval polity, sodependent upon the «personal character of the prince», and hence a «governmentof will, not laws»90. He also invokes the language of resentment to undermineconventional, or pious, attributions of motivation, which in a Scottish context takeon a revisionist aspect. For instance, he shifts the motives for the Scots to resist theEnglish in their struggle for independence from patriotism, or love or zeal for thekingdom, towards a resentment towards Edward I and the English – pathologisedas an ‘inflammation’.

Nonetheless, one sign of an effective king in Hume’s treatment is howeffectually he can convert his resentment into action. The absence or impairment ofresentment is profoundly disabling for a medieval monarch. Henry III is too feeblefor his resentments (hasty and violent though they are) to be dreaded; they lackconstancy91. Edward II lacks sufficient resentment: he is less constant in hisenmities than his friendships. Thus, while his initial resentment at Gavaston’smurder is commensurate with his affection for his favourite, it is much lessenduring92. Edward is therefore trapped into granting to the murderers aninappropriate forgiveness, and into sacrificing his proper and just resentment. Thiscan only be interpreted as irredeemable weakness. Indeed, Hume frequently adoptsa dual view of resentment: it can be enduring, deep and powerful; on the otherhand, it can also be represented as weak, fleeting, evanescent, and certainly lesseffectual than a secure attachment to interest. As Hume argues, «it is in the natureof passion to decay, while the sense of interest maintains a permanent influenceand authority»93. Yet Hume’s actual narrative shows time and again how a passionsuch as resentment, unstable as it may be, can frequently act against the dictates ofinterest, subverting or frustrating a proper regard to policy. On occasion thoughthey can work in tandem. Policy and resentment combine together as a motivatingforce in Hume’s interpretation of Bruce’s murder of Comyn, and of the twomotives resentment appears the more justifiable, the more easily entered into andsympathised with. Hume places Bruce’s act in the context of the history ofmanners; while it would be condemned in the eighteenth-century, it waspraiseworthy by the standards of the middle ages, the product of «manly vigourand just policy»94. The justice here is contained in the provocation Bruce suffers,and therefore in his resentment. National resentment can also act as a means of

89 Hume, England, 2:372.90 Hume, England, 2:148.91 Hume, England, 2:12.92 Hume, England, 2:134.93 Hume, England, 2:411.94 Hume, England, 2:109.

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cementing the unity of the nation: political leaders thus seek to persuade the peopleto share their resentments, to «take part» in them. Therefore, resentment can bepartially exculpatory, and even constructive.

In Hume’s classic account of the English civil wars, resentment plays anoccasional but significant role. Hume treats this period differently from that of hisvolume on Elizabeth (written later), where resentment is typically «sacrificed» topublic interest95. James I is depicted in markedly less prudential terms than asJames VI in Hume’s Elizabeth volume. He is in some ways more clearly a creatureof resentment, to the extent that it becomes a spur to his attempted exertion ofauthority over the puritans: «If he had submitted to the indignity of courting theirfavour, he treasured up, on that account, the stronger resentment against them, andwas determined to make them feel, in their turn, the weight of his authority»96. It ishis resentment that leads him, in Hume’s nuanced account, to challenge theconstitution in such violent terms, and to open the way to the conflict that follows,by exposing the «inconsistent fabric, whose jarring and discordant parts must soondestroy each other»97. James’ constitutional arguments are thus merely arationalization of an overweaning and pre-existing resentment, the real underlyingspring of his actions. Resentment is thus the catalyst to action. Resentment’sdestructive role is depicted even more fully in the account of Buckingham, whosedoom is sealed by his careless arousal of resentment, culminating in hisassassination by Fenton: «private resentment was boiling in his sullen, unsociablemind» (here resentment is aided by «religious fanaticism»)98. The confrontationbetween Charles I and parliament displays the confining, strangulating role ofresentment in preventing either side from breaking out of the downward spiral ofinternecine conflict. Resentment acts to «inflame» the situation, and to polarize theantagonists99. Strafford’s change of sides exposes him to «implacable hatred andresentment», which stokes the fires of conflict100. While Charles refuses tosacrifice Laud to the «resentment» of his enemies, his actions nonetheless irritateand spread that resentment. Interestingly, Charles is more often the object ofresentment than himself a resenter, and Hume shows how Charles cannot avoidarousing it even by acts of magnanimity and ‘honour’, such as the refusal toabandon Laud or to sign the warrant to execute Strafford, that truly impartialobservers should applaud, not resent101. Resentment is thus associated withperemptory intolerance and extremism, implacability, and unreasonableness: thecity of London is triggered into action against the king, «inflamed withresentment». On Strafford Hume writes, with a marked absence of provoking

95 Hume, England, 4:218.96 Hume, England, 5:11.97 Hume, England, 5:59.98 Hume, England, 5:203.99 Hume, England, 5:216.100 Hume, England, 5:222.101 Hume, England, 5:213: «he was resolved not to disarm and dishonour himself, by abandoning themto the resentment of his enemies».


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coolness, that «the sentence, by which he fell, was an enormity greater than theworst of those, which his implacable enemies prosecuted with so much cruelindustry. The people, in their rage, had totally mistaken the proper object of theirresentment»102. Resentment is peculiarly prone to error, and mistakes both its«proper» function and its appropriate targets. Hume as historian is in an interestingposition here, attempting to make the reader appreciate the injustice perpetratedtowards Strafford (a revisionist task, overturning the verities of conventional Whighistory) while also warning the reader of the dangers of resentment. He condemns,while leavening the condemnation with a sense of the limitations of resentment. Inhis historical-magisterial role, he permits resentment towards the «people» whocommitted this «enormity», but at the same time invites contemplation on theorigins of this error. Charles’ fault above all, like Buckingham, is to be careless ofthe consequences of arousing resentment, doing little to appease this terriblepassion. In general, Charles himself is depicted as remarkably resistant toresentment himself, to an extraordinary degree of restraint, but this does not savehim from becoming implicated, eventually, in the mutually destructive cycle ofresentment. Hume chooses to represent one of the key turning-points in the drifttowards civil war as a provocation that even Charles cannot ignore: he is subjectedto «a method of address… not only unsuitable towards so great a prince, but whichno private gentleman could bear without resentment»103. The negative burden ofresentment is largely thrown on the opponents of Charles (the Scots, for instance,are «violent» in their resentment towards the King)104, while Charles – if animatedby resentment – is shown to be partially justified. This does not save him.

While resentment plays a crucial role in some of the key points of Hume’sHistory of England, it is not however an insistent feature of Hume’s historicalwork, in the way it is for Robertson in The History of Scotland. Robertson focusesfrom the beginning on the notion of resentment and its structural role within theScottish political and social system.

Thus, he prefaces Scotland with a short dissertation on the nature and causes ofpolitical assassination, which Robertson sees as a striking feature of sixteenth-century political life, and the most vivid symptom of its dysfunctional nature andlack of refinement. It is an age of easily-gratified revenge, both because of theprevalence of the cult of honour, and also because of the feebleness of the Scottishmonarchy. This crucially connects resentment with the burden of Robertson’sprincipal theme in Scotland, the failure of the Scottish polity to adapt to modernconditions. Part of this is its inability to convert resentment and revenge into publicrather than private affairs, regulated by authority. Therefore, private resentment isnot constrained in any enforceable way; indeed, public law at first strengthensrather than restrains private resentment. Robertson embeds his discussion ofresentment in a social and political context. Ironically, he asserts that his explicit

102 Hume, England, 5:327.103 Hume, England, 5:364.104 Hume, England, 5:286.

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aim is to move his narrative away from the obsession with private passions that haddistorted previous histories of Scotland. Robertson tries to pick his way through themodel of narrative history as merely the fluctuation of passion: «This conduct ofour monarchs, if we rest satisfied with the accounts of their historians, must beconsidered as flowing entirely from their resentment against particular noblemen;and all their attempts to humble them must be viewed as the sallies of privatepassion, not as the consequences of any general plan of policy»105. To write ahistory merely of resentment is meaningless, as well as distorting.

In a sense what he is trying to do is to show that Scottish monarchs perceivedtheir interest as lying precisely in attempting to raise the monarchy of Scotlandbeyond their vulnerability to such destructive passions. Yet because the story isessentially one of their failure, the resulting work is largely a rehearsal of preciselythese resentments, with the added perspective of Robertson’s institutional analysisof the dysfunctional Scottish monarchy and its over-mighty nobility. Robertsonbelieves that by approaching resentment in this highly conscious manner, he is infact inoculating us from our immersion in just these passions: this is part of whatmakes it a ‘philosophical’ history, in that, like Hume, Robertson is seeking toencourage a reflection on the role of resentment in political life.

Thus, throughout the subsequent narrative, resentment is the master-passion ofthe age, typical of the primitive, disordered nature of the Scottish polity.Resentment stands at the centre of all of Robertson’s narrative themes, associatedwith disappointed ambition, thwarted passions, the aristocratic ethic of honour,party rage, the weakness of the state and the essentially tribal nature of Scottishpolitics106. In explaining the ubiquity of resentment, Robertson refers to «theviolent spirit of the age»; it is «an age accustomed to license & anarchy»107; «themaxims of that age justified the most desperate course which he could take toobtain vengeance»108. The background to political action is the existence of «meninflamed with resentment & impatient for revenge»109. Resentment is also ahungry, colonising passion, swallowing up and transfiguring other lesser passionsand principles such as religious zeal, patriotism, liberty and even romantic love. Itis striking that in his account of the reformation in Scotland, religious motives areoften downgraded in favour not only of interest, but also of «private revenge» and«resentment». Resentment is frequently the handmaiden of religion: men are«animated with zeal & inflamed with resentment»110. The precise nature of thisconjunction is often unclear, except of course that they each act to strengthen andintensify the motive. Resentment also explains the disordered shape of thenarrative and the wild uncontrollability of character: it is not a stable motive, but

105 Robertson, Scotland, 1:38.106 He describes it as an «honourable resentment».107 Robertson, Scotland, 1:245.108 Robertson, Scotland, 1:435.109 Robertson, Scotland, 1:242. Robertson also conjoins the inflammation with resentment at 1:158and 1:284.110 Robertson, Scotland, 1:198.


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subject to what Robertson terms (in connection with Henry VIII of England) a«fantastic inconsistence». At times, Robertson seems to invoke resentment as amotive when no rational interest can be discerned: «the spirit which some of themdiscovered during the subsequent revolutions, leaves little room to doubt, thatambition or resentment were the real motives of their conduct»111. The symbioticrelationship between resentment and ambition is also striking: often they co-exist,but resentment also operates when ambition is blocked, frustrated, or disappointed.Resentment then can be a displacement activity for effectual ambition itself.

Robertson’s brief portrait of James V sets the scene here. James possesses aremarkable mixture of qualities. He combines love (for the people), and zeal for«the punishment of private oppressors», with sagacity and penetration. Thus he is amodel for the ambitions of the Scottish monarchy, rooted as Robertson claims in ashrewd assessment of the interests of the state. Yet James is «uncultivated», anessentially passionate man for all his positive political qualities. Above all he is aman of «violent passions» and «implacable resentment». James strongly resents thenobility for their stranglehold on power which should, legitimately, be his112. Thenobles however resent any attempt on his part to curb their traditional authority113.Thus Scotland faces a deadlock, assured by the operation of mutual resentments.Robertson shows James’ intense and embittered awareness of this crucial fact.Previous monarchs had been trapped by their fear of arousing the resentment of thenobles. James nonetheless tries to satisfy and appease his own resentment bytaking on the nobility. He is simply, temperamentally, incapable of accepting thesituation that he has inherited; but also incapable of dealing with the results of thesituation that he creates through his «immoderate desire of power»: «Incapable ofbearing these repeated insults, he found himself unable to revenge them». Inceasing to concern himself with arousing the resentment of his subjects, heabandons both prudence and propriety. James’ collapse into pathological despair,those «diseases of the mind» that are the «known effects of disappointment, angerand resentment», establishes a pattern of great importance: the sinking of allambitions and qualities into an all-absorbing and highly destructive resentment.Disappointed ambition time and again collapses into sullen or furiousresentment114. In the case of James V, resentment has no outlet, its target being theentire noble order, in fact the entire Scottish political system. This is as far from apetty resentment as we can get, yet it is not elevated either. It is simply destructive,raging, impotent, furious.

Resentment can also be an energising force, supplying a motive for actionwhere defects of character would otherwise prevent or frustrate it. Thus, Huntly ischaracterised as feeble, slothful, ‘inactive’, a decayed relic of a declining order; butcapable of the most furious spasms of activity prompted almost solely by

111 Robertson, Scotland, 1:362.112 Robertson, Scotland, 1:55-56.113 Robertson, Scotland, 1:59.114 Robertson, Scotland, 1:62-63.

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resentment. This indeed is what makes him dangerous to the political order115. It isthis susceptibility to resentment that is at the core of Robertson’s recharacterisationof the Scottish nobility, an essential part of his revisionist, pro-monarchist stance.The nobles are self-interested, dangerous and turbulent, and primarily responsiblefor the enervating distractions of Scottish government in the sixteenth-century, andit is the strength of their collective resentment that prevents the state fromaccumulating authority. At the same time their particular resentments ensureconstant struggle and turmoil between competing factions. By contrast, thedispassionate, almost Stoic figure of Regent Moray – symbol of the state – is nothimself a resentful figure (rather he is a quintessential homme politique), but hecannot insulate himself from the effects of resentment; like Charles I, he is a figureguaranteed to stir up resentment in others, and this is very directly the cause of hisdeath116.

The central narrative of Mary Stuart needs therefore to be located in thiscontext. Although partly written in a sentimental register, Mary is also very much aplayer in the drama of resentment that Robertson has already established. Therelationship between Mary and Elizabeth is an anti-friendship, bound together bycomplex ties of fear and resentment. Mary fears Elizabeth’s resentment; Elizabethlater is haunted by the spectre of Mary’s resentment. Fear of the effects of thismutual resentment is the reason for the pattern of their relations, for thedissimulation that dominates their actions towards each other, and for the absenceof forgiveness or mercy between them. Robertson carefully explains the origins ofthis. He switches back and forth between imputing the passions of ordinarymankind to these women, while continually emphasizing the impossibility of anyamity or concord between princes. Thus, indignation, mutual distrust and,eventually, resentment, are inevitable117. Mary’s love for Darnley dramaticallyturns into resentment; indeed the two co-existed from the first, as she is led to enterinto her disastrously imprudent match, «blinded by resentment as well as bylove»118. This resentment was in turn triggered by Elizabeth’s attempt to block themarriage, itself the fruit of «Elizabeth’s resentment» towards Mary119. As themarriage turns sour, so frustrated, «disappointed love» – like ambition – seems tolead inevitably to a corrosive resentment120. Resentment battens onto otherpassions, ready to absorb them when they sour or fail. Indeed, in this as in othercases resentment acts as a kind of dumping-ground for all other passions, theirunfulfilled dead-end. Mary’s «inexorable resentment» effectively chokes off herprudence121; this is Mary’s essential tragedy, since Robertson is at pains toemphasise her early reign as an enlightened example of politic moderation.

115 Robertson, Scotland, 1:245-246.116 Robertson, Scotland, 1:435-436.117 Robertson, Scotland, 1:219-224.118 Robertson, Scotland, 1:273.119 Robertson, Scotland, 1:267.120 Robertson, Scotland, 1:338.121 Robertson, Scotland, 1:289-290.


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Darnley too is a resentful figure; his ambition is irrational and ineffective, andinteracts dangerously with resentment at his failures: «Such various andcomplicated passions raged in the King’s bosom, with the utmost fury»122. It is thecause of Rizio’s bizarre murder.

Robertson blurs the languages of sentiment and resentment by making Mary’stears – the signifier of sentimental sorrow – also an index of resentment; they aretears as much of bitter resentment, prompted by both failed ambition and failedlove, as of any nobler motive: «She burst into tears of indignation and… utmostbitterness»123. Indeed Robertson seems to associate Mary’s tears with bitterness:«She uttered the most bitter complaints, she melted into tears…»124; «Mary [...]was bathed in tears, and while she gave away the sceptre which she had swayed solong, she felt a pang of grief and indignation [...]»125. Mary is clearly a sensiblecreature. Indeed, Hume had associated resentment (a seemingly primitive, savagepassion) with the more refined, modern notion of sensibility: «There is a certainDelicacy of Passion, to which some People are subject, that makes them extremelysensible to all the Accidents of Life. And when a Person, that has this Sensibility ofTemper, meets with any Misfortune, his Sorrow or Resentment takes entirePossession of him»126. This insight helps to reconcile Mary’s resentment with herknown delicacy and refinement, and also aids our understanding of hersusceptibility to it.

In an interesting twist, however, at the height of Mary’s crisis Robertsonadduces as proof of her guilt her very absence of any signs of resentment at theinjuries that had been openly inflicted upon her. This could not, Robertson says, bethe stoical or virtuous suppression of resentment: «Such moderation seems hardlyto be compatible with the strong resentment which calumniated innocencenaturally feels; or with that eagerness to vindicate itself which it alwaysdiscovers»127. This has a number of implications. Firstly, it seems to indicate thatjust resentment is incapable of being suppressed; it is an irresistible principle ofinflexible justice, unsusceptible to moderating influence, and hence alwaysimplacable. Secondly, the expression of resentment therefore becomes almost aduty of the innocent to perform. Finally, the historian’s role is that of an interpreterof these signs of resentment, using them as an entry-point into the interior of thehistorical actor. Through this, seemingly impenetrable questions of guilt andmotive can be broached. This strong vindication of resentment sits awkwardly withRobertson’s general condemnation of it, and might seem to supporters of Mary tobe convenient sophistry. Indeed, Tytler’s criticism of Robertson’s pretend systemsof uncovering motives seems to have some validity here. Yet it certainly adds to acomplex picture of the operation of resentment. Robertson is also interested in

122 Robertson, Scotland, 1:305-306.123 Robertson, Scotland, 1:273.124 Robertson, Scotland, 1:367.125 Robertson, Scotland, 1:375.126 Hume, Essays, 3-4.127 Robertson, Scotland, 1:416.

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explaining why there is a mismatch between the eighteenth-century response toMary’s plight – essentially sympathetic if not exculpatory – and the decidedlyhostile responses of the people of Scotland in the sixteenth-century: «A woman,young, beautiful, and in distress, is naturally the object of compassion». Yet «hersufferings did not mitigate their resentment» or «procure that sympathy which isseldom denied to unfortunate princes». This, Robertson explains, is due to theirinsensibility (a quality often associated with savages) and perhaps, he implies atone point, to their rigorous sense of justice128. When Mary is finally executed, theEnglish nation is condemned harshly for being «blinded with resentment», forgiving the «appearance of justice to what was the offspring of jealousy and fear»;here even the mask of justice is stripped away from the operation of resentment129.Thus, the historian judges between proper and improper expressions of resentment.This close monitoring of resentment enables Robertson at once to criticise Maryfor her susceptibility to resentment, and for her absence of it, and the peoples ofScotland and England for their excessive indulgence of it. This highly modulatedapproach has the effect of complicating the reader’s responses, and especially ofcreating a suspicion of resentment that prevents the reader from participating in it,at least straightforwardly. Tytler saw this as merely a cover for the condemnationof Mary; Walpole as a complex means of vindicating her. Yet Robertson wasattempting to sidestep altogether the need to take sides.

James VI possesses his own curious relationship to the paradigm of resentment,one strikingly different from that of either James V or Mary. Where his grandfatherand his mother had imprudently and disastrously indulged resentment, and beendevoured by it, James VI steps aside and forces himself to «stifle» his resentment,strikingly in the case of his mother’s judicial murder130. This suppression ofresentment against England is even more remarkable given the history of mutualantipathy, kindled by «long emulation, and inflamed by reciprocal injuries»131, thatRobertson has sketched between the English and the Scots. Indeed James assumesthe paradoxical figure of sovereign justice unable to command the forces of publicresentment, and forced to become instead spectator of the boiling resentments thatdistract his realm. This should make James a almost a tragic character for theEnlightenment: a man of «moderation», a force for reconciliation and mediation,who stoically conquers his own personal resentments in the service of his kingdom,and who is nonetheless paid back by his less enlightened subjects with derision orcontempt132. Robertson himself is ambivalent about this: in a carefully judgedphrase he claims that James is «extremely ready to sacrifice the strongestresentment to the slightest acknowledgement»133. The power of the Crown must besustained, however, and while James keeps himself safe from private resentments,

128 Robertson, Scotland, 1:367-368.129 Robertson, Scotland, 2:136.130 Robertson, Scotland, 2:155.131 Robertson, Scotland, 1:103.132 Robertson, Scotland, 2:193.133 Robertson, Scotland, 2:190.


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he must not be ready to sacrifice the public resentment upon which his authoritymust be based.

The narrative of Scotland is a kind of wild carnival of resentment, whichdiverges significantly from the more purely philosophical treatments of Kames andSmith, in that the passion of resentment is in no real sense seen to be transformedinto the public and ‘proper’ resentment of the painless development. Narrativehistory could, for this reason, appear to be unenlightening, if not depressing. Itspurpose then for a historian like Robertson was to show how unchecked resentmentcould work to frustrate the development of society, and so to illustrate its dangers.It is part of Robertson’s strategy to distance his readers from the resentments thatfill the narrative. Thus, in a note appended to a later edition of the History ofScotland, Robertson (a good unionist) writes that the «violence of national hatredcan hardly be conceived by posterity», and strongly implies that the «fierceresentment of Scots» towards the English that he depicts so vividly is very much ofthe past134. This was perhaps wishful thinking. The attempt to banish ‘fierce’resentment to a disordered past was at the centre of Robertson’s project. Despitehis best attempts, however, some unreconciled souls sought to assimilateRobertson to the world of his own historical descriptors, describing him as a«Reverend Party-man», and ascribing to him the one passion which he had soughtto master: «To his resentment he fixes no bounds; yet he has not magnanimityenough to be an open enemy»135. This partisan image of Robertson as a covertresenter, if widely adopted, threatened to undo all the work of his historicalwritings, and reflected a sense that the taming and redirection of resentment, thegreat achievement of modern Scottish life, was simply a sham, permitting thosewith the flexible capacity to conceal and disguise their resentment to rise to thefore and predominate. In the language of the time, this would be a refinement ofresentment, rather than an elimination of it. The language of motive and historicalcharacter tended of course to spill into the present, thus disrupting the attempt tocorral off the past from the present, which was one of Robertson’s aims in theHistory of Scotland. In an interesting image, Benjamin Rush (who had observedRobertson in his pomp as Moderator of the Church of Scotland while a medicalstudent in Edinburgh in the 1760s) likened Robertson to Archbishop Laud, acomparison probably prompted by a reading of Hume’s history136. This immersionof Robertson into the dark world of his own histories threatened to make him acharacter to be resented by a people jealous of their spiritual liberty. Thus, historycould turn against the polite historians, and be used to invoke resentment againstthem.

134 W. Robertson, The History of Scotland during the Reigns of Queen Mary and of King James VI tillhis accession to the crown of England. With the author’s last emendations and additions (Fifteenthedition; London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1797), 1:106-107.135 «Sceptical observations upon a late character of Dr Robertson», London Magazine, 41, (1772):281-283.136 B. Rush, «Account of William Robertson», Edinburgh University Library MS, M.28.

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IV. CONCLUSION

Resentment serves as a bridge between philosophical and narrative conceptionsof history. In the former, resentment provides a classic case study of thesublimation of the passions into a providential and spontaneous order, although onenot without its unresolved tensions. In the latter, it represents a more ambiguousand threatening principle of action. In part, the motive of resentment allowedeighteenth-century historians to reflect upon what was most disruptive anddisturbing about their relationship to the past, and by confronting it directly theysought to prevent it from distorting the principal reaction of eighteenth-centuryreaders to vexed historical questions. They could not deny its importance and soattempted to understand it better. Recognising the seriousness with whichhistorians such as Hume and Robertson took the passions that largely constitutedtheir histories enables us to appreciate and understand the subtlety of the lessonstaught by eighteenth-century historical narrative, one of the most vital and popularof its literary forms.

Newbattle Abbey CollegeMidlothian, Scotland

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DOING HISTORICAL RESEARCH IN THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY.LEOPOLD RANKE, THE ARCHIVE POLICY,

AND THE RELAZIONI OF THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC1

Philipp Müller

«By the way, you should know that the opening of the archive will not happenat least not the way I hoped for; possibly always in a very restricted way»2. Inautumn 1827, Leopold Ranke revealed to his friend and colleague Heinrich Ritter(1791-1869), extraordinary professor of philosophy in Berlin (1824-1833), that theoutcome of his request to use material kept in the Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv inVienna was likely to be negative. The historian «had hoped to become this way, ifnot a Columbus at least a kind of Cook of some beautiful, unknown island ofuniversal history»3. This article examines the specific conditions of historicalresearch, the means and strategies deployed by Leopold Ranke in order toovercome the administrative obstacles and the consequences this all had for hishistorical research whilst on study tour in Central Europe from 1827 until 1831. Icontend that at a very early stage of the research process the historian’sprofessional work unfolded in a social field in which the historian took the positionof a (foreign) subject dependent on the archive policy of the sovereign and stategovernments respectively. Leopold Ranke had to ask for permission to work with

1 This article presents observations of my study about Archive policy in the Nineteenth Century.Fortunately, I presented first interpretations of Ranke’s letters at the Research Centre Archiv, Wissen,Macht at the University Bielefeld, at the Postgraduate School Media of History – History of Media atthe Universities Weimar, Erfurt and Jena, and at the Interdisciplinary Workshop Cultures of LetterWriting organised by Regina Schulte at the University Bochum. I had further opportunity to presentdifferent versions of my essay at the conference Historians at Work organised by Henning Trüper,Niklas Olsen, and Bo Stråth at the European University Institute (EUI), at the conference Histories.Unsettling and Unsettled organised by Alf Lüdtke and Sebastian Jobs at the Arbeitstelle für HistorischeAnthropologie at the University Erfurt, and at the Research Colloquium of Alf Lüdtke. I would like tothank both coordinators and participants of these academic venues for their critical remarks and helpfulcomments as they helped me to further my analysis and understanding of the material. Moreover, I oweespecially thanks to Gerhard Fürmetz, Rebekka Habermas, Alf Lüdtke, Alexander Mejstrik, and EstherSchomacher; their advice and criticism originating from different fields of expertise provided a veryrich resource of intellectual support. I would like to thank also the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft(DFG), the Deutsche Akademische Austauschdienst (DAAD), the School of Slavonic and EastEuropean Studies (SSEES at UCL), and the University College London (UCL) for their financialsupport of my research project.2 Let. Ritter, 28.10.1827, in: L. v. Ranke, «Zur eigenen Lebensgeschichte», Sämtliche Werke, ed. A.Dove, 53-54 (Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1890), 171-248, 173ff., 176.3 Let. Karl Varnhagen van Ense, 9.12.1828, L. v. Ranke, Das Briefwerk, ed. W. P. Fuchs (Hamburg:Hoffmann und Campe, 1949), 115-234, 126ff., 126.


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materials kept in archives and, therefore, he made requests. Furthermore, theresearcher resorted to diverse means and appropriated the conditions he faced inorder to promote his own matter. The administrative obstacles of the archive policyensued by the state government in the early nineteenth century, the historian’sstrategies to achieve access to the archive and the impact of these conditions onRanke’s research and his scholarly position are at the centre of this article.

A general assumption of the history of sciences and academia in the Germanlands during the nineteenth century is the so called professionalization. It is arguedthat in the early twenties a compulsory «research imperative»4 had been installed.However, recent studies in the history of academic institutions provide compellingcases, showing that the notion of a reform process that transformed swiftlysciences in the early nineteenth century is misleading. Traditional patternsinformed institutional practices such as appointments and examinations andpersisted throughout the nineteenth century. The most illustrious example is theappointment of Justus Liebig (1803-1873) who was appointed professor at theUniversität Gießen not because of his scientific achievements but because oftraditional criteria such as his regional origin5. Another example is the notoriousHumboldt reform. The myth of the Humboldt reforms generally asserts theinstigation of radical change at the Friedrich Wilhelms Universität whichsubsequently reached down to other German universities in the early nineteenthcentury. Recent studies, however, show that for example the Universität Tübingenimplemented certain changes earlier6. What is more, the Humboldt reform isrevealed as an ‘invented tradition’7 which was established by academic scholars inthe early twentieth century to provide a unifying identikit as German universitiesunderwent an enormous institutional shift8. In other words, by emphasising actorsand their practices in structured social fields, it becomes clear that the nineteenthcentury witnessed a slow transformation process rather than another alleged‘scientific revolution’9; the humanities in particular were slow in adapting tochange in comparison to the natural sciences10. As a consequence, the question isto be raised how and under which circumstances research was performed, how

4 S. Turner, «The Prussian universities and the research imperative 1806 to 1848» (Princeton, Ph. D.dissertation, 1973).5 P. Moraw, «Humboldt in Gießen. Zur Professorenberufung an einer deutschen Universität des 19.Jahrhunderts», Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 10 (1984): 47-91.6 S. Paletschek, Die permanente Erfindung einer Tradition. Die Universität Tübingen im Kaiserreichund in der Weimarer Republik (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2001).7 E. Hobsbawm, «Mass-Producing Traditions. Europe 1870-1914», The Invention of Tradition, eds.E. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 263-307, 303.8 S. Paletschek, «Die Erfindung der Humboldt’schen Universität. Die Konstruktion der deutschenUniversitätsidee in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts», Historische Anthropologie, 10, (2002):183–205.9 S. Shapin, Scientific Revolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).10 M. Baumgarten, Professoren und Universitäten im 19. Jahrhundert. Zur Sozialgeschichtedeutscher Geistes- und Naturwissenschaftler (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997); Paletschek,Erfindung einer Tradition.

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researchers dealt with the conditions they faced and how this influenced theirresearch practice11.

I. OUTLINE

To answer these questions, I focus on a particular case: Leopold Ranke’shistorical research whilst on study tour in Central Europe in the late twenties andearly thirties in the nineteenth century. By providing a thick description of Ranke’sperformance in the anteroom of the archive, I examine the particular conditionsand constraints faced by the historian while on research mission and highlight hisown role in lobbying his case and its significance for his scholarly position andwork. Firstly, I analyse Leopold Ranke’s difficulties when seeking access to thecentral archive of the Habsburg Monarch, the Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv inVienna. Following Ranke’s traces12, I locate the diverse conditions, assets, e. g.professional reputation, and various sources of support such as the PrussianLegation, reference letters, and societies which finally enabled him to dissipate theworries brought forward by the Austrian state administration. Secondly, I examinethe impact of governmental archive policy on Ranke’s research. Decisions made bythe Austrian state administration and Ranke’s engagement affected his relationshipto leading state officials, his research agenda and went also with practicaldifficulties as well as scholarly consequences while doing archival research. In athird and final step of my analysis, I highlight Ranke’s overall objective of hisresearch mission, the collection of relazioni. My contention is that Ranke,collecting this particular type of material, enabled him to gather historical data

11 In this regard my approach is related to recent historiographical studies with an emphasis onresearch practices in the historical discipline: Writing History. Theory and Practice, eds. S. Berger,H. Feldner and K. Passmore (London: Hodder Arnold, 2003); «Europe and Its National Histories», eds.S. Berger and A. Mycock, Storia della Storiografia, 50, (2006); Narrating the Nation: The Representa-tion of National Narratives in Different Genres, eds. S. Berger, L. Eriksons and A. Mycock (Ox-ford: Berghahn Books, 2008); Daniela Saxer, «Die Schärfung des Quellenblicks. Diegeschichtswissenschaftliche Forschungspraxis in Wien und Zürich (1840–1914)» (Universität Zürich,Ph. D. dissertation, 2005); «The Production of Historical Writing», eds. H. Trüper and Niklas Olsen,Storia della Storiografia, 53, (2008); H. Trüper, «Topography of a Method: Francois Louis Ganshofand the Writing of History» (EUI Florence, Ph. D. dissertation, 2008). Furthermore, my investigation islargely informed by concepts, reflections and principles of micro history and the history of the everydayand owes much to a range of inspiring loci classici of the history of sciences: B. Latour and S. Woolgar,Laboratory life. The construction of scientific facts (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979);Eléments d’histoire des sciences, ed. M. Serres (Paris: Bordas, 1989); M. Biagioli, Galileo, Courtier.The Practice of Science in the Culture of Absolutism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), B.Latour, The Pasteurization of France (Cambridge, Mass.; London: Harvard University Press, 1993); S.Shapin, A Social History of Truth. Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century (Chicago; London:University of Chicago Press, 1994); L. Schiebinger, The Mind has no Sex? Women in the Origins ofModern Sciences (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997); J. Fabian, Out of our Minds.Reason and Madness in the Exploration of Central Africa (Berkeley; London: University of CaliforniaPress, 2000).

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about the modern period without interfering with basic concerns and principlesbrought forward by state officials as well as archivists.

II. IN THE ANTEROOM OF THE ARCHIVE

Leopold Ranke (1795-1886) had left Berlin in September 1827. The primaryand major goal of his research mission was Vienna where he sought to findrelazioni of Venetian ambassadors of the seventeenth century. However, Ranke’sfirst attempt in approaching his object of desire failed. Moreover, his stay in Viennawas prolonged and, subsequently, several sojourns followed. What was meant tolast only a couple of weeks until the beginning of the new semester in October1827 lasted until February 1831, four years which Ranke spent not only in Viennabut also in newly acquired areas of the Habsburg Monarchy’s southern Empire(Venice in 1815) and various cities and towns in northern and southern Italy.

For Ranke, the relazioni, reports of Venetian ambassadors about the ongoingaffairs at European courts, were a promising source, for this material allowed himto trace major state affairs and their developments13. The collection of thesemanuscripts by Mario Foscarini (1696-1763), Doge of the Venetian Republic(1762-1763), was kept in the Viennese Hofbibliothek; even more relazioni were tobe found in the central archive of the Habsburg Monarchy, the former k.k.Geheime Hausarchiv14. While access to the first had been established, the use ofthe latter had not been granted. A writ of the state government’s office submitted«a formal refusal» of his request15. The main concerns mentioned were: «Far toomodern history. Rules. Alien to the archive»16.

12 The analysis is based on related archive material I found in the Österreichische Staatsarchiv and thenumerous letters written by Ranke during his research mission. Given the intricate history of the editionof Ranke’s letters, this article took all of these letters into account which are available and have beenpublished so far: Ranke, «Lebensgeschichte»; Ranke, Briefwerk; Ranke, Neue Briefe. Most instructiveabout the editions of Ranke’s letters U. Muhlack, «Leopold Ranke, seine Geschichtsschreibung undseine Briefe. Zur Einführung in die neue Ausgabe der Ranke-Korrespondenz», Gesamtausgabe desBriefwechsels von Leopold Ranke, 1 (1813-1825), eds. U. Muhlack and O. Ramonat (München:Oldenbourg, 2007), 3-49; O. Ramonat, «Editionsbericht», Gesamtausgabe des Briefwechsels vonLeopold Ranke, 51-66.13 G. Benzoni, «Ranke’s Favourite Source. The Venetian Relazioni. Impressions with Allusions toLater Historiography», Leopold von Ranke and the Shaping of the Historical Discipline, eds. G. Iggersand J. M. Powell (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1990), 45–57, 50.14 L. Bittner, V. Inventare des Wiener Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchivs. 4. Gesamtinventar des WienerHaus-, Hof-, und Staatsarchivs (Wien: 1936); M. Hochedlinger, «Das k.k. ‘Geheime Hausarchiv’»,Quellenkunde der Habsburgermonarchie (16.-18. Jahrhundert). Ein exemplarisches Handbuch, eds. J.Pauser, M. Scheutz and T. Winkelbauer (Wien: Oldenbourg, 2004), 33-44, 39, 46.15 Letter to H. Ranke, Vienna End of Nov. 1827, Ranke, Briefwerk, 176ff., 178.16 Let. Karl Varnhagen van Ense, 9.12.1828, Ranke, Briefwerk, 126ff., 126; cf. AT OeSTA HHSTA SBKA 18/1827, Joseph Knechtl, Draft of expert opinion, 9.10.1827, 2ff. A note on margins on the relevantdraft of Knechtl’s expert opinion refers to a no longer existing report No. 23, 13 October 1827, and pointsout that Action did not follow and that Ranke worked in the archive, despite Knechtl’s negative evaluationof Ranke’s request, see AT OeSTA HHSTA SB KA 18/1827, Joseph Knechtl, Draft of expert opinion,


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For the state government, the historian’s interest in arcane knowledge was aserious concern. Archives were primarily not meant to be used by historians.Although the scholarly use of material kept in archives was not an entirely newphenomenon, it had been a rare practise in the preceding centuries. When QueenMaria Theresa (1717-1780) founded the Geheime Hausarchiv in 1749, the privateuse of the archive was not considered17. Consequently, the archive was not, as thearchivist Joseph Knechtl (1771-1838) argued in his expert opinion about Ranke’srequest, «a mere literary institute which was accessible to be used by the generalpublic»18. The ‘chief purpose’19 of the Geheime Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv,however, resulted from its relationship to its superior authority, the stategovernment. The archive was an integral part of the arcane sphere of the state andthus its information was kept deliberately apart from the public to prevent anyharm for the Habsburg monarchy and the members of its dynasty; secondly, thearchive was supposed to furnish the state government with information deemeduseful for efficient rule. To use archive material for scholarly purposes, there wasno right which could be claimed, but only the option to beg for the good will of thesovereign. As a consequence, the private use of archival material for scientificreasons was at the discretion of the state administration. In accordance withcommon administrative practice, Prince von Metternich (1773-1859), Secretary ofState (1809-1848), commissioned the archive directorate to examine the questions«if, and under which circumstances a allowance» of Ranke’s request could begranted20.

For the archivist Joseph Knechtl, the «soul of the archive»21, as Metternich putit, one of the main worries was the historian’s interest in «files of the modernperiod»22: the matter of the petition was «not a distanced period of time, but arepresentation of the Italian states of the 16th and 17th century»23. In the aftermathof Napoleon’s European imperial policy the danger of intruding archive usersloomed large. Territories as well as archives were in great disorder24. New states

9.10.1827, 2ff., 4. However, the points raised by the archivist exactly coincide with the main concernsabout which Ranke learned by the Prussian attaché Baron von Maltzahn in Vienna as described in his letterto Karl Varnhagen van Ense, see Karl Varnhagen van Ense, 9.12.1828, Ranke, Briefwerk, 126ff., 126. It isalso well known that Ranke was finally allowed to work in the Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, but the pointof time, 12 October 1827, is misleading, for Ranke mentions his waiting for a response by the Austrianstate administration in a letter to Heinrich Ritter, see Let. Ritter, 28.10.1827, Ranke, «Lebensgeschichte»,173ff., 176. Not before the end of November Ranke wrote to his brother Heinrich about the final approvalof his second request, see Letter to H. Ranke, Vienna End of Nov. 1827, Ranke, Briefwerk, 176ff., 178.17 Bittner, Hausarchiv, 164.18 AT OeSTA HHSTA SB KA 18/1827, Joseph Knechtl, Draft of expert opinion, 9.10.1827, 2.19 AT OeSTA HHSTA SB KA 18/1827, Joseph Knechtl, Draft of expert opinion, 9.10.1827, 2.20 AT OeSTA HHSTA SB KA 18/1827, Clemens von Metternich, Writ, 7.10.1827, 1.21 Bittner, Hausarchiv, 71.22 AT OeSTA HHSTA SB KA 18/1827, Joseph Knechtl, Draft of expert opinion, 9.10.1827, 4; cf.Let. Varnhagen, 9.12.1828, Ranke, Briefwerk, 126ff., 126.23 AT OeSTA HHSTA SB KA 18/1827, Joseph Knechtl, Draft of expert opinion, 9.10.1827, 2.24 U. Tucci, «Ranke and the Venetian Document Market», Leopold von Ranke and the Shaping of theHistorical Discipline, 99-107, 100.

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had been founded, existing ones had been aggrandised, and many other states wereincorporated in spite of traditional legitimate claims; archives had beenappropriated, and as a consequence, collections had been dismantled and materialhad been lost. Diverse parts of the ‘Venetian archive’, Ranke’s object of desire,were to be found in Vienna, in Paris and also in Venice, and nobody really knew towhich extent «these volumes» might contain «scandalous revealing»25. In thewords of the archivist Knechtl, the political and archival situation put states andtheir administration in «a more or less embarrassing predicament»26. Whilst thepast was a welcomed resource to be exploited as it allowed governments to tingetheir political compromises with a professional history of their states, sensitive dataalso had to be protected from intruders; revelations of scandalous informationcould harm the reputation and integrity of the monarch and his family. Thelegitimacy of the sovereign’s rule, albeit newly created or at least changed, was tobe displayed; any information undermining the legitimacy of his territorial andfinancial claims was to be quelled.

If one sees the administrative decision against this social and politicalbackground in the post-napoleon era, the concerns of the Austrian stateadministration seem rather comprehensible. For the Austrian state government,Leopold Ranke’s focus on recent developments of the states in modern Europetouched on arcane knowledge which was deemed of both high value and sensitivequality. Hence the negative reply of the historian’s interest in «too modernhistory». However, in the end Ranke was able to clean out the administration’sobjections as entry to the arcane of the Austrian Empire was finally granted.

A major condition of Ranke’s success was the transformation of thepetitioner’s status. In Vienna, Leopold Ranke was a (Prussian) subject in a foreigncountry, an ‘alien scholar’: a fact Austrian state officials and archivists seriouslyconsidered27. But Ranke himself was fully aware of his inferior position. In a letterto his younger brother Heinrich (1798-1876), Ranke mentions an episode whilsttravelling from Dresden to Vienna:

Allow me to confess you something, which I have not entrusted to anybody so far. When one drivesfrom Bohemia to Saxony, there is a small circle of trees, on the border itself, and a street – which hasbeen extended – has been strewn with yellow gravel. In Berlin and Dresden I was told so much aboutthe different Austrian habit and character, so I was completely filled with it: I travel to a new country,good reception is not for sure. Enough, with this feeling I rose to say my prayer in that double circle oftrees despite the noisiness of my neighbours: I shall be fine! I did well beyond my expectations28.

However, it took a while until Leopold Ranke received «good reception» inVienna. The historian had to transform from a «foreign scholar»29, to a well known

25 AT OeSTA HHSTA SB KA 18/1827, Joseph Knechtl, Draft of expert opinion, 9.10.1827, 4.26 AT OeSTA HHSTA SB KA 18/1827, Joseph Knechtl, Draft of expert opinion, 9.10.1827, 2.27 Cf. AT OeSTA HHSTA SB KA 18/1827, Joseph Knechtl, Draft of expert opinion, 9.10.1827, 2.28 Let. H. Ranke, End of Nov. 1827, Ranke, «Lebensgeschichte», 176ff., 177.29 AT OeSTA HHSTA SB KA 18/1827, Joseph Knechtl, Draft of expert opinion, 9.10.1827, 4; Let.Varnhagen, 9.12.1828, Ranke, Briefwerk, 126ff., 126.


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and unquestionable petitioner. In other words, the petitioner required a legitimizedpersonal identity if his request was to be approved by the relevant officials; Rankehad to establish a public face in order to promote his petition; the successfultransition was a result of the efficient use of a range of assets, strategies andsources of support.

To begin with, a first characteristic of his study tour was that Leopold Rankeappeared in person in relevant places. In order to make a request the historianappeared in the anteroom of the archive, meaning he became physically visible.Leopold Ranke did not initiate the request to use the Austrian archive in Berlin, butafter he had arrived in Vienna. This also applies to the subsequent sojourns inVenice and Florence. Whenever Ranke arrived in a city in which he wished toincrease his insight into the past, he was in a position to induce his request.However, Ranke did not appear on a blank space; his mission had been prepared,so a set of means established a personal identity which was to be examined beforehis arrival in Vienna in autumn 1827.

An important institution preparing the petitioner’s reception was the PrussianLegation in Vienna. Overall, the legations of the Prussian state were an importantinstitutional basis abroad which allowed researchers to communicate not only withtheir government and their superiors but also with their colleagues and friends inthe remote home country, meaning the legation received and submitted a range ofdeliveries such as letters, catalogues etc.30. Furthermore, the attachés alsosupported Ranke’s cause. In Vienna Baron von Maltzahn (1793-1843)31, in VeniceBaron von Martens, and in Rome Baron von Bunsen (1791-1860) lobbied for thehistorian’s case; they used their established contacts and their familiarity with thelocal environment to learn about the conditions of access to collections, museums,libraries, and archives; they recommended their clients and if necessary providedarguments to make this or that institution accessible to researchers32. Time andagain they were also granted success.

A further source of influence which provided Ranke with the required publicface was his professional reputation as a prominent historical scholar whichpreceded his arrival in Vienna in September 1827. «My last book is the reason ofmy joy», he told his brother Heinrich33: «Everybody, so to speak, knows about myefforts and acknowledges them. I enjoy support in manifold ways»34.

Before Ranke had left Berlin in 1827, a first volume of his investigation aboutthe Fürsten und Völker von Südeuropa had been published. More importantly,Ranke had made a substantial impact on the scene of scholars and intellectuals

30 Let. Bartholomäus Kopitar, 13.1.1830, Neue Briefe. coll. B. Hoeft, ed. H. Herzfeld (Hamburg,1949) 95-146, 132ff., 133; Let. Ferdinand Ranke, 24.3.1830, Ibid., 120ff., 120, footnote 1 [editor’scomment].31 AT OeSTA HHSTA SB KA 18/1827, Clemens von Metternich, Writ, 7.10.1827, 1.32 Let. K. Varnhagen v. E., 9.12.1828, 126ff., 126; Let. Karl Freiherr von und zum Altenstein,11.4.1829, Ranke, Neue Briefe 122ff., 122f.; Let. K. Altenstein, 1.10.1829, Ranke, Neue Briefe, 127ff.33 Letter to H. Ranke, End of Nov. 1827, Ranke, «Lebensgeschichte», 176ff., 176.34 Letter to H. Ranke, End of Nov. 1827, Ranke, «Lebensgeschichte», 176ff., 176.

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three years earlier as he had published his own historical study, the Geschichte derromanischen und germanischen Völker von 1494-1535. It was this publicationwhich established Ranke’s reputation as a new and critical historian, for he notonly harshly criticised former leading historians of Italian history, but alsoprovided a new critical historical account based on Italian relazioni kept in theHofbibliothek in Berlin35. His criticism – paralleled by his own examination –earned him not only praise among various scholars and intellectuals in Berlin, butalso the attention of leading state officials; «[e]verything had been prepared indetail»36. Contacts of his younger brother Ferdinand (1802-1876) paved the way toofficials of the Prussian Ministry of Cultural Affairs. Supplied with a copy of hisbook they were intrigued by Ranke’s rigorous critique and investigation and,consequently, deemed him a «restorer of history»37 in the era of restorationsubsequent to the Vienna Congress in 1815. As a result, Johannes Schulze (1786-1869), Court Advisor at the Prussian Ministry of Cultural Affairs, and Heinrichvon Kamptz (1769-1849), Director of the Prussian Ministry of Justice, achievedRanke’s appointment as extraordinary professor at the Friedrich WilhelmUniversität in Berlin in 1825.

Besides Ranke’s «well earned property», i. e. «my reputation»38, and the effortof the Prussian legation in Vienna, it was finally the support of his owngovernment which allowed the historian to use his other assets to good effect. Itwas a formal reference letter of the Prussian Ministry of Cultural Affairs whichsecured privileged access to Friedrich Gentz (1764-1832), Court Advisor of theAustrian state government. The reference letter by Ranke’s superior, Heinrich vonKamptz, assured the state government of the historian’s true intentions andobjectives and thus Ranke’s matter enjoyed the «immediate participation»39 ofPrince von Metternich, and of Court Advisor Gentz. The latter arranged a meetingof the historian with the first and subsequently the «matter had been instan-taneously decided»40.

Reference letters were essential in approaching various milieus in order topromote historical research. On his way to Vienna, Leopold Ranke met LudwigTieck (1753-1843) in Dresden and participated in the social occasions of theplaywright’s private home, «where one enjoys good society and where one reads ina great manner»41. Equipped with a recommendation by Ludwig Tieck, thehistorian was welcomed to the private home of Tieck’s friend, the Baron Joseph

35 A. Dove, «Leopold von Ranke», Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, 27, (1888): 242-269, 252; S.Baur, Versuch über die Historik des jungen Ranke (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1998), 74ff.36 U. Muhlack, «Leopold Ranke (1795-1886)», Klassiker der Geschichtswissenschaft, 1, ed. R. Lutz(München: Beck, 2006), 38-63, 40; E. Schulin, Traditionskritik und Rekonstruktionsversuch. Studienzur Entwicklung von Geschichtswissenschaft und historischem Denken (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &Ruprecht, 1979), 44-64.37 Dove, «Ranke», 251.38 Letter Ritter, 30.4.1828, Ranke, «Lebensgeschichte», 199ff., 200.39 Let. H. Ranke, End of Nov. 1827, Ranke, «Lebensgeschichte», 176ff., 178.40 Let. Varnhagen, 9.12.1827, Ranke, Briefwerk, 126ff., 126.41 Let. Bettina v. Arnim, 21.10.1827, Ranke, Briefwerk, 117f., 118.


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von Hormayr (1782-1848), the former director of the Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv(1808-1813)42.

Hormayr welcomed me like an old friend. He is lively interested in the history of Austria and Bavaria aswell as in play and art, and also in the King of Bavaria: I have seen him nearly every day and we eat inthe same restaurant; for me, his company is very dear43.

Holders of reference letters utilised the symbolic nimbus of well knownscholars and playwrights; assuring personal acquaintance with the messenger, theyopened the doors of both Houses of Knowledge44 and Open Houses45 of privatespersons. Thus they allowed to create social bonds between very different milieusand, finally, mobilised available personal and private resources. When travellingabroad, it was better to have two or three reference letters in one’s pocket insteadof one. While travelling down the Apennine peninsula Ranke asked KarlVarnhagen van Ense (1785-1858) for «a good word»46 from one of the Humboldtbrothers. Several months later, the historian met Countess Isabella Albrizzi (1763-1836), playwright and proprietress of an important Salon in Venice47. Theoccasional utterance of the Salonière’s personal acquaintance with Alexander vonHumboldt, again prompted Ranke to emphasize in a letter to Varnhagen thesignificance of «any recommendation of any important man» for his project whilsttravelling through Northern Italy48. In Verona, for example, «a good recom-mendation by [Friedrich Carl von] Savigny» (1779-1861), promoted his matter; asa consequence, he was able to find there an important manuscript kept in a privatelibrary49.

In Vienna, the reference letter of Heinrich von Kamptz opened the door toFriedrich von Gentz and this, finally, allowed Ranke to use his other assets such asreputation and social contacts to good effect in order to achieve the approval of hispetition. Subsequently, a second request, albeit different in nature, was made. Thistime Ranke’s request «has not been induced through the ordinary course of

42 Let. Bettina v. Arnim, 21.10.1827, Ranke, Briefwerk, 117f., footnote 1.43 Let. Bettina v. Arnim, 21.10.1827, Ranke, Briefwerk, 117f., 119.44 J. Mittelstraß, Häuser des Wissens. Wissenschaftstheoretische Studien (Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp,1998).45 R. v. Bruch, «Gelehrtes und geselliges Berlin. Urban-elitäre Zirkel als kommunikativeSchnittpunkte für Akademienmitglieder und Universitätsprofessoren», Die Königlich PreußischeAkademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin im Kaiserreich, ed. J. Kocka (Berlin: Akademie, 1999), 85–100,88; I. Lelke, «Die Berliner Akademie der Wissenschaften und die arbeitende Geselligkeit», Frauen inAkademie und Wissenschaft. Arbeitsorte und Forschungspraktiken 1700–2000, ed. T. Wobbe (Berlin:Akademie, 2002), 65–88, 74.46 Let. Varnhagen, 10.3.1828, Ranke, Briefwerk, 145ff., 146.47 U. Weckel, «A Lost Paradise of a Female Culture? Some Critical Questions Regarding theScholarship on late-Eighteenth and early Nineteenth-Century German Salons», German History, 18,(2000): 310–336; I. Lelke, «Berliner Geselligkeit und die Brüder Grimm», Zeitschrift für GermanistikN.F., 11, (2000): 562–577, 566ff.48 Let. Varnhagen, 18.10.1828, Ranke, Briefwerk, 170ff., 171.49 Let. H. Ranke, 20./21.11.1828, Ranke, «Lebensgeschichte», 209ff., 210.

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business»50, but enjoyed the support of superior ranking Austrian state officials.While his first formal request earned him nothing but denial, his second attempt ataccessing the arcane proved efficient and ushered in a most informal inquiry ofmaterial:

The following day I gave Gentz a note lacking head as well as signature, containing only some roughinformation what I was looking for. This was passed on to the archive, and he made me access at least agood part of the Venetian archive [in the Viennese Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv]51.

In the subsequent years, Friedrich Gentz proved an impresario of the historian’smatters. When Ranke sought to see more original manuscripts kept in the Venetianarchive located at its original site in Venice, it was Friedrich Gentz who tookRanke’s matter in his hands, mediated the researcher’s interests, and provided himwith recommendations by Metternich52. Most interestingly, the Austrian CourtAdvisor made sure that Ranke’s petition met the formal requirements of a petitionby having the request drafted by Metternich’s Private Secretary, Joseph AntonEdler von Pilat (1782-1865) as Gentz’ protégée reveals in a letter to his patron: «Iattach the letter to His Grace [Prince von Metternich] which as you, my dearpatron, advised me is written by Mister von Pilat. Supported by your approval itwill not fail to produce its effect»53. Subsequently, the opening of the archive inVenice was a matter of time and, additionally, Ranke was granted the permissionto see further manuscripts54.

Shortly after his arrival in Vienna, Ranke had informed his dear friend Bettinavon Arnim (1785-1859) that he was compelled to look first of all for libraries,archives, and «the men who are able to pave me the way» to these institutions; inFriedrich Gentz the historian had finely found the man who did pave him the wayto these sites of historical research55.

In conclusion, Leopold Ranke performed in a variously constrained field.Research in the arcane sphere of the state was a governmental affair; to usearchival material the petitioner had to ask for the sovereign’s favour executed byhis leading state officials. In this field, in the anteroom of the arcane, Ranke tookan inferior position as a foreign subject and it was this position from which he hadto overcome a range of obstacles to achieve «good reception». Staying in relevantplaces, valuable resources such as good contacts, scholarly reputation, diplomaticplea, and recommendations by scholars and officials were essential in promotingones own research matter. Ranke was very well aware of these conditions and didnot conceal the impediments of his archival research. Although this ‘tacit

50 Let. Kamptz, 16.1.1828, Ranke, Neue Briefe, 99f., 99.51 Let. Varnhagen, 9.12.1828, Ranke, Briefwerk, 126ff., 127.52 Let. Altenstein, 11.4.1829, Ranke, Neue Briefe, 122ff., 123; Let. Gentz, 26.9.1830, 220ff., 220f.53 Let. Gentz, 17.10.1828, Ranke, Briefwerk, 169f., 170.54 Let. Gentz, 17.10.1828, Ranke, Briefwerk, 169f., 169; Let. F. Ranke, 16.12.1830, Ranke, NeueBriefe, 138ff., 138.55 Let. Arnim, 21.10.1827, Ranke, Briefwerk, 117ff., 119.


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knowledge’56 about the archive policy of state governments did not surface in thefinal product, the historical narrative, Ranke shared his experiences in his letters,and his personal accounts included also the historian’s own engagement in thearchive policy as Ranke was actively involved in appropriating these political andadministrative circumstances57.

III. ARCHIVE POLICY: CONSEQUENCES FOR HISTORICAL RESEARCH

The archive policy was not without consequences for the historian’sperformance. Whether it was Ranke’s research agenda, his relationship to theAustrian state government, his scholarly position, or scientific notion of truth aboutthe past, the severe administrative supervision of the threshold to the arcaneimpacted on the researcher’s position and action.

To begin with, making a request and its approval was a time consumingprocedure. Consequently, Leopold Ranke reorganised his research and tookevasive actions in order to make the most out of his journey. First, the historianchanged the site of research; for example, in Vienna Leopold Ranke resorted tousing the Hofbibliothek as he waited for the administration’s decision about hiscase. For Ranke, every House of Knowledge deemed promising to find morerelazioni was to be approached whilst waiting for a response. Whether the museumand the library in Prague, the private library of the Marchese Gianfilippo inVerona, the municipal archive in Vicenza, the libraries of the former cardinals inRome, or the document market in Venice, Ranke went wherever he could find hisfavoured manuscripts, although archives remained his primary goal58.

In Venice, however, the whole affair became more complicated and revealshow far the government’s archive policy impacted on the researcher’s agenda.After Ranke’s arrival in Venice in autumn 1828, he presented his petition to usethe archive. In his letter to Friedrich Gentz the historian did not conceal his

56 M. Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension (New York: 1996).57 Additionally, Leopold Ranke did not shy away to make his personal accounts public when heprepared their publication in his oeuvre which was then finally edited two years after the historian’sdeath by his pupil Alfred Dove in 1890: Let. Ritter 4.10.1827, Ranke, «Lebensgeschichte», 116; Let.Ritter 28.10.1827, Ranke, «Lebensgeschichte», 121; Let. Ritter, 9.12.1827, Ranke, «Lebensgeschichte»,129; Let. H. Ranke End of Nov. 1827, Ranke, «Lebensgeschichte», 125. Further letters providing moreprecise insight into Ranke’s in Vienna were published by Theodor Wiedemann only five years after theedition of Ranke’s oeuvre: T. Wiedemann, «Briefe Leopold v. Rankes an Varnhagen v. Ense und Rahelaus der Zeit seines Aufenthaltes in Italien», Biographische Blätter, 1, (1895): 435ff. [Let. K. Varnhagenv. E., 9.12.1827, Ranke, Briefwerk, 126ff.], T. Wiedemann, «Leopold von Ranke und Bettina vonArnim», Deutsche Revue, 20, (1895): 56ff. [Let. Arnim, 21.10.1827, Ranke, Briefwerk, 117ff.; Let.Arnim, 6.2.1828, Ranke, Briefwerk, 139f.].58 Let. Ritter, 4.10.1827, Ranke, «Lebensgeschichte», 171ff., 171; Let. H. Ranke, Venice 20./21.11.1828, Ranke, «Lebensgeschichte», 209ff., 210; Let. Ritter, 1.8.1829, Ranke, «Lebensgeschichte»,221ff., 221; Let. H. Ranke, 15.11.1829, Ranke, «Lebensgeschichte», 226ff., 227; more generally seeLet. Ritter, 22.3.1828, Ranke, «Lebensgeschichte», 190ff., 192; Tucci, «Document Market».

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disappointment about the poor conditions for safe keeping of his favoured materialin the Venetian archive after having spotted a pile of final relazioni in a corner.

Finally my treasures came to the fore. But of everything that is in here they are what is least taken careof: they are not in the right order, are not complete, and are not even bound. The [Venetian Republic]had once begun to bind them, and hereof there still exist a couple of volumes of the years 1561-1569;the remainder are in single cahiers bound together with string and are carelessly piled up side by side59.

Ranke began with his work in the Biblioteca Marciana which was «rich andaccessible»60 and became, therefore, the historian’s main working place. A coupleof weeks later, however, his positive evaluation of the library gave way tofrustration: «Most of my day is dedicated to the library. The investigationsprogress slowly, but hourly. I find more mass, but not as much blood and spirit asin Vienna. The best, I hope, shall happen»61. However, Ranke had to wait for ‘thebest’ for quite a while. Approving Ranke’s request took its time and so heembarked on a research mission in the neighbouring cities of the Veneto to exploittheir archives and libraries instead. But after his return in December 1828 aconclusion regarding his matter had not been reached yet, so he decided to travel toRome. It was not before the 1st of August 1829 that Ranke was able to write to hisfriend Heinrich Ritter from Rome about the approval of his request to use thearchive in Venice62.

Leopold Ranke was compelled to constantly adjust his own research strategy togovernmental politics. The archive policy prompted his research in otherinstitutions such as libraries and museums as well as the reorganisation of hisresearch trip63. Suffice to say, the three and a half year lasting journey was not hisoriginal plan. Although he toyed early on with the idea of travelling further intoItaly64, the prolonging of his research mission resulted in part from theadministrative decision-making process; it was the archive policy which madeRanke to continue with his journey and, finally, to travel further down thepeninsula of the Apennines.

Whenever Ranke was granted permission the historian’s relationship to thegovernment did not remain unaffected. «Certainly, I am this time slightlybribed»65, Ranke admitted in autumn 1827 after Friedrich von Gentz and Clemensvon Metternich had approved his petition on the spot. Receiving the favour of hispatron, the Court Advisor Gentz, as well as the goodwill of His Grace Prince von

59 Let. Gentz, 17.10.1828, Ranke, Briefwerk, 169f., 169f.; cf. Let. Perthes, 12.10.1828, Ranke, NeueBriefe, 108f., 109.60 Let. Gentz, 17.10.1828, Ranke, Briefwerk, 169f., 169f.; cf. Let. Perthes, 12.10.1828, Ranke, NeueBriefe, 108f., 109.61 Let. H. Ranke, 20./21.11.1828, Ranke, «Lebensgeschichte», 209ff., 211.62 Let. Ritter, 1.8.1829, Ranke, «Lebensgeschichte», 221ff., 221.63 In regard to the influence of political culture on researcher’s performances and findings see locusclassicus Biagioli, Galileo.64 Let. Arnim 6.2.1828, Ranke, «Lebensgeschichte», 139f., 139.65 Let. K. Varnhagen, 9.12.1828, Ranke, Briefwerk, 126ff., 127.


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Metternich, the protégée took a very loyal attitude towards the government andtheir leading members. Being well aware of his «obligations»66 to the Austriangovernment the researcher sought to confirm his patron’s trust decision in order toprevent any fall from grace. While excerpting relazioni in Venice the historianassured Gentz about the innocuous political nature of his findings:

Even if I was fraught with the hate of a French of the most extreme left against Austria, then I wouldhave serious problems to extract something from the material which could harm Your reputation. Infact, such things are not to be found67.

Moreover, Ranke considered some of the relazioni he had found worthpublishing: «I even believe that one could advantageously publish for example theVenetian relazioni of Leopold’s I reign, which are in Vienna and of which I foundhere and there one and the other»68. Overall, he assured his patron that thegovernment will not suffer from any scandalous revelations, «since the nature ofthese monuments now coalesces with my own devotion»69 against a country whichhad fostered his research project to such an extent. Favour and goodwill required(the manifestation of) loyalty, if the petitioner did not seek to risk loosing hissources of support.

Despite the support the historian received from state officials, passing thethreshold to the arcane sphere of the Austrian Empire, Leopold Ranke did notimply the researcher’s emancipation from any constraints. The position of thehistorian and his site of research changed, but constraints and limits remained,although they took on a different form.

When searching for material in libraries and archives the historian finally hadto cooperate with the lower ranks of the bureaucracy. Good contacts, referenceletters or scholarly reputation did not prove immediately effectual in everycircumstance. Indeed, the lack of ‘good will’ of librarians or archivists couldbecome a serious impediment, if not detriment to the historian’s research as Rankeexperienced during his sojourn in Florence.

In the archive [of the Medici] I was compelled to fight against the jealousy and ignorance of lowerranks. After keeping me waiting a long time one allowed me finally some rags and tatters; neitherdiplomatic plea nor recommendation was of help here70.

Instead, Ranke had to engage on the spot in order to tackle «the most extremedifficulties»71: «I began to arrange parlay on my own, and since I did not search forlocal issues and matters concerning the Medici, I overcame the difficulties in theend»72. Despite the initial confrontation Ranke was able to settle the conflict and

66 Let. Perthes, 12.8.1830, Ranke, Neue Briefe, 137f., 137.67 Let. F. v. Gentz, 26.9.1830, Ranke, Briefwerk, 220f., 221.68 Let. F. v. Gentz, 26.9.1830, Ranke, Briefwerk, 220f., 221.69 Let. F. v. Gentz, 26.9.1830, Ranke, Briefwerk, 220f., 221.70 Let. Bartholomäus Kopitar, 6.8.1830, Ranke, Briefwerk, 217.71 Let. Varnhagen, 9.8.1830, Ranke, Briefwerk, 217ff., 217.72 Let. Kopitar, 6.8.1830, Ranke, Briefwerk, 217.

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«left the archive with satisfaction» as he had managed to appropriate a largeamount of the history of Charles V during the period of the German Wars73.

However, Leopold Ranke was generally very pleased with his work in both thelibrary and the archive. In Mantua as well as in Vicenza Ranke met «goodassiduous men». ‘Goodness’ and ‘kindness’ were the words chosen to describe thelibrarians Vaclav Hanka (1791-1861, Librarian at the Museum of Prague) andPietro Bettio (Director of the Biblioteca Marciana, 1819-1846)74, and he thankedthe archivist Joseph Knechtl for his «liberality». Even the librarians of the Vaticanareceived a positive characterisation since they were «very kind» and providedRanke with «all ease which I can rightly expect»75.

However, in the library, the smooth cooperation did not result in a free,independent choice and unlimited inquiry of material. On the contrary, for the user,there was little space for manoeuvring. In the Vaticana as well as in the BibliotecaAlbani and in the Biblioteca Barberini Ranke browsed through the catalogueswhile being monitored by the librarians. Supported and accompanied by thelibrarians the cooperation turned the search of material into a smooth process ofsupervising the researcher’s interest and, ultimately, the selection of manuscriptsmade available. In the Vaticana the librarian Angelo Mai (1782-1854, 1819-1833),for example, «felt that it would run counter to politics to give me too many of thesources which I had requested»76.

In archives the access to the material was confined anyway, even if permissionfor the use of archive material had been granted. In Rome the historian did notacquire the benefit of any permission to access the archive of the Vatican77. InVienna Ranke saw «only a small part» as «access was granted only to few parts»of the Venetian archive deposited in the Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv78. In Venice«the slightly limited permission»79 of the Austrian state government «excluded allrelazioni referring to the dynastic family or to events since 1739»80. Additionally,using archive material, Ranke was obliged to provide a detailed report on his work.Requested by Joseph Knechtl to report about his readings, Ranke reminded thearchivist of the infeasibility to give a complete answer, since it «would beimpossible to name all codices which I have seen, compared, excerpted in such along time period» of research, but he subsequently provided him with a listing ofhis interest81.

I have used most of the Codices Hist[oriae] Prof[anea] which is related to the south European history of

73 Let. August Graf von Platen, 17.7.1830, Ranke, «Lebensgeschichte», 236ff., 237.74 Let. Varnhagen, Dec. 1828, Ranke, Briefwerk, 177ff., 178; Let. H. Ranke, Venice 20/21.11.1828,Ranke, «Lebensgeschichte», 175f.; Let.Gentz, 17.10.1828, Ranke, Briefwerk, 169f.75 Let. Altenstein, 11.4.1829, Ranke, Neue Briefe, 122ff., 123.76 Let. Kopitar, 20.7.1829, Ranke, Briefwerk, 192f., 192f.77 Dove, «Ranke», 253.78 Let. H. Ranke, End of Nov. 1827, Ranke, «Lebensgeschichte», 176ff., 178.79 Let. Altenstein, 9.3.1830, Ranke, Neue Briefe, 134f., 135.80 Let. Altenstein, 21.12.1830, Ranke, Briefwerk, 225f., 225.81 Let. Knechtl, 22.9.1828, Ranke, Neue Briefe, 107f., 107.


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the modern period, a significant number of the manuscripts of [the collections of] Foscarini, Rangoni,Eugen and Hohendorff, a lot of what is recorded in Schwander’s Repertorium, I browsed particularlythrough the Cahiers of Foscarini82.

Besides the surveillance of the historian’s work in the archive, the site chosen todo historical research had its own gravity. Ranke’s project of a history of theEuropean states and their developments in modern time was crucially connected toone essential site of governmental rule and its administrative resource of power: thearchive. In a letter to Heinrich Ritter a short description of the work site indicatesthe spatial as well as functional proximity of archive and governmental affairs:

It [the archive] is a complete chancellery: one finds pens, pen-knife, paper-scissors etc. prepared, andhas ones own enclosed working space. Usually, it gets slightly dark soon, and I enjoy the moment, whenthe principal calls ‘a light’ [‘a Liecht’], and, subsequently, the servant brings two of them for everyoneworking there83.

This particular work site, the chancellery, was an integral part of the stategovernment’s office; thus it was characterised by means of administrative rule84. Itwas this site of research, amongst others, where the historian sought to findoriginal manuscripts, traces of the past. One can not ignore that a particularcharacteristic, i. e. the threshold separating the public and the arcane, impacted onthe notion of the traces, meaning that the historical truth and professionalobjectivity borrowed largely from the particular status of arcane material85. Therestricted access, the burden of the bureaucratic procedure, the necessary lobbyingin the anteroom of the archive and finally, the spatial closeness to theadministrative body, the chancellery, as well as its close functional ties withgovernmental rule bestowed both the material and its scholarly appropriation withsymbolic significance. Both the «circle of true historical science»86 and the arcaneconsidered trustworthy to find the past’s truth were inextricably interlinked; thearcane, its material as well as symbolic significance, and the professional notion ofhistorical truth coalesced.

Furthermore, the choice of site affected the historian’s position. The generalbelief that the past’s truth was to be found in the archive made the historiandependent on the government’s archive policy. By attempting at a history ofmodern states Ranke became increasingly involved in the archive policy and madehimself dependent on the goodwill of leading members of the state government.Although one cannot but acknowledge the historian’s vulnerability, one should not

82 Let. Knechtl, 22.9.1828, Ranke, Neue Briefe, 107f., 107f.83 Let. Ritter, 9.12.1827, Ranke, «Lebensgeschichte», 180ff., 182.84 C. Vismann, Akten. Medientechnik und Recht (Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer-Taschenbuch, 2000), 146.85 Regarding the spatial analysis of knowledge production see S. Shapin, «The House of Experimentin Seventeen-Century England», Isis, 79, (1988): 373–404, 395; «The Place of Knowledge. The SpatialSetting and its Relation to the Production of Knowledge», eds. A. Ophir, S. Shapin and S. Schaffer,Science in Context, 4, (1991).86 Let. Altenstein, 2.10.1827, Ranke, Neue Briefe, 98f., 98.

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exaggerate this point, for state governments also relied on professional historianswho provided them with a national history of their states and, finally, Rankesearched for relazioni not only in archives. However, the successful appropriationof arcane material produced an immediate effect in scholarly terms: being initiatedto the arcane distinguished the historian. Although Leopold Ranke did not concealhis disappointment about his findings to his friends as he noticed gaps andcomplained about the poor quality of the archival material found there, thehistorian was finally in the position to see the promising material kept in thearchive. It is no coincidence that the Prussian professor in history silenced hisdissatisfaction about the material found there to his superiors, but instead reporteddeliberately the Prussian Minister Altenstein (1770-1840), Minister of CulturalAffairs (1817-1838), about his petition and, subsequently, about its successfulapproval by the Austrian state government87. The achievement of the initiation tothe arcane sphere of the Habsburg monarchy marked the first successful step ofRanke in accomplishing his research mission.

Last but not least, the arcane sphere guaranteed authenticity of the material;using it awarded the initiated historian and enhanced his professional position.Passing the threshold to the arcane made a difference in professional terms. Rankeexcerpted materials which were neither in immediate reach nor accessible to anyother colleague. Besides the privileges the historian Ranke enjoyed already (thePrussian King had granted him a stipend and had relieved him of his teachingduties), Ranke had passed the administrative threshold. The permission to enter thearcane, though confined and constrained in many ways, distinguished hisprofessional status from his colleagues; the work in the arcana imperii furnishedhim with exclusive clues about the truth of the past and advantaged him inscholarly terms.

IV. ARCHIVE POLICY, THE RELAZIONI AND RANKE’S HISTORY OF STATES

In the context of the various constraints of archival research, i. e. theadministratively regulation of access, the monitored work of the historian in thearchive, and the effort in lobbying in the anteroom of the archive, it is worthconsidering the historian’s enjeu while on research mission, for the «favouritesource» Ranke collected at various places provided him with a tactical response tothe conditions and limits of archival research in the early nineteenth century.

Asking what he has done so far, Ranke answered this himself: «Nothing butcollected»88. While on study tour Ranke’s industrious diligence centred mainly atone performance: collecting material89. Ranke gathered notes of manuscripts,

87 Let. Altenstein, 2.10.1827, Ranke, Neue Briefe, 98f., 98.; Let. Altenstein, 17.1.1828, Ranke, NeueBriefe, 100f.88 Let. Ritter, 20.8.1828, Ranke, «Lebensgeschichte», 206ff., 208.89 Most interestingly, in the second half of the nineteenth century members of the historical disciplineno longer considered the collecting of materials at different sites of knowledge a performance at the


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excerpted, copied or hired writers to copy them and, finally, he also purchasedoriginal manuscripts.

In Venice, he hoped to achieve a «large output [Ausbeute]»90 out of theBiblioteca Marciana and as matter of fact he made «a beautiful catch [eine schöneBeute]»91. From Rome he reported that his «collection increased hugely due to thehelp of a couple of copyists» and the Biblioteca Corsini provided him with«important results [Ausbeute]»92. On his way back further north he asserted inregard to his work in Florence that «I am enriched, now, of several hundred sheetand I obtained nearly complete possession of the Medici’s history»93. For Ranke,the real enjeu of his research mission was the appropriation of material; he was totake possession of it.

As a consequence, «my collection»94 grew and the successful enlargementprompted utterances of satisfaction in his letters. While gathering material theresearcher became increasingly attached to his collection: «I only wish to bringeverything home happily»95. The enlargement of the collection went together withthe fear of loss and disintegration. In Padua, for example, Ranke was rather lucky,for a librarian offered him to purchase a collection of «most significant» relazioni;he had never seen most of the reports. «In the moment I saw them, I felt the strongneed to possess them»96. After an agreement had been achieved, «the relazioni hadbeen brought immediately to my apartment (do not tell this to anybody; everybodywill deem me superstitious)»97. Gathering here and there the fear of loss wasalways present. For Ranke, his collection became increasingly tied to his own fateand vice versa. The collection’s destiny relied on the collector’s safety; theresearcher’s life depended on the continuing existence of the collection: «It wouldbe a real malheur if I, before I had completed it, had an accident. No man alive willmake something out of it besides me!»98. On his way back to Berlin Ranke was soafraid of loosing the relazioni found recently in the Venetian archive that hedecided to postpone his departure. Two writers had been commissioned with thecopying of the relazioni. Although he could have left for his home country, he

heart of the historical discipline, see A. Zimmermann, «Geschichtslose und schriftlose Völker inSpreeathen. Anthropologie als Kritik an den Geschichtswissenschaften im Kaiserreich», Zeitschrift fürGeschichtswissenschaft, 47, (1999): 197-210; C. Goschler, «Wissenschaftliche ‘Vereinsmenschen’.Wissenschaftliche Vereine in Berlin im Spannungsfeld von Wissenschaft und Öffentlichkeit»,Wissenschaft und Öffentlichkeit in Berlin 1870-1930, ed. C. Goschler (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2000),31–64; see also Sammeln als Wissen. Das Sammeln und seine wissenschaftliche Bedeutung, eds. A. teHeesen and E. C. Spary (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2001).90 Let. Perthes, 12.10.1828, Ranke, Neue Briefe, 108f., 109.91 Let. Ritter, 25.12.1828, Ranke, «Lebensgeschichte», 213ff., 213.92 Let. Bartholomäus Kopitar, 13.1.1830, Ranke, Neue Briefe, 132ff., 134.93 Let. Platen, 17.7.1830, Ranke, «Lebensgeschichte», 236ff., 237.94 Let. H. Ranke, 15.11.1829, Ranke, «Lebensgeschichte», 226ff., 227.95 Let. Ritter, 4.10.1827, Ranke, «Lebensgeschichte», 240ff., 242.96 Let. H. Ranke, 7.4.1829, Ranke, «Lebensgeschichte», 219ff., 219; cf. Let. Altenstein, 11.4.1829,Ranke, Neue Briefe 122ff., 123.97 Let. H. Ranke, 7.4.1829, Ranke, «Lebensgeschichte», 219ff., 220.98 Let. Ritter, 20.8.1828, Ranke, «Lebensgeschichte», 206ff., 208.

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delayed his departure until he had received the last sheet of the copied relazioni.Considering the dangers for the master’s effects resulting from the master’sabsence, the historian deemed it simply too delicate «to leave these manuscriptswhich are of essential importance to my life in the hands of the scribes»99.

Indeed, the collection of the relazioni was the beginning of a long lasting«relationship of life»100. In the decades to come, Ranke staked «his scholarlyreputation on his choice of the relazioni as his pre-eminent source»101 and hisfollowing investigations benefited from this stock: in both his larger and smallerstudies on non-Italian history «Venetian and Roman information appearseverywhere besides domestic one»102.

The manuscripts gathered during his study trip from 1827 until 1831 providedRanke with an enormous collection kept nowadays in the Staatsbibliothek in Berlinand the University of Syracuse103. In other words, collecting relazioni throughouthis study trip, Ranke established his own private and probably barely accessible«archive of sources»104 which set the basis for his own scholarly independence inthe following decades. The objective of his industrious collecting resonates in hisdream of a unified archive.

What kind of archive would emerge, if one united the political part of the Mantuanian as well as theVenetian with the one located in Vienna. It would be an inexhaustible mine for the exploration ofmodern history. No archive in the world would resemble this one105.

‘Ranke’s favourite source’106, the relazioni, were a product of the sophisticateddiplomacy of the small Venetian Republic in the early modern period. Theirauthors, the ambassadors of the Venetian state, were to distil the essence of theirdiplomatic experience in these reports. Reporting on the state of countries, thesemanuscripts furnished the reader with governmental knowledge which suited thehistorian’s primary interest in state affairs and their developments in the modernperiod107. In contrast to dispatches, the daily ambassador’s correspondence,retrospection, interpretation and synthesis were prevailing characteristics of thiselaborated literary artistic form: «first they discuss the ‘site’ and the ‘quality’ of theterritory, then the ‘inhabitants’, including their customs and activities, and lastlythe court or government»108. Thus, if one reads the relazioni in synchronologic anddiachronologic order, these products of «the diplomatic system of observation»109

99 Let. Ritter, 28.1.1831, Ranke, «Lebensgeschichte», 242ff., 243.100 Dove, «Ranke», 252.101 Benzoni, «Source», 50.102 Dove, «Ranke», 254.103 E. Muir, The Leopold von Ranke Manuscript Collection of Syracuse University. The CompleteCatalogue (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1983).104 Baur, Versuch über die Historik des jungen Ranke, 106, footnote 35.105 104 Let. Gentz, 3.11.1828, Ranke, Briefwerk, 173f., 173f.106 Benzoni, «Source», 47.107 Benzoni, «Source», 47.108 Benzoni, «Source», 54.109 Dove, «Ranke», 254.


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provided Ranke with what his research focus required most: the Venetian‘telescope’110 allowed him to observe European courts and governments, theirinteractions and developments throughout the recent centuries.

If one puts the very fabric of the relazioni in context to the archive policy onecan not but acknowledge the strategic advantage of this material. A leitmotif of thearchive policy was not only their concern about Ranke’s interest in the modernperiod of the sixteenth and seventeenth century but also the potential finding ofsensitive data related to state affairs. In Florence archivists objected his interest inthe history of the Medici; in Venice he was not allowed to use «relazioni referringto the dynastic family or to events since 1739»111; in Vienna one of the mainsources of irritation about Ranke’s request was that the historian wished to see «bypreference the Venetian but also the other archives in so far as they are related tohis subject and to the history of the former republic of Venice and its nobles»112,but, given Ranke’s interest in «secret files of modern times», his first request wasrejected113. The relazioni, however, allowed him to learn indirectly aboutgovernmental affairs of the recent past as, for the state administration, thesemanuscripts were less worrying than the pieces of their own state authorities. It istrue that Ranke came across Venetian relazioni for the first time in theHofbibliothek in Berlin and so his preference for this type of manuscripts did notresult immediately from the conditions of his work during his study tour. However,it is fair to say, the relazioni provided Ranke with a tactical response to theprinciples and maxims of archive policy. The relazioni kept in the diverselylocated parts of the Venetian archive enabled him to circumvent the obstaclesimposed by the governments’ supervision of their archives and thus, gatheringrelazioni, Ranke was able to get insight into governmental affairs of the recentEuropean past which he was not allowed to access directly while working in thearcane sphere.

V. CONCLUSION. THE ‘ARCHIVE’, HISTORICAL RESEARCH, AND THE PAST

Leopold Ranke holds a particular position in both the history of the historicaldiscipline and the history of German science: due to his achievements in historicalscholarship he is deemed a central figure of foundation of the modern historicaldiscipline; the establishing of the first historical seminar modelled on thephilological original guaranteed him a prominent position in the institutionalhistory of academia in the nineteenth century. Given this outstanding position, thehistorian Ranke was, depending on scholar’s research position, either to be blamedor hailed and, especially, the mythical nimbus of Ranke gave occasion to swift

110 Dove, «Ranke», 254.111 Let. Altenstein, 21.12.1830, Ranke, Briefwerk, 225f., 225.112 AT OeSTA HHSTA SB KA 18/1827, Joseph Knechtl, Draft of expert opinion, 9.10.1827, 4.113 AT OeSTA HHSTA SB KA 18/1827, Joseph Knechtl, Draft of expert opinion, 9.10.1827, 4.

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judgements based on associative identifications of different historical contexts114.In this respect, I agree very much with Ulrich Muhlack who demands an end of thelong lasting series of ‘praise’ and ‘reproach’115. Thus, it is not in my interest togauge the status of his historical studies or his contributions to the establishing ofthe modern historical discipline. But instead, my assertion is that Leopold Rankemust be placed in the historical field in which he performed to appropriate theconditions of research. If conceived as an actor in a constrained social and politicalfield of the past, judgment about his achievements (or failures) finally gives way tothe analysis of the historical conditions of archival research as reflected in LeopoldRanke’s letters.

In the early nineteenth century the archive policy of the state governmenthindered as well as fostered, impeded as well as spurred Ranke’s historicalresearch. The approval of his request, the duration of the bureaucratic decisionmaking process, the restriction of material to be used; all this crucially impacted onthe studies of a discipline which increasingly staked its epistemic status on archival‘sources’ whilst the use of other materials was discriminated. Since Ranke waskeen on to examine and study the states, their rise and development in the recentpast the historian put himself in a position where he became dependent on thegoodwill and favour of his patrons as much as on the good will of archivists.Lobbying, professional reputation, good contacts, and references by attachés andwell known men were required in the anteroom of the archive in order to promoteone’s own request. For Leopold Ranke, the consequences of the archive policywere clear: he had to reconcile his research interests with the decisions made byleading statesmen as well as by archivists and he had to assure his patrons abouthis loyalty and the harmless nature of his findings in order to sustain his sources ofpolitical and administrative support.

Certainly, historians face nowadays also various obstacles while doing archivalresearch. However, in heuristic terms, one must consider that these are ourproblems, but not the difficulties which Leopold Ranke faced in the earlynineteenth century. Historical work and archival research in the past differ fromour experiences, although the task of differentiation is sometimes difficult due toan alleged closeness of both issues. My contention is that we have to assume afundamental difference between the past and the presence as it is this cleardistinction between them and us, the past and the presence which finally allows usto break with the tradition of the «holy or rather sacred history [of sciences]» inwhich «geniuses take the role of prophets, ruptures come in the shape ofrevelations; controversies or debates exclude the heretics and colloquiums emulatecouncils. Science is gradually becoming incarnate in time as once the holyspirit»116. To put it differently, our comprehension of things and words of the past

114 Muhlack, «Ranke-Korrespondenz», 3-49.115 Muhlack, «Ranke-Korrespondenz», 3-49.116 M. Serres, «Préface qui invite le lecteur a ne pas négliger de la lire pour entrer dans l’intention desauteurs et comprendre l’agencement de ce livre», Eléments d’histoire des sciences, 1-16, 11.


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must be temporalised, meaning a radical historicisation is required. This appliesalso to familiar terms such as ‘habilitation’, ‘footnote’ or ‘profession(al)’117.Furthermore, what was deemed an appropriate ‘source’118 for historical studies andhow ‘the critique of sources’ was performed, was neither a fixed notion nor anaction which remained unchanged. During the last couple of decades the materialconsidered in historical studies widened dramatically, and it is only a matter of timethat historians will have to consider not only the data retrieved from the remnants ofmodern administrative technology, e.g. database etc., but also their processing. Inthis respect media scholars have a good point in emphasizing the significance ofthese technical tools of administrative rule in the twentieth century. However, themetaphoric comprehension and overall analysis of human relationships embeddedin a social field based on technological terms is slightly misleading. This becomesplain in the use of the term ‘archive’119. Wolfgang Ernst argues in his voluminousoeuvre that the historian’s narrative is just an epiphenomenon of ‘the archive’; aneffect of the hardware, i. e. the archive, which provides ‘the historian’ with relevantdata to finally produce a narrative account120. However, this theoretical andphilosophically grounded concept of ‘archive’ is underlying the idea of anunconditional entity, an ultimate apriori, from which the world is supposed toemanate. In other words, the attempt to conceive an ‘archive’ as an ‘apparatus’ oras a ‘medium’ establishes just another «marvellous origin [Wunder-Ursprung]»121.

117 A. Grafton, «The Footnote from de Thouh to Ranke», History & Theory, 33, (1994): 53-76; A.Grafton, The Footnote. A Curious History (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997); B. Smith,«Gender and the Practices of Scientific of History. The Seminar and Archival Research in theNineteenth Century», American Historical Review, 100, (1995): 1150-1176; Paletschek, Erfindungeiner Tradition.118 B. Smith, The Gender of History. Men, Women, and Historical Practice (Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press, 1998); M. Zimmermann, «Quelle als Metapher. Überlegungen zur Historisierung einerhistoriographischen Selbstverständlichkeit», Historische Anthropologie, 5, (1997): 268–287; L.Kuchenbuch, «Sind mediävistische Quellen mittelalterliche Texte? Zur Verzeitlichung fachlicherSelbstverständlichkeiten», Aktualität des Mittelalters, ed. H.-W. Goetz (Bochum: D. Winkler, 2002),317–354, 326.119 Since Foucault’s famous attempt at integrating the notion of archive in his discourse analyticalconsiderations, discussions of this term, albeit very different in form and tone, did not die down: M.Foucault, Archéologie de savoir (Paris: Gallimard, 1979); A. Farge, Le goût de l’archive (Paris: Seuil,1988); J. Derrida, «Archive Fever. A Freudian Impression», Diacritics, 25, (1995): 9-63; C. Steedman,Dust (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001); P. Melichar, «Tote und lebendige Archive. EinBegriff, seine Verwendungen und Funktionen», Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften,18, (2007): 129-144; D. Schenk, Kleine Theorie des Archivs (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2007).120 E. Wolfgang, Im Namen von Geschichte. Sammeln-Speichern-Er/Zählen. InfrastrukturelleKonfigurationen des deutschen Gedächtnisses (München: W. Fink, 2003).121 M. Foucault, «Nietzsche, genealogie et l’historie», Dits et écrits, 2 (Paris: Gallimard, 1994), 133-156, 137; F. Nietzsche, «Menschliches Allzumenschliches», Werke, III, ed. K. Schlechta, (München:Hanser, 1954), 435-1008. About the implementations of new systems of recording and their limits: U.Tschirner, «Sammelkasten der Kulturnation. Die mediale Erfassung von Geschichte im GermanischenNationalmuseum in Nürnberg», SoWi. Das Journal für Geschichte, Politik, Wirtschaft und Kultur, 34,(2005): 66–77.

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The notion of archive as ‘hardware’ voices a «compulsive, repetitive and nostalgicdesire for the archive»122. I feel that the real question, however, is in which way weconceive and seek to analyse power and, finally, account for it. Friedrich Nietzscheput it in a nutshell as he fearfully reckoned «that we will never get rid of Godbecause we still believe in grammar»123. It is the structure of our language whichsuggests that a subject does something to an object; for example, the archivedetermines the historian’s narrative account – or vice versa; the grammatical orderof the phrase suggests that the subject is active while the object is passive.Ascribing power to something is, therefore, a matter of our own writing. However,twisting the common grammatical order of phrases does not help it. Thus,accounting for the past, a mode of describing is required which prevents theillusions of a one-sided notion of power and which displays accurately «theserelations of power», their dynamics and interrelations in a particular historicalfield124.

In this article I chose the analytical method of thick description to ascertain thediverse loci of historical research and to examine their diverse conditions ofhistorical research in the early nineteenth century. In regard to the question ofpower(s), the result is betwixt and between; the analysis revealed different andinterrelated relations of power(s) which conditioned historical research in the earlynineteenth century. Given Leopold Ranke’s status as a foreign subject, thehistorian took an inferior position; if permission was granted, the initiation to thearcane was never complete, but only temporary and limited in a number of ways;the historian and the state government were not on equal terms. However, thehistorian’s performance in this social and political field was not one-sided: thehumble petitioner occupied a vulnerable and inferior position and yet the historianwas actively engaged in archive policy of the government while promoting hiscause in the anteroom of the archive. Doing archival research the historian’sperformance was inextricably interlinked with the archive policy. In the aftermathof Napoleon’s imperialism the subsequent recast of the political map in CentralEurope, state governments in particular were keen on to allow for a scientificexploitation of their archives as history was deemed a promising source tolegitimise the political status by scholarly historical narratives. Finally, theapproval of the Ranke’s request initiated the scholar to the arcane and went withdistinction as he was provided with exclusive clues which were out of immediatereach for other colleagues; Ranke became an accomplice of the archive policy.

122 Derrida, «Archive Fever», 57.123 Nietzsche, «Goetzendämmerung Die Vernunft in der Philosophie 5», in Werke, ed. K. Schlechta,960.124 M. Foucault, «Power and Norm», Power, Truth, Strategy, eds. M. Morris and P. Patton (Sydney:Feral Publications, 1979); M. Foucault, Securité, territoire, population. Cours au College de France,1977-1978 (Paris: Seuil; Gallimard, 2004), 3-6, 4; A. Lüdtke, «Herrschaft als soziale Praxis»,Herrschaft als soziale Praxis. Historische und sozial-anthropologische Studien, ed. A. Lüdtke(Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1991), 7-33.

However, in order to circumvent certain obstacles imposed by state governmentsand their administrations, Ranke deliberately searched for a particular type ofmaterial which indirectly furnished him with knowledge about European states, therelazioni.

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BARTHES AND THE ‘ACT OF UTTERING’ IN HISTORICAL DISCOURSE

David M. Leeson*

With the publication of «Le discours de l’histoire» in 1967, Roland Barthesbecame one of the first theorists to apply the methods and concepts of structurallinguistics to historiography. The overall goal of historical discourse analysis, heexplained, was not only to «look for the universals of discourse (if they exist)under the form of units and general rules of combination», but also to determine«whether structural analysis is justified in retaining the traditional typology ofdiscourses; whether it is fully legitimate to make a constant opposition between thediscourses of poetry and the novel, the fictional narrative and the historicalnarrative»1. «Le discours de l’histoire» itself is primarily concerned with twoquestions: first, does the narration of past events really differ, «in some specifictrait, in some indubitably distinctive feature, from imaginary narration, as we findit in the epic, the novel, and the drama»; and second, «if this trait or feature exists,then in what level of the historical statement must it be placed»2?

Barthes’ answers to these questions were provocative, to say the least. InSection I, for example, Barthes concluded that the answer to his first question is«no»: that the discourse of history has no such trait or feature. In its references toitself, historical discourse does not really differ from the discourse of ancient


* D. M. Leeson, Ph. D., assistant professor, Department of History, Laurentian University, RamseyLake Road, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada ([email protected]).The author would like to thank the faculty and graduate students of the Laurentian UniversityDepartment of History for their criticism and comments, along with Catherine Ellis and Daniel Gormanof the Southern Ontario British History Discussion Group – with special thanks to Stephen Heathornand Ian Hesketh for their criticism and comments on the first draft of this work, which was roughlytwice as long as the final version.1 R. Barthes, «The Discourse of History», Comparative Criticism. A Yearbook, 3 (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1981), 7. Cfr. R. Barthes, «Le discours de l’histoire», Social ScienceInformation, 6, (1967): 6: «Cette linguistique seconde, en même temps qu’elle doit rechercher lesuniversaux du discours (s’ils existent), sous le forme d’unités et de règles générales de combinaison,doit évidemment décider si l’analyse structurale permet de garder l’ancienne typologie des discours, s’ilest bien légitime d’opposer toujours le discours poétique au discours Romanesque, le récit fictive aurécit historique».

Henceforth, we shall refer to Barthes’ original article as Barthes, «Le discours de l’histoire», and toBann’s translation as Barthes, «The Discourse of History». Quotations from Bann’s translation will beaccompanied by quotations from the original in the notes.2 Barthes, «The Discourse of History», 6. Cfr. Barthes, «Le discours de l’histoire», 5: «par quelquetrait spécifique, par une pertinence indubitable, de la narration imaginaire, telle qu’on peut la trouverdans l’épopée, le roman, le drame? Et si ce trait – ou cette pertinence –existe, à quelle lieu de systèmediscursive, à quelle niveau de l’énonciation faut-il le placer?».

creation myths (which resemble both poetry and prophecy); while in its lack ofreferences to both writer and reader, the discourse of history does not really differfrom the discourse of the novel. On the one hand,

the presence in historical narration of explicit signs of uttering would represent an attempt to‘dechronologize’ the ‘thread’ of history and to restore, even though it may merely be a matter ofreminiscence or nostalgia, a form of time that is complex, parametric and not in the least linear: a formof time whose spatial depths recall the mythic time of the ancient cosmogonies, which was also linkedin its essence to the words of the poet and the soothsayer3.

On the other hand, the absence from historical narration of specific signs of theutterer seems like «a particular form of imaginary projection, the product of whatmight be called the referential illusion, since in this case the historian is claiming toallow the referent to speak all on its own» – an illusion that realistic novelists havecreated as well4.

Since its publication more than forty years ago, Barthes’ essay has become aclassic of postmodernist historiography. «Le discours de l’histoire» has beentranslated from French into English not just once, but twice: as «HistoricalDiscourse» by Peter Wexler (1970)5; then as «The Discourse of History» byStephen Bann (1981)6. And the arguments therein have been taken up by some ofthe most radical figures in contemporary historiography. In Re-thinking History(1991), for example, Keith Jenkins quotes Barthes to prove a particularly difficultpoint – and then, having quoted Barthes, says merely: «We can leave it there»7.Jenkins later included a lengthy excerpt from Barthes’ essay in his PostmodernHistory Reader (1997)8, and in Refiguring History (2003) he reminds the reader,with just a hint of impatience, that «It is now nearly forty years since RolandBarthes in his The Discourse of History demonstrated that facts were linguisticentities»9. Alun Munslow had written something similar in Deconstructing History

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3 Barthes, «The Discourse of History», 10. Cfr. Barthes, «Le discours de l’histoire», 68: «la présencedans la narration historique, de signes explicites d’énonciation viserait à ‘déchronologiser’ le ‘fil’historique et à restituer, ne serait-ce qu’à titre de réminiscence ou de nostalgie, un temps complexe,paramétrique, nullement linéaire, dont l’espace profond rappellerait le temps mythique des anciennescosmogonies, lié lui aussi par essence à la parole du poète ou du devin».4 Barthes, «The Discourse of History», 11. Cfr. Barthes, «Le discours de l’histoire», 69: «une formeparticulière d’imaginaire, le produit de ce que l’on pourrait appeler l’illusion référentielle, puisqu’icil’historien prétend laisser le referent parler tout seul».5 R. Barthes, «Historical Discourse», Structuralism: a Reader, ed. M. Lane (London: Cape, 1970),145-55.6 See also S. Bann, «Analysing the Discourse of History», Renaissance and Modern Studies, 27,(1983): 61-84. Later reprinted in S. Bann, The Inventions of History: Essays on the Representation ofthe Past (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990), 33-63.7 K. Jenkins, Re-thinking History (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), 60-61.8 The Postmodern History Reader, ed. K. Jenkins (London and New York: Routledge, 1997), 120-23.9 K. Jenkins, Refiguring History (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), 43. Jenkins takes asimilarly epochal view of Barthes’ work in Why History?, where he first quotes from «The Discourse ofHistory», and then says: «But since Barthes’s Discourse of History (from which the above quote comes)nobody really takes the view – ‘now surely archaic’ – of history as a discourse committed to the

(1997), six years before. After a detailed summary of «Le discours de l’histoire»,Munslow remarks that, in spite of Barthes, «mainstream historians still insist thatthey work in a discipline that aspires to a high degree of correspondence with thepast as it actually was [...]»10. Munslow’s Routledge Companion to HistoricalStudies (2001) includes entries for both «Barthes, Roland» and «Reality/RealisticEffect», describing the latter as a concept «explored at some length by RolandBarthes in his essay ‘The Discourse of History’»11.

But as we shall see, this confidence in Barthes is rather sadly misplaced. In thefollowing pages, we will discuss Barthes’ arguments in Section I of «Le discoursde l’histoire» – the section on «énonciation» or, as Bann renders it, «the act ofuttering». In particular, we will consider this essay’s claims in the light of evidencefrom a selection of classic histories (and one classic historical novel) from thehistoriographical tradition with which I am most familiar – the British tradition12.


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recovery of the past in some kind of pre-discursive state». K. Jenkins, Why History? Ethics andPostmodernity (London and New York: Routledge, 1999), 137.10 A. Munslow, Deconstructing History (London and New York: Routledge, 1997), 61-62. Theremainder of this sentence reads: «… and that narrative is a vehicle for report rather than the primary (ifflawed) medium of explanation» (62).11 A. Munslow, The Routledge Companion to Historical Studies (London and New York: Routledge,2001), 193. In a recent «Guide to Key Reading», Munslow recommends «Le discours de l’histoire»once again: «Roland Barthes’ contribution to our understanding of the semiotics of history has beenprofound», he says. A. Munslow, The New History (London: Longman, 2003), 204.12 These are, in chronological order by author’s date of birth: W. Raleigh, History of the World(Edinburgh: Constable, 1820); W. Camden, The History of the Most Renowned and Victorious PrincessElizabeth, Late Queen of England (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970); F. Bacon, Bacon’sHistory of the Reign of King Henry VII, with Notes, ed. J. R. Lumby (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1902); Edward, Earl of Clarendon, The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1819); D. Hume, The History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesarto the Revolution in 1688 (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1854); W. Robertson, The Progress of Societyin Europe, ed. F. Gilbert (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1972); E. Gibbon, The History of theDecline and Fall of the Roman Empire (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993); W. Scott, Waverley; or,‘Tis Sixty Years Since, ed. C. Lamont (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981); H. Hallam, View of theState of Europe during the Middle Ages (Boston: Little, Brown, & Co., 185310); W. F. P. Napier,History of the War in the Peninsula and in the South of France (London: Frederick Warne, 1900); T.Carlyle, The French Revolution (London: Chapman and Hall, 1915); T. B. Macaulay, The History ofEngland from the Accession of James II (Boston: Philips, Sampson, & Co., 1856); J. A. Froude, Historyof England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada, New Edition (London:Longman’s, Green, & Co., 1893); H. T. Buckle, History of Civilization in England (London:Longman’s, Green, & Co., 1908); W. Stubbs, The Constitutional History of England (Oxford:Clarendon Press, 18915); S. R. Gardiner, A Student’s History of England (London: Longman’s, Green,& Co., 1916); Lord Acton, Lectures on Modern History (London: Macmillan & Co., 1906); J. R. Green,History of the English People (London: Macmillan & Co., 1885-90); F. Pollock and F. W. Maitland,The History of English Law before the Time of Edward I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,19682); G. M. Trevelyan, England Under the Stuarts (London: Routledge, 2002); R. H. Tawney,Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (London: John Murray, 1960); L. Namier, The Structure of Politicsat the Accession of George III (London: Macmillan & Co., 19632); A. J. P. Taylor, English History1914-1945 (Oxford: Oxofrd University Press, 2001); M. Howard, The Franco-Prussian War: TheGerman Invasion of France, 1870-1871 (London & New York: Routledge, 20012); and E. P.Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (London: Penguin, 1991).

And the evidence will show that what Barthes says is mostly wrong. In hisdiscussion of historical discourse deixis, Barthes omits any discussion of the mostobvious and important shifters in historical discourse, and wrongly creditsanthropologists with practices that originated with historians. He takes a necessarycondition of human existence – the asynchronous nature of experience – and triesto make it seem like a peculiar weakness of historical discourse. He stresses onetype of inauguration that scarcely seems to exist in actual history-writing (the«performative opening»), and makes plainly false claims about another (thepreface). His claims about references to the reader in both literary and historicaldiscourse are equally false. Worst of all, he blames historians for «absentingthemselves» from their discourse, like the narrator of a realistic novel: when infact, historical discourse is distinguished from (realistic) literature chiefly by thehistorian’s clear and continuous presence. Throughout his essay, Barthes’ use ofevidence is poor. And finally, even if we could overcome these problems, andsomehow make what Barthes says come true, what he says would be trivial: hisarguments prove too much.

Barthes begins his analysis of «the act of uttering» by asking «under whatconditions the classic historian is enabled – or authorized – himself to designate, inhis discourse, the act by which he promulgates it»13. And by this he means: when isdeixis allowed in historical discourse? Using an older term for ‘deictic expressions’,Barthes asks: «what, on the level of discourse – and not of language, are the shifters(in Jakobson’s sense of the term) which assure the transition from the utterance tothe act of uttering (or vice versa)»14? And in his notes, Barthes refers the reader to«R. Jakobson, Essais de linguistique générale (Paris: 1963), Ch. 9»15.

Inspired by Roman Jakobson’s classifications of Russian verbs, Barthesidentifies two common types of deictic expressions or «shifters» in historicaldiscourse: evidential shifters and organizational shifters. Barthes calls evidentialshifters «shifters of listening»16. «This form of shifter», he says, «designates anyreference to the historian’s listening, collecting testimony from elsewhere and

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This list consists of those twenty-one authors mentioned in The Evolution of BritishHistoriography: From Bacon to Namier, ed. J. R. Hale (Cleveland and New York: Meridian Books,1964) plus four. I added Napier and Howard because I’m a military historian, because their works areclassics of the form, and because the roots of this article can be traced to seminar discussions about theFranco-Prussian War; I added Taylor and Thompson, because their works were published around thesame time as Hale’s, and have since achieved classic status.13 Barthes, «The Discourse of History», 7. Barthes, «Le discours de l’histoire», 66: «Et tout d’abord,dans quelle conditions l’historien classique est-il amené – ou autorisé – á désigner lui-même, dans sondiscours, l’acte par il-le profére?».14 Barthes, «The Discourse of History», 7. Barthes, «Le discours de l’histoire», 66: «En d’autrestermes, quels sont, au niveau du discours – et non plus de la langue –, les shifters (au sens que Jakobsona donné à ce mot) qui assurent le passage de l’énoncé à l’énonciation (ou inversement)?».15 This chapter – «Les embrayeurs, les catégories verbales et le verbe russe» – is a French translationof an English-language work: the English original can be found in R. Jakobson, «Shifters, VerbalCategories, and the Russian Verb», Selected Writings, II (The Hague and Paris: Mouton, 1971).16 Barthes, «The Discourse of History», 8. Barthes, «Le discours de l’histoire», 66: «les embrayeursd’écoute».

telling it in his own discourse»17. Organizational shifters, by contrast, consist of«all the explicit signs whereby the utterer – in this case, the historian – organizeshis own discourse, taking up the thread or modifying his approach in some way inthe course of narration: that is to say, where he provides explicit points of referencein the text»18.

But readers who check Barthes’ notes at this point will discover a troublingdetail. In «Shifters, verbal categories, and the Russian verb», Jakobson based hisanalysis of Russian verbal categories on four distinguishing characteristics: «anarrated event (En), a speech event (Es), a participant of the narrated event (Pn) anda participant of the speech event (Ps), whether addresser or addressee»19. All verbalcategories, he argues, can be reduced to combinations of these characteristics. Anevidential shifter, for example, consists of three elements: «a narrated event, aspeech event, and a narrated speech event (EnEns/Es)»20. In Chapter 9 of Jakobson’sEssais de linguistique générale, this is translated as «le procès de l’énonce, leprocès de l’énonciation, et un procès de énonciation énoncé (CeCea/Ca)». Yetsomehow, in Barthe’s text, this clear and precise formula became «CeCa1/Ca2: inaddition to the event reported (Ce), discourse mentions at the same time the act ofthe informer (Ca1), and the speech of the utterer which is related to it (Ca2)»21.

The reasons for this change are obscure. I suspect that Barthes alteredJakobson’s formula to make it conform to the Saussurean model of the sign: Ce =referent, Ca1/Ca2 =signifier/signified. But the problem is not the fact that Barthesalters Jakobson’s formula: the problem is that he explicitly attributes his ownformula to Jakobson; the shifter of listening, he says, «has been identified byJakobson, on the level of language, with the term testimonial, according to theformula CeCa1/Ca2»22 (emphasis added). And that is just not true.

According to Barthes, the historian’s need for organizing shifters reveals animportant problem with history: «the problem arising from the coexistence, or tobe more exact the friction between two times – the time of uttering and the time ofthe matter of the utterance»23. This ‘friction’ is a problem for three reasons,


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17 Barthes, «The Discourse of History», 8. Barthes, «Le discours de l’histoire», 66: «Ce shifterdésigne donc toute mention des sources, des témoignages, toute référence à une écoute de l’historien,recueillant un ailleurs de son discours et le disant».18 Barthes, «The Discourse of History», 8. Barthes, «Le discours de l’histoire», 66: «Le second typedes shifters couvre tous les signes déclares par lesquels énonçant, en l’occurrence l’historien, organiseson propre discours, le reprend, le modifie en cours de route, en un mot y dispose des repères explicites».19 Jakobson, «Shifters», 133. These distinctions are combinations of more basic distinctions: «speechitself (s)»; «its topic, the narrated matter (n)»; «the event itself (E)»; and «any of its participants (P)».20 Jakobson, «Shifters», 135.21 Barthes, «The Discourse of History», 8. Barthes, «Le discours de l’histoire», 66: «CeCa1/Ca2: outrél’événement rapporté (Ce), le discours mentionne à la fois l’acte de l’informateur (Ca1), et la parole del’énonçant qui s’y réfère (Ca2)».22 Barthes, «The Discourse of History», 8. Barthes, «Le discours de l’histoire», 66: «Cette catégorie àété, au niveau de la langue, par Jakobson, sous le nom de testimonial et sous la formule CeCa1/Ca2…».23 Barthes, «The Discourse of History», 9. Barthes, «Le discours de l’histoire», 67: «celui qui naît dela coexistence, ou, pour mieux dire, du frottement de deux temps: le temps de l’énonciation et le tempsde la matière énoncée».

Barthes says. First, because of the way that historians speed up and slow down thepassage of time: «an equal number of pages (if such be the rough measure of thetime of uttering) can cover very different lapses of time (the time of matter of theutterance)». In particular, Barthes notes a tendency for history to slow down as itgets closer to the present. «The nearer we are to the historian’s own time, the morestrongly the pressure of the uttering makes itself felt, and the slower the historybecomes». The first book of Machiavelli’s History of Florence, for example,covers more than a thousand years, from 379 to 1423. The second book, bycontrast, covers less than four hundred years, from 1010 to 1353, while the thirdbook covers only seventy, from 1350 to 1420. «There is no such thing asisochrony», says Barthes, «and to say this, is to attack implicitly the linearity of thediscourse and open it up to a possible ‘paragrammatical’ reading of the historicalmessage»24.

But this is absurd. For one thing, Barthes seems to have misappropriated theterm ‘isochrony’, which in linguistics has been described as «the rhythmicorganization of speech into more or less equal intervals»25. Perhaps the best-knownexample of isochrony in English is the beating-heart rhythm of the iambicpentameter: «I had a dream which was not all a dream»26. But when he says thereis no isochrony in history, Barthes seems to mean that the time of the matter ofuttering is not uniformly proportional to the time of the matter of the utterance – or,in other words, that history is not a scale model of the past.

But of course it isn’t: why should it be? An historian is not a model-builder.Yet Barthes wants us to believe that, unless the same amount of text alwaysproportionally represents the same amount of time, the discourse will somehow beflawed. But would anybody say that an historical discourse was flawed unless thesame amount of text always proportionally represented the same amount of space?That, for example, any description of France should always be roughly three timesas long as a description of Great Britain, because France is roughly three times aslarge as Great Britain? Does it matter that history is not isomegethic27? That «thereis no such thing as isomegethy»? Of course not. Why, then, should it matter thathistory is not isochronic?

Before we continue, we should note that, had Barthes looked beyondMachiavelli’s History of Florence, he would have discovered numerous exceptionsto his generalization. Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, for

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24 Barthes, «Discourse of History», 9. Barthes, «Le discours de l’histoire», 67: «un nombre égal de‘pages’ (si telle est la mesure grossière du temps de l’énonciation) couvre des laps de temps varies(temps de la matière énoncée) […] plus l’on se rapproche du temps de l’historien, plus la pression del’énonciation se fait forte, plus l’histoire se ralentit […] il n’y a pas d’isochronie – ce qui est attaquerimplicitement la linéarité du discours et laisse apparaître un ‘paragrammatisme’ possible de la parolehistorique».25 I. Lehiste, «Isochrony Reconsidered», Journal of Phonetics, 5, (1977): 1.26 George Gordon, Lord Byron, «Darkness», line 1.27 Isomegethic: a portmanteau adjective meaning ‘equal in size’, from the Greek isos, ‘equal’ +megethos, ‘size’: cfr. ‘megethology’.

example, actually speeds up as it gets closer to the present. Volumes 1-3 cover lessthan three hundred years, while volumes 4-6 cover more than nine hundred.

Having criticized historians for speeding up and slowing down, Barthes goeson to criticize them for «amplifying the depth of historical time», by writing in a«zig-zag or saw-toothed» fashion. Herodotus, he says, «turns back to the ancestorsof a newcomer, and the returns to his point of departure to proceed a little further –and then starts the whole process all over again with the next newcomer»28.Presumably this too constitutes a ‘paragrammatism’. But once again – saw-toothedor zig-zag discourse is only problematic if we assume that there should be somesort of uniform correspondence between the time of uttering and the time of thematter of utterance. Why should we assume that?

What Barthes says next must be quoted in full to be properly understood:

Finally there is a third factor in historical discourse which is of the utmost importance, one which bearswitness to the destructive effect of organizing shifters as far as the chronological time of the historyconcerned. This is a question of the way historical discourse is inaugurated, of the place where we findin conjunction the beginning of the matter of the utterance and the exordium of the uttering. Historicaldiscourse is familiar with two general types of inauguration: in the first place, there is what we mightcall the performative opening, for the words really perform a solemn act of foundation; the model forthis is poetic, the I sing of the poets. So Joinville begins his history with a religious invocation (Au nomde Dieu le tout-puissant, je, Jehan, sire de Joinville, fais écrire la vie de nostre Saint roi Louis), andeven the socialist Louis Blanc does not disdain the purificatory introit, so evident is it that thebeginnings of speech always carry with them a kind of difficulty, perhaps even a sacred character. Thenthere is a much more commonly found element, the Preface, which is an act of uttering characterized assuch, whether prospectively in so far as it announces the discourse to come, or retrospectively in that itembodies a judgement on the discourse (such is the case with the Preface which Michelet wrote tocrown his History of France, once it had been completely written and published)29.

This clearly will not do. Barthes claims to be discussing «the place where wefind in conjunction the beginning of the matter of the utterance and the exordium ofthe uttering». But this cannot be correct, as a quick search through our sample


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28 Barthes, «The Discourse of History», 9. Barthes, «Le discours de l’histoire», 67: «il s’agit de ceque l’on pourrait appeler l’histoire on zigzags – ou en dents de scie […] Hérodote remonte vers lesancêtres du nouveau venu, puis revient à son point de départ, pour continuer un peu plus loin – etrecommencer».29 Barthes, «Discourse of History», 9-10. Barthes, «Le discours de l’histoire», 67-68: «Enfin, untroisième fait de discours, considérable, atteste le rôle destructeur des shifters d’organisation par rapportau temps chronique de l’histoire: il s’agit des inaugurations du discours historique, lieux où serejoignent le commencement de la matière énoncée et l’exorde de l’énonciation. Le discours del’histoire connait en général deux formes d’inauguration: tout d’abord ce que l’on pourrait appelerl’ouverture performative, car la parole y est véritablement une acte solennel de fondation: le modèle enest poétique, c’est le je chante des poètes; ainsi Joinville commence son histoire par un appel religieux(Au nom de Dieu le tout-puissant, je, Jehan, sire de Joinville, fais écrire la vie de nostre Saint roiLouis), et le socialiste Louis Blanc lui-même ne dédaigne pas l’introit purificateur, tant le début deparole garde toujours quelque chose de difficile – disons de sacré; ensuite une unité beaucoup pluscourante, la Préface, acte caractérisé d’énonciation, soit prospective lorsqu’elle annonce le discours àvenir, soit rétrospective lorsqu’elle le juge (c’est le cas de la grande Préface dont Michelet couronna sonHistoire de France une fois qu’elle fut entièrement écrite et publiée)».

histories will reveal: the beginning of the historical event and the exordium of thehistoriographic event coincide, not in a «performative opening», or in a Preface,but in the Introduction.

In fact, «performative openings» appear to be quite rare in traditional Britishhistoriography. Just one of our twenty-five histories begins with performativestatements: Macaulay’s History of England, which opens with a series of ambitiouscommissives: «I purpose to write the history of England from the accession ofKing James the Second down to a time which is within the memory of men stillliving. I shall recount the errors which, in a few months, alienated a loyal gentryand priesthood from the House of Stuart. I shall trace the course of that revolutionwhich terminated the long struggle between our sovereigns and their parliaments,and bound up together the rights of the people and the title of the reigningdynasty». And so on30.

Note, however, that Macaulay’s performative opening is not «the place wherewe find in conjunction the beginning of the matter of the utterance and theexordium of the uttering». The matter of the utterance, as Macaulay himself states,is «the history of England from the accession of King James the Second down to atime which is within the memory of men still living» – in practice, from 1685 to1702. But as Macaulay also states:

The events which I propose to relate form only a single act of a great and eventful drama extendingthrough ages, and must be very imperfectly understood unless the plot of the preceding acts be wellknown. I shall therefore introduce my narrative by a slight sketch of the history of our country fromearliest times. I shall pass very rapidly over many centuries: but I shall dwell at some length on thevicissitudes of that contest which the administration of King James the Second brought to a decisivecrisis31.

This ‘slight sketch’ takes up more then 200 pages, from page 3 to page 217:only then do we find the beginning of the matter of uttering.

What is more, Macaulay’s performative preface clearly lacks the poetic,religious, and even magical character that Barthes attributes to the performativeopening. Barthes says, for example, that «even the socialist Louis Blanc does notdisdain the purificatory introit». There are a couple of errors here. First, thepurpose of the Introit was never to purify those who celebrate Mass. According tothe 1962 missal (recently revived by Benedict XVI’s apostolic letter SummorumPontificum), the celebrant is purified by the Confiteor – which comes before theIntroit32.

More importantly, Barthes’ interpretation of Blanc’s preface is plainly wrong.The Confiteor (‘I confess’) is a public confession of sins, during which thecelebrant famously beats his breast and says «mea culpa» (‘my fault’). Blanc, bycontrast, has nothing to confess: his tone is complacent rather than contrite. «I am

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30 Macaulay, Vol. 1, 1.31 Macaulay, Vol. 1, 3.32 «Mass of the Catechumens», www.catholicliturgy.com/index.cfm/FuseAction/Text/Index/4/SubIndex/66/ContentIndex/18/Start/17 (Accessed 9 December 2007).

about to write the history of my own day», he says: «a delicate and dangeroustask»! But a task, it seems, for which he thinks himself well-suited. «The result of arigid self-examination, instituted before I took up my pen, having been to acquitme alike of interested affections and of implacable animosities, I have ventured toinfer that I am competent to pass judgment on men and things, without wrongingjustice, and without betraying truth»33.

Blanc then explains how he finds himself in this historiographical state ofgrace:

The cause of the noble, the rich, and the prosperous, is not the cause I serve. I belong by conviction to aparty that has committed blunders, and sorely has it atoned for them: but I did not enter that party till themorrow after its last defeat; consequently, I have not had either to share in all its hopes or to sufferpersonally in its disasters. It has, therefore, been possible to keep my heart free both from the rancour ofdisappointed pride, and from the venom that lurks even in feelings of legitimate resentment34.

Barthes plays equally fast and loose with The Memoirs of the Lord of Joinville.He quotes only part of a sentence, in order to strengthen the impression thatJoinville began his memoirs with a religious invocation: «In the name of AlmightyGod, I, John, Lord of Joinville, Seneschal of Champagne, do cause to be writtenthe life of our Saint Louis». In fact, Joinville goes on: «[...] the life of our SaintLouis, that which I saw and heard during the space of six years that I was in hiscompany during the pilgrimage over seas and after we returned»35 (emphasisadded). Quoted in full, this passage seems far more constative than performative.

More importantly, Joinville’s history does not actually begin with these words,as Barthes claims. The Memoirs of the Lord of Joinville instead begin with adedication to Louis, son of Philip IV the Handsome and Jeanne of Navarre(afterwards Louis X the Quarrelsome), and continues with an account of how theLord of Joinville’s memoirs came to be written: «Dear Lord, I give you to knowthat your Lady Mother the Queen, who loved me well, – May God have mercy onher! – desired of me right earnestly that I would make her a book of the holy wordsand good deeds of our king Saint Louis; and I did promise her the same; and byGod’s aid the book is completed in two parts»36. In other words, The Memoirs ofthe Lord of Joinville are inaugurated, not with a ‘solemn act of foundation’, butwith a rather commonplace preface.

Having considered Barthes’ use (and misuse) of evidence at some length, weare finally in a position to judge his conclusions:

Bearing in mind these different elements, we are likely to conclude that the entry of the act of uttering


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33 Barthes provides the original French text in a note: «Avant de prendre la plume, je me suisinterrogé sévèrement, et comme je ne trouvais en moi ni affections intéressés, ni haines implacables, j’aipensé que je pourrais juger les hommes et les choses sans manquer à la justice et sans trahir la vérité».L. Blanc, Histoire de dix ans (Paris: 1842).34 L. Blanc, The History of Ten Years 1830-1840 (London: Chapman & Hall, 1845; New York:Augustus M. Kelley, 1969), i.35 The Memoirs of the Lord of Joinville: A New English Version (London: John Murray, 1906), 9.36 Memoirs of the Lord of Joinville, 1-2.

into the historical utterance, through these organizing shifters, is directed less towards offering thehistorian a chance of expressing his ‘subjectivity’, as is commonly held, than to ‘complicating’ thechronological time of history by bringing it up against another time, which is that of the discourse itselfand could be termed for short the ‘paper-time’. To sum up, the presence in historical narration ofexplicit signs of uttering would represent an attempt to ‘dechronologize’ the ‘thread’ of history and torestore, even though it may merely be a matter of reminiscence or nostalgia, a form of time that iscomplex, parametric and not in the least linear: a form of time whose spatial depths recall the mythictime of the ancient cosmogonies, which was also linked in its essence to the words of the poet and thesoothsayer. Organizing shifters bear witness, in effect – though they do so through indirect ploys whichhave the appearance of rationality – to the predictive function of the historian. It is to the extent that heknows what has not yet been told that the historian, like the actor of myth, needs to double up thechronological unwinding of events with references to the time of his own speech37.

Actually, when we bear in mind Barthes’ inability to provide any convincingevidence to support this hypothesis (despite having cherry-picked hishistoriographical examples), we are not likely to conclude this at all. The need todechronologize historical narratives through the use of organizational shiftersarises, not from any pretended resemblance between historians and fortunetellers,but from the asynchronous nature of all spoken and written discourse: and, indeed,from the asynchronous nature of all human experience. Historians can only writeabout one thing at a time: consequently, they analyze large, complex, andsynchronous events into series of smaller, simpler, and asynchronous events.Readers of history can only read about one thing at a time: but they can synthesizea series of small, simple, asynchronous events into larger, more complex, andsynchronous events.

In fact, the need for ‘paper-time’ is not all that different from the need to seephysical objects from different perspectives before we can grasp their true shape.Imagine, for example, a four-sided building. We cannot see all four sides of thisbuilding at once from street level. We cannot grasp its three-dimensional shape bylooking at just one of its sides – or even two of its sides. We have to walk aroundthe building and examine it from all sides before we can discover (for example)that it has four sides instead of three38. In our minds, then, a series of simplesensations (each side of the building), becomes a complex perception (the

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37 Barthes, «The Discourse of History», 10. Barthes, «Le discours de l’histoire», 68: «Le rappel deces quelques unités vise à suggérer que l’entrée de l’énonciation dans l’énoncé historique, à travers lesshifters organisateurs, a moins pour but de donner à l’historien une possibilité d’exprimer sa‘subjectivité’, comme on le dit communément, que de ‘compliquer’ le temps chronique de l’histoire enl’affrontant à un autre temps, qui est celui du discours lui-même et que l’on pourrait appeler parraccourci le temps-papier; en somme la présence, dans la narration historique, de signes explicitesd’énonciation viserait à ‘déchronologiser’ le ‘fil’ historique et à restituer, ne serait-ce qu’à titre deréminiscence ou de nostalgie, un temps complexe, paramétrique, nullement linéaire, dont l’espaceprofond rappellerait le temps mythique des anciennes cosmogonies, lié lui aussi par essence à la paroledu poète ou du devin; les shifters d’organisation attestent en effet – fût-ce par certains détoursd’apparence rationnelle – la fonction prédictive de l’historien: c’est dans la mesure où il sait ce qui n’apas été encore raconté, que l’historien, tel l’agent de mythe, a besoin de doubler le dévidementchronique des événements par des références au temps propre de sa parole».38 Stephen Heathorn has reminded me that E. H. Carr used a very similar analogy in What is History?(1961). Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt.

building’s true shape)39. The process of analyzing and synthesizing historicalevents is quite similar. Ultimately, historical discourse is no more occult ormysterious than a walk around the block.

Before we proceed, it may be worth noting that, as Barthes rhapsodizes aboutforms of time that are «complex, parametric, and not in the least linear: a form oftime whose spatial depths recall the mythic time of the ancient cosmogonies», heoverlooks an inconvenient fact: namely, that the ancient cosmogony with whichmost Western historians are most familiar – the seven-day creation myth ofGenesis 1:1-2:2 – is both simple and linear. Day by day, step by step, the God ofGenesis creates the world, pausing only to reflect favorably on each stage of hiswork before proceeding to the next, until, after six days, he has completed both theheavens and the earth in all their vast array, and settles back for a well-deservedseventh day of rest.

«It is a fact worthy of note», says Barthes, «and somewhat mysterious at thesame time, that literary discourse very rarely carries within it the signs of the‘reader’. Indeed we can say that its distinctive trait is precisely that it is – or so itwould appear – a discourse without the pronoun ‘you’, even though in reality theentire structure of such a discourse implies a reading ‘subject’»40.

This might have been considered worthy of note in 1967 – but it’s hardly worthnoting today. Consider, for example the first lines from Italo Calvino’s novel If ona winter’s night a traveler: «You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino’s newnovel, If on a winter’s night a traveler. Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every otherthought. Let the world around you fade. Best to close the door: the TV is always onin the next room»41. Or consider the first lines from Jay McInerney’s novel BrightLights, Big City: «You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this atthis time of the morning. But here you are, and you cannot say the terrain iscompletely unfamiliar, although the details are fuzzy. You are at a nightclub,talking to a girl with a shaved head»42.

Nor can Barthes be excused on the grounds that all these works were publishedyears after «Le discours de l’histoire». Butor’s La Modification, a novel written


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39 Consider, as well, the close parallel between this procedure and the sense of sight itself.Stereoscopic vision allows us to navigate a three-dimensional world by providing us, quite literally,with two different perspectives on the world – two slightly different points of view. In our brains, wesynthesize these two different two-dimensional viewpoints into one three-dimensional viewpoint –metaphorically speaking, into the view through a third eye, situated between our two physical eyes. Ifthese perspectives are too dissimilar, then synthesis becomes impossible, and we experience doublevision. But if these perspectives are too similar, then we lose our depth perception. Thus, the sort ofintersubjectivity practiced by historians is built right into our visual sensory apparatus, in the form ofstereopsis.40 Barthes, «The Discourse of History», 10. Barthes, «Le discours de l’histoire», 68: «C’est un faitnotable et passablement énigmatique que le discours littéraire comporte très rarement les signes du‘lecteur’; on peut même dire que ce qui le spécifie, c’est d’être – apparemment – un discours sans tu,bien qu’en réalité toute la structure de ce discours implique un ‘sujet’ de la lecture».41 I. Calvino, If on a winter’s night a traveler (San Diego: Harcourt, Brace, & Co., 1981), 3.42 J. McInerney, Bright Lights, Big City (New York: Vintage Books, 1984), 1. The first chapter isentitled: «It’s Six A.M. – Do You Know Where You Are?».

entirely in the second person, had caused a sensation when it was published in1957: «Vous avez mis le pied gauche sur la rainure de cuivre», Butor wrote, «et denotre épaule droite vous essayez en vain de pousser un peu plus le panneaucoulissant»43. And Fredric Brown’s classic second-person short-story thriller«Don’t Look behind You» had been published ten years before Butor’s novel.«Just sit back and relax, now», wrote Brown, «try to enjoy this; it’s going be thelast story you ever read, or nearly the last».

After you finish it you can sit there and stall a while, you can find excuses to hang around your house,or your room, or your office, wherever you’re reading this; but sooner or later you’re going to have toget up and go out. That’s where I’m waiting for you: outside. Or maybe closer than that. Maybe in thisroom44.

Clearly, the absence of the pronoun ‘you’ could no longer be considered thedistinctive trait of literary discourse, even in 196745. Nevertheless, Barthes plowsonward, bravely. «In historical discourse», he says, «the signs of the receiver areusually absent: they can be found only in cases where History is offered as alesson, as with Bossuet’s Universal History, a discourse which is explicitlyaddressed by the tutor to his pupil, the prince». Barthes then imputes an occultcharacter to history-writing once again. «Yet in a certain sense», he says, «thisschema is only possible to the extent that Bossuet’s discourse can be held toreproduce by homology the discourse which God himself holds with men –precisely in the form of the History which he grants to them. It is because theHistory of men is the Writing of God that Bossuet, as the mediator of this writing,can establish a relationship of sender and receiver between himself and the youngprince»46.

Signs of the receiver do sometimes appear in cases where history is offered as a

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43 M. Butor, La Modification (Paris: Éditions de Minuit, 1957), 9: «You have put the left foot on thecopper strip, and with your right shoulder you are trying vainly to push the sliding panel a little farther».44 F. Brown, «Don’t Look Behind You», The Mammoth Book of Pulp Action, ed. M. Jakubowski (NewYork: Carroll and Graf, 2001), 457. Originally published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine (1947).45 Indeed, one of the most interesting and least-noticed developments in Western culture since the late1960s has been the proliferation of second-person narratives, in the para-literary form of role-playinggames, interactive fiction, gamebooks, and computer games. In each of these entertainments, thenarrator addresses the narratee in the second person, whether they are the ‘Dungeon Master’ in a gameof Dungeons & Dragons, the author of a Choose Your Own Adventure novel, or the computer screenthat displays the action in a ‘first-person shooter’ video game like Half-Life. It is also worth noting thatthis last genre, the first-person shooter, was partly inspired by the use of POV shots (the cinematicequivalent of second-person literary narration) in film.46 Barthes, «The Discourse of History», 10. Barthes, «Le discours de l’histoire», 68: «Dans lediscours historique, les signes de destination sont communément absents: on en trouvera seulementlorsque l’Histoire se donne comme une leçon: c’est le cas de l’Histoire universelle de Bossuet, discoursadressé nommément par le précepteur au prince, son élève; encore se schéma n’est-il possible, d’unecertaine manière, que dans le mesure où le discours de Bossuet est censé reproduire homologiquementle discours que Dieu lui-même tient aux homes, sous forme précisément de l’Historie qu’il leur donne:c’est parce que l’Histoire des homes est l’Écriture de Dieu, que Bossuet, médiateur de cette écriture,peut établir un rapport de destination entre la jeune prince et lui».

lesson. Raleigh, for example, assures us that «what strength cannot do, man’s wit,being the most forcible engine, hath often effected; of which I will give you anexample in a place of our own»47; while Bossuet’s contemporary Clarendon saysthat «you shall find the policy of many Princes hath endured as sharpanimadversions and reprehensions from the Judges of the Law, as their piety hathfrom the Bishops of the Church»48. But for the most part, in traditional Britishhistorical writing, signs of the receiver occur as parts of organizational shifters.Raleigh, for example, talks about how the Persian ambassadors, «as you haveheard before, were, for their insolent behaviour toward the Macedonian ladies,slain by the direction of Alexander»; and how Hannibal was «nephew to thatHamilcar, who (as you have heard before) was overthrown by the Carthaginianarmy at Himera by Gelon»49. Clarendon writes that it was useful to the Lords «toprove those words against the Earl of Strafford, which Sir Harry Vane sopunctually remembered (as you will find at the earl’s trial)»; about «MarquisHamilton, who you heard before was licensed to take care of himself; and was nowof great intimacy with the governing and undertaking party»; and how «The vastcharge of the two armies was no other way supplied (for I have told you beforewhy they were so slow in the granting of subsidies), than by borrowing great sumsof money from the city or citizens of London»50.

It is nonetheless true that, as Barthes says, «Signs of the utterer (or sender) areobviously much more frequent». But Barthes says much more than this.

Here we should class all the discursive elements through which the historian – as the empty subject ofthe uttering – replenishes himself little by little with a variety of predicates which are destined toconstitute him as a person, endowed with a psychological plenitude, or again (the word has a preciousfigurative sense) to give him countenance (6). We can mention at this point a particular form of this‘filling’ process, which is more directly associated with literary criticism. This is the case where theutterer means to ‘absent himself’ from his discourse, and where there is in consequence a systematicdeficiency of any form of sign referring to the sender of the historical message. The history seems to betelling itself all on its own. This feature has a career which is worthy of note, since it corresponds ineffect to the type of historical discourse labelled as ‘objective’ (in which the historian never intervenes).Actually in this case, the utterer nullifies his emotional persona, but substitutes for it another persona,the ‘objective’ persona. The subject persists in its plenitude, but as an objective subject. This is whatFustel de Coulanges referred to significantly (and somewhat naively) as the ‘chastity of History’. On thelevel of discourse, objectivity – or the deficiency of signs of the utterer – thus appears as a particularform of imaginary projection, the product of what might be called the referential illusion, since in thiscase the historian is claiming to allow the referent to speak all on its own. This type of illusion is notexclusive to historical discourse. It would be hard to count the novelists who imagined – in the epoch ofRealism – that they were ‘objective’ because they suppressed the signs of the ‘I’ in their discourse!Today linguistics and psychoanalysis have made us much more lucid with regard to privativeutterances: we know that absences of signs are also in themselves significant51.


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47 Raleigh, History of the World, 327.48 Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, vol. 1, 125.49 Raleigh, History of the World, 234, 593.50 Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, vol. 1, 284, 289, 369.51 Barthes, «The Discourse of History», 11. Barthes, «Le discours de l’histoire», 68-69: «Les signesde l’énonçant (ou destinateur) sont évidemment beaucoup plus fréquents; il faut y ranger tous les

This is Barthes’ most important claim about the act of uttering – the claimwhich his admirers have been repeating since this essay was first published. And Iwould respond to this in three ways:

1. Even if this was true, Barthes has given us no reason to believe that it’s true;2. Even if this was true, it would be trivial, because Barthes has proven too

much;3. In any case, this is simply not true.It is tempting, at this point, to simply reject Barthes’ claims out of hand: after

all, what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.But Barthes is almost certainly correct about one thing: absences can indeed bequite significant; take, for example, the absence of any evidence here to supportBarthes’ claims.

Up to this point, Barthes has been careful to provide one or two authorities foreach of his arguments: his arguments about inaugurations, for example, were(allegedly) supported by the works of Joinville and Blanc. Here, however, hisauthorities are merely ‘linguistics’, ‘psychoanalysis’, and a brief, undocumentedquotation attributed to Fustel de Coulanges. And, once we have tracked down thesource of that quotation, we shall hardly be surprised, by now, to find that Bartheshas taken the great French medievalist’s words out of context.

The phrase «chastity of history» comes from a passage in an essay entitled «Dela manière d’écrire l’histoire en France et en Allemagne depuis cinquante ans»,originally published in the Revue de Deux Mondes in 1872, and later reprinted inthe volume Questions Historiques: roughly translated, its title means, «On theways in which history has been written in France and Germany these fifty yearspast». Fustel de Coulanges was reviewing Origines de l’Allemand et de l’empiregermanique by Jules Zeller. «Here», he says with some satisfaction, «is a newhistory of Germany which differs from those we have had up to now: it is not apanegyric to Germany».

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fragments de discours où l’historien, sujet vide de l’énonciation, se remplit peu à peu de prédicats variésdestinés à le fonder comme une personne, pourvue d’une plénitude psychologique, ou encore (le mot estprécieusement imagé) d’une contenance. On signalera ici une forme particulière de ce ‘remplissage’,qui relève plus directement de la critique littéraire. Il s’agit du cas où l’énonciateur entend ‘s’absenter’de son discours et où il y a par conséquent carence systématique de tout signe renvoyant à l’émetteur dumessage historique: l’histoire semble se raconter toute seule. Cet accident a une carrière considérable,puisqu’il correspond en fait au discours historique dit ‘objectif’ (dans lequel l’historien n’intervientjamais). En fait, dans ce cas, l’énonçant annule sa personne passionnelle, amis lui substitue une autrepersonne, la personne ‘objective’: le sujet subsiste dans sa plénitude, amis comme sujet objectif: c’est ceque Fustel de Coulanges appelait significativement (et assez naïvement) ‘la chasteté de l’histoire’. Auniveau du discours l’objectivité – ou carence des signes de l’énonçant – apparaît ainsi comme uneforme particulière d’imaginaire, le produit de ce que l’on pourrait appeler l’illusion référentielle,puisqu’ici l’historien prétend laisser le référent parler tout seul. Cette illusion n’est pas propre audiscours historique: combien de romanciers – à l’époque réaliste – s’imaginent être ‘objectifs’, parcequ’ils suppriment dans le discours les signes du je! La linguistique et la psychanalyse conjuguées nousrendent aujourd’hui beaucoup plus lucides à l’égard d’une énonciation privative: nous savons que lescarences de signes sont elles aussi signifiantes».

For the past fifty years, it would not have occurred to any Frenchman to speak of this country withanything but admiration. This attitude goes back to 1815. Our liberal school, out of hatred for therecently-fallen Empire, acquired a decided taste for those who had been the Empire’s most implacableenemies, that is to say, for England and Germany. From this moment, historical studies in France weredirected wholly toward the glorification of these two countries. It seemed that England had always beenwise, always free, and always prosperous; while Germany had always been industrious, virtuous, andintelligent. Since these were the self-evident truths of history, one did not bother to study historicalfacts. The need to admire these two peoples was greater than the love of truth and the critical spirit.They were admired in spite of the documents, in spite of the chronicles and writings of each century, inspite of the most noteworthy facts52.

Zeller, by contrast, has provided a less biased version of Germany’s history.Fustel de Coulanges’ review is full of praise: but he does find fault with Zeller’stone, which is needlessly, even tediously bitter. «The author», he says, «seems todislike, indeed, almost to resent his subject. He speaks only the truth; but he doesnot conceal his happiness when the truth is unfavorable to Germany. The scholarlyfoundation is both secure and exact, but the tone is too often that of recriminationand hatred»53.

It is regrettable, says Fustel de Coulanges, that Zeller’s work was not written inthe loftier style of history’s (French-speaking) golden age54. «But» – alas – «welive today in a time of war. It is almost impossible for science to preserve itsformer serenity».

Everyone struggles around us and against us; inevitably, scholarship arms itself with sword and shield.Behold – for fifty years France has been attacked and harassed by a scholarly army. Can one blame herfor thinking a little of avoiding the blows? It is quite legitimate that our historians finally answer theseceaseless aggressions, confound the lies, arrest the ambitions, and defend, before it’s too late, both the


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52 N. D. Fustel de Coulanges, «La manière d’écrire l’histoire en France et en Allemagne», Revue desDeux Mondes, 2nd series, 101, (1872): 241: «Voici une nouvelle histoire d’Allemagne qui diffère decelles que nous avions jusqu’ici: elle n’est pas une panégyrique de l’Allemagne. Pendant les cinquantedernières années, il ne venait presque à l’esprit d’aucun Français qu’on pùt parler de ce pays autrementqu’avec le ton de l’admiration. Cet engouement date de 1815. Notre école libérale, en haine de l’empirequi venait de tomber, s’éprit d’un goût très vif pour ceux qui s’étaient montrés les ennemis les plusacharnés de l’empire, c’est-à-dire pour l’Angleterre et l’Allemagne. A partir de ce moment, les étudeshistoriques en France furent dirigées tout entières vers la glorification ces deux pays. On se figura uneAngleterre qui avait toujours été sage, toujours libre, toujours prospère; on se représenta une Allemagnetoujours laborieuse, vertueuse, intelligente. Pour faire de tout cela autant d’axiomes historiques, onn’attendit pas d’avoir étudié les faits de l’histoire. Le besoin d’admirer ces deux peuples fut plus fortque l’amour du vrai et que l’esprit critique. On admira en dépit des documents, en dépit des chroniqueset des écrits de chaque siècle, en dépit des faits les mieux constatés».53 Fustel de Coulanges, 250: «L’auteur semble avoir de l’antipathie et presque de la rancune à l’égardde son sujet. Il ne dit que la vérité; mais il ne se cache pas d’être heureux quand la vérité est défavorableà l’Allemagne. Le fond est d’une érudition exacte et sûre; la forme est trop souvent celle de larécrimination et de la haine».54 It is here, on p. 251, that the phrase «chastity of history» appears: «Assurément il serait préférableque l’histoire eût toujours une allure plus pacifique, qu’elle restât une science pure et absolumentdésintéressée. Nous voudrions la voir planer dans cette région sereine où il n’y a ni passions, nirancunes, ni désirs de vengeance. Nous lui demandons ce charme d’impartialité parfaite qui est lachasteté de l’histoire».

borders of our national conscience and the frontiers of our patriotism against the onrush of this new kindof invasion55.

Thus, when he wrote of the «chastity of history», Fustel de Coulanges seems tohave meant something akin to the childlike innocence of Eden – a lost ideal, ratherthan a professional standard. More than fifty years had passed since Frenchhistorians had been expelled from Paradise – and when Fustel de Coulanges usedthis expression in 1872, he was in fact excusing another French historian’s lack ofobjectivity – or, to be precise, another French historian’s inability or unwillingnessto write in a more becoming style. In his review, Fustel de Coulanges wishes thatZeller had concealed his happiness when the truth was unfavorable to Germany:there was a time when it was beneath a (French) historian to write in such afashion; but few historians can – or even should – live up to such expectations inthis Age of Iron56.

In addition, pay close attention to Barthes’s bait-and-switch tactics when hetalks about history telling itself. At first, Barthes says only that, when there is nosign of the sender, the message seems to deliver itself: «The history seems to betelling itself all on its own»57. This is a fair point, though not very original.American literary critic Clayton Meeker Hamilton said exactly the same thing fiftyyears before Barthes: «the author», says Hamilton, «is free to choose between twovery different tones of narrative – the impersonal and the personal».

He may either obliterate or emphasize his own personality as a factor in the story. The great epics andfolk tales have all been told impersonally. Whatever sort of person Homer may have been, he neverobtrudes himself into his narrative; and we may read both the ‘Iliad’ and the ‘Odyssey’ without derivingany more definite sense of his personality than may be drawn from the hints which are given us by thethings he knows about. No one knows the author of ‘Beowulf’ or of the ‘Nibelungen Lied’. Thesestories seem to tell themselves. They are seen from nobody’s point of view, or from anybody’s –whichever way we choose to say it58.

But Barthes then goes on to claim that, discursively speaking, «objectivity – orthe deficiency of signs of the utterer – thus appears as a particular form ofimaginary projection, the product of what might be called the referential illusion,since in this case the historian is claiming to allow the referent to speak all on its

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55 Fustel de Coulanges, 251: «Tout est lutte autour de nous est contre nous; il est inévitable quel’érudition elle-même s’arme de bouclier et de l’épée. Voila cinquante ans que la France est attaquée etharcelée par la troupe des érudits. Peut-on la blâmer de songer un peu à parer les coups? Il est bienlégitime que nos historiens répondent enfin à ces incessantes agressions, confondent les mensonges,arrêtent les ambitions, et défendent, s’il en est temps encore, contre le flot de cette invasion d’unnouveau genre, les frontières de notre conscience nationale et les abords de notre patriotisme».56 The irony here, of course, is that Fustel de Coulange’s own style was, in this case, anything butdetached. English historian H. A. L. Fisher later suggested that Fustel de Coulanges’ review of Zeller’sbook had been written «in tones which are perhaps too rancorous». H. A. L. Fisher, «Fustel deCoulanges», English Historical Review, 17, (1890): 1.57 Barthes, «Discourse of History», 11. Barthes, «Le discours de l’histoire», 68: «l’histoire semble seraconteur toute seule».58 C. M. Hamilton, A Manual of the Art of Fiction (New York: Doubleday, 1918), 133.

own»59. And that is not the same thing at all: for the referent, remember, is the past– or, strictly speaking, the documentary evidence of the past. Within the space of afew lines, Barthes has changed his position completely, without adducing any newevidence to support his new position. Having previously declared that, by adoptingan impersonal tone, historians make it seem as if their histories had writtenthemselves, Barthes now declares that, by adopting an impersonal tone, historiansmake it seem that the past itself had written their histories. But no historian hasever claimed to «let the referent speak all on its own», except through directquotations.

Precision is important here, because Barthes is confusing and conflating twovery different types of discourse. On the one hand, we have a type of discoursefrom which the discoursers ‘absent themselves’ – «and where there is inconsequence a systematic deficiency of any form of sign referring to the sender ofthe historical message». On the other hand, we have «the type of historicaldiscourse labelled as ‘objective’ (in which the historian never intervenes)». Barthesargues that there is a correspondence between the two – but once again, theevidence does not bear this out.

First, there is no evidence of any «systematic deficiency» of signs referring tothe discourser in British historical discourse: indeed, to judge from our twenty-fiveclassic histories, British historians have never completely removed such signs fromtheir discourse. A long list of self-references can be compiled from their workswith ease60.

The use of the first-person singular was common in the seventeenth century,but seems to have disappeared from the text in the eighteenth century – though itsurvived in the notes. It then reappeared in the early nineteenth century – especiallyin Macaulay’s text: Macaulay used the first person both in his introduction to thebook as a whole, and in his introductory paragraphs for individual chapters. Froudeused the first-person singular in his text with some frequency. Buckle used it evenmore frequently. The historian most responsible for the spread of Rankean methodto Britain, Stubbs, used the first-person singular less frequently than Froude, butdid not banish it altogether to his notes: neither did another student of Ranke, LordActon. Only in the mid-twentieth century did the first-person singular become trulyrare: Gardiner and Green, for example, referred to themselves only in theirprefaces; and other twentieth century historians followed their example.


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59 Barthes, «The Discourse of History», 11. Barthes, «Le discours de l’histoire», 68: «l’objectivité –ou carence des signes de l’énonçant – apparaît ainsi comme une forme particulière d’imaginaire, leproduit de ce que l’on pourrait appeler l’illusion référentielle, puisqu’ici l’historien prétend laisser leréférent parler tout seul».60 E.g. Raleigh, History of the World, Vol. 2, 5; Bacon, King Henry VII, 73-74; Camden, PrincessElisabeth, Vol. 1, 39; Hume, History of England, Vol. 1, 229, note q; Gibbon, Decline and Fall, Vol. 1,33, note 1; Hallam, Europe during the Middle Ages, Vol. 1, 4, note g; Napier, The War in the Peninsula,330, footnote; Carlyle, French Revolution, 18, footnote; Macaulay, History of England, Vol. 1, 3,footnote; Froude, History of England, Vol. 1, 4; Buckle, Civilization in England, Vol. 1, 39; Stubbs,Constitutional History of England, 1, footnote 2; Acton, Lectures on Modern History, 108; etc.

The case of Lord Acton is one of the most interesting. Acton was one ofnineteenth century British history’s most outspoken advocates of the impersonalstyle in history-writing. He told his Cambridge students that «there is virtue in thesaying that a historian is at his best when he does not appear»61. Later, as editor ofthe Cambridge Modern History, he told contributors to write in such a way that«nothing shall reveal the country, the religion, or the party to which the writersbelong» – partly because «impartiality is the character of legitimate history», butalso because, in such a collaborative work, «the disclosure of personal views wouldlead to such confusion that all unity of design would disappear»62. Yet Acton usedthe first-person singular without any self-consciousness63. He was also willing tomake an exception for «the strongest and most impressive personalities», who«project their own broad shadow upon their pages. This is a practice proper togreat men», he said – but not for the rest of us. «Better for us is the example of theBishop of Oxford» – that is to say, William Stubbs – «who never lets us knowwhat he thinks of anything but the matter before him»64.

The most we can say, then, is that British history-writing has had its fashions,like every other field of social and cultural activity. The impersonal style comesinto fashion, goes out, then comes into fashion again: yet even when theimpersonal style is most en vogue, British historians have always given themselveslicence to refer to themselves – if only in paratextual asides. What is more, as thecases of Bishop Stubbs and Lord Acton have made clear, there is no necessarycorrespondence (at least, in British historiography) between objectivity and any«deficiency of signs of the utterer». So it seems to me that Barthes has given us noreason to believe that what he says is true.

Before we proceed, let’s pause and consider what Barthes has to say aboutthose few cases when historians have been witnesses to history, or participantstherein: «that is, when the historian, who is an actor with regard to the event,becomes its narrator, as with Xenophon, who takes part in the retreat of the TenThousand and subsequently becomes its historian»65. Disappointingly, Barthesuses this conclusion to continue his misguided critique of ‘objective discourse’.The most famous participant historian of all time, he says, has also been held up as

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61 Acton, Lectures on Modern History, 12.62 Acton, Lectures on Modern History, 316.63 E.g. Acton, Lectures on Modern History, 120, 124, 151, etc.64 Acton, Lectures on Modern History, 12. Acton goes on to commend the Bishop of Oxford’s«illustrious French rival, Fustel de Coulanges, who said to an excited audience: ‘Do not imagine thatyou are listening to me; it is history itself that speaks’». But this is a misquote. Acton’s notes point toan obituary by Gabriel Monod in the Revue Historique, which says rather, «‘Do not applaud me’, hesaid to his students one day, ‘I am not the one speaking to you; it is history that speaks through mymouth’» («‘Ne m’applaudissez pas’, disait-il un jour à ses élèves, ‘ce n’est pas moi qui vous parle;c’est l’histoire qui parle par ma bouche’»). G. Monod, «M. Fustel de Coulanges», Revue Historique,41, (1889): 278.65 Barthes, «The Discourse of History», 11. Barthes, «Le discours de l’histoire», 69: «où l’historien,acteur lors de l’événement, en devient le narrateur: ainsi de Xénophon participant à la retraite des DixMille et s’en faisant après coup l’historien».

the most objective: Caesar, who in his Commentarii de Bello Gallico refers tohimself in the third person. «Caesar’s he appears at first sight to be submergedamid the other participants in the process described», says Barthes, «and on thiscount has been viewed as the supreme sign of objectivity. And yet it would appearthat we can make a formal distinction which impugns this objectivity»66.

According to Barthes, Caesar’s ‘he’ appears only in certain types of phrases orsyntagmas: «syntagmas of command» (syntagmes du chef) in which ‘he’ givesorders, holds court, has things done, etc. The fact that Caesar’s ‘he’ shows up onlyin such syntactic units gives the lie to Caesar’s pretended objectivity. It shows that«the choice of an apersonal pronoun is no more than a rhetorical alibi, and that thetrue situation of the utterer is clear from the choice of syntagmas with which hesurrounds his past actions»67.

There are three problems with this very superficial analysis. First, the modernreader is more likely to associate Caesar’s illeism with vanity rather thanobjectivity. Nor is this a recent association: it can be found in Shakespeare’s play,where Caesar says things like, «I rather tell thee what is to be fear’d than what Ifear; for always I am Caesar»; «Danger knows full well that Caesar is moredangerous than he»; «Shall Caesar send a lie», and so on.

Second, Barthes has got his facts wrong – again. Even a cursory glance at theGallic Wars will show that Caesar’s he can tolerate a much wider variety ofsyntagmas than Barthes suggests. In fact, when Caesar first appears in his ownmemoir, he quits the capital, pushes on, makes his way, orders, directs,remembers, is not disposed, is of opinion, and finally, tells the Helvetii envoys thathe will take some days for consideration68. While these are all things that we wouldexpect from a Roman commander-in-chief, they can hardly be lumped together as‘syntagmas of command’. At one point, Caesar says, he even feared that thegarrison of Cenabum might escape in the night69.

Third, it is not clear why the phrases with which Caesar surrounded his pastactions would impugn Caesar’s objectivity. Did it occur to Barthes that thefrequency with which Caesar’s ‘he’ is described giving orders, holding court, andso on simply reflects the fact that Caesar was dux (commander-in-chief) of theRoman legions that conquered Gaul? Given the role he played in these events, itwould have been strange indeed had Caesar described himself taking ordersinstead of giving them.

Now let’s consider the second objection to Barthes’ claims: that even if they’re


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66 Barthes, «The Discourse of History», 12. Barthes, «Le discours de l’histoire», 69: «Le il césarienapparaît à première vue noyé parmi les autres participants du procès énoncé et à ce titre on a vu en lui lesigne suprême de l’objectivité; il semble pourtant que l’on puisse formellement le différencier».67 Barthes, «The Discourse of History», 12. Barthes, «Le discours de l’histoire», 69: «le choix dupronom apersonnel n’est qu’un alibi rhétorique et que la situation véritable de l’énonçant se manifestedans le choix des syntagmes dont il entoure ses actes passés».68 Caesar’s Commentaries on the Gallic Wars, trans. T. R. Homes (London: Macmillan and Co.,1908), 6-7.69 Caesar’s Commentaries on the Gallic Wars, 213.

true, they’re trivial – they prove too much. In his analysis, Barthes concentrates onthe alleged similarities between history and fiction, asking: are historical accountstruly different from fictional accounts? Is historical narration truly different fromimaginary narration? It is interesting, and more than a little significant, that Barthesnever asks: are historical accounts truly different from scientific accounts? Or: ishistorical narration truly different from scientific narration? In order to suggest areply to these questions, let’s take a free and far from exhaustive look at thediscourse of a couple of famous scientists: Albert Michelson and Edward Morley,who conducted their famous failed experiment in July 1887, and published theiranomalous research results in the American Journal of Science in November thatsame year70.

An examination of Michelson and Morley’s account of their experiments willquickly reveal that their account exhibits all the characteristics that Barthesascribes to historical discourse. The two scientists use both shifters of listening andorganizational shifters in the same way that historians do. They make theirlistening explicit with both footnotes and textual references: «most writersadmit…»; «according to Fresnel…»; «Lorentz aptly remarks…»; «Stokes hasgiven a theory…»; and so on71. And they provide explicit points of reference intheir text. For example: «finally, as before remarked…» and «it appears, from allthat precedes…»72.

Michelson and Morley’s scientific article suffers just as much from ‘friction’between the ‘time of uttering’ and the ‘time of the matter of utterance’ as anyhistorical article. Equal numbers of pages cover very different lapses of time, andthe closer it gets to the present, the slower it becomes: page 333 covers 150 years

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70 A. A. Michelson and E. W. Morley, «On the Relative Motion of the Earth and the LuminiferousEther», American Journal of Science, 34, (1887): 333-345. The Michelson-Morley experiment was anattempt «to measure the earth’s velocity through the aether». «The apparatus was simple in principle. Acircular table ABCD was arranged so as to be capable of slow rotation about its centre O. Light sentalong CO was divided up at O into two beams which were made to travel along perpendicular radii OA,OB. The arms OA, OB were made as equal as possible and mirrors were placed at A and B to reflect thebeams of light back to O. An extremely sensitive optical method made it possible to detect even a veryslight difference in the times of the total paths of the two beams from O back to O. There would in anycase be a difference owing to the necessarily imperfect equalization of the lengths of the arms OA, OB,but if the earth is moving through the aether in some direction OP, and if the table is made to rotateslowly about O, then this difference ought itself to vary on account of the earth’s motion through theaether». Michelson, and afterwards Michelson and Morley in collaboration, attempted to estimate theamount of this variation. «No variation whatsoever could be detected, although their final apparatus wasso sensitive that the variation produced by a velocity through the aether of even 1 km. a second ought tohave shown itself quite clearly. Thus to the question ‘What is our velocity through the aether?’ Natureappeared to give the answer ‘None’». J. H. Jeans, «Relativity», Encyclopedia Britannica, 32 (London:Hugh Chisholm, 192212), 262.

Michelson and Morley’s experiment provided the first strong evidence against the theory of theluminiferous aether, now superseded by special relativity. It also provides interesting evidence tosupport Thomas Kuhn’s argument that scientific discoveries occur only when the experiments of‘normal science’ produce anomalous and unexpected results.71 Michelson and Morley, «On the Relative Motion of the Earth», 333, note †, 334, 341.72 Michelson and Morley, «On the Relative Motion of the Earth», 336, 341.

(by discussing how neither the emission theory nor the undulatory theory had beenable to explain the aberration of light since its discovery in 1725), while page 340covers just four days (8-9 and 11-12 July 1887).

What is more, on page 340, their paper zigzags through time the same wayhistory does: first they present the results of their morning observations from 8 Julyto 12 July; then they present the results of their evening observations during thesame period. Michelson and Morley dechronologized their narrative, the same asany historian: if we follow Barthes, this would mean that scientists, like historians,try to recapture a form of time that is complex, parametric, and non-linear.

There is no sign of a receiver in Michelson and Morley’s article – and no sign ofa sender, either: its tone is impersonal, and its voice is passive. «In April 1881», itsays, for example, «a method was proposed and carried out for testing the questionexperimentally». Michelson and Morley are conspicuously absent from their ownwork: their experiment seems to conduct itself. But if we study their paper closely,we can see that our phantom experimenters will tolerate only a certain class ofsyntagmas, which we could call ‘the syntagmas of experimentation’: adjustmentsare effected, images are made to coincide, observations are conducted, etc. Clearly,as Barthes argues, their use of a passive voice is just a rhetorical alibi – the pretenseof scientific objectivity.

Thus, it seems that, if we accept Barthes’ arguments, we must accept that thereis no essential difference between historical discourse and scientific discourse, aswell as fictional discourse: and, since if A=B and B=C, then A=C, it would seem tofollow that Barthes is also arguing that there is no essential difference between thediscourses of science and fiction. Indeed, one could use his methods and conceptsto ‘prove’ that all discourses are essentially similar.

Nor should this result surprise us. Barthes, remember, was trying to conduct alinguistic analysis of historical discourse: that is to say, he was trying to apply «themethods of analysis developed for the study of words and sentences» to paragraphsand pages. This is rather like a chemist using chemistry to conduct a ‘machineanalysis’ of a washing-machine and a dryer, and concluding that there is noessential difference between the two, because they’re both composed of the samematerials. When the only tool in your kit is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

But as I’ve already said: there’s no reason why we should accept Barthes’arguments; what’s more, there are good reasons to reject them. I would argue, infact, that Barthes is just as wrong on this point as he is on most others. Even whentheir style is highly impersonal, historians cannot absent themselves from theirdiscourse, the way novelists can: the true absent narrator exists in fiction alone.

Though both fiction and history have adopted an impersonal style, thedifferences between the two have remained essential and profound – as essentialand profound as the difference between showing and telling. Flaubert invented theliterary technique of the absent narrator in order to show his readers the tragic lifeand death of Emma Bovary: that is to say, as a way of exciting his readers’imaginations to the point where these events are visible to the mind’s eye; guidedby the author’s descriptions, the reader re-enacts these events on the stage of the


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Cartesian theater. And Flaubert understood the need to suppress any sign of the ‘I’in his discourse in order to achieve this effect: any author-intrusions would breakthe spell he was attempting to cast over the reader’s mind; his literary stage-playwould become a lecture.

«Show, don’t tell»! This point is emphasized again and again in instructionalliterature for aspiring authors of popular fiction. Early in the twentieth century,Thomas H. Uzzell wrote that «the purpose of fiction is to affect rather than toconvince the reader».

Its object is to reach him through his senses rather than through his mind. The purpose of argumentationis to convince; the purpose of description is to present a picture; the purpose of exposition is to impartknowledge, ideas, facts: but the characteristic purpose of narrative in the fictional sense in which we aretaking it here is to make the reader feel73.

Later how-to books have followed exactly the same line. «A modern categoryfiction writer», says Dean Koontz, «must never obstruct the plot with asides to thereader or with small sermons».

First of all, such asides often give away events or at least the outlines of events to come, therebydestroying the reader’s suspension of disbelief. (If he knows the story is carefully planned out, he cannotkid himself that all this is happening before his eyes). Second, such pauses in the narrative flow tend totell the reader what he should be shown through dramatic action74.

Science-fiction writer and editor Ben Bova goes even farther: «Your job, as awriter, is to make the reader live in your story»75. «In writing stories of anylength», he says, «the most important thing to keep in mind is ‘show, don’t tell’».

The moment you break the flow of the story’s action to explain things to the reader, you run the risk oflosing the reader. All of a sudden, instead of being in the story, living the role of the protagonist, thereader is listening to you lecture him. No matter how important the information you want to get acrossto him, the reader is immediately reminded that he’s reading, rather than living the story76.

But historians cannot follow this advice. Historians cannot show: they can onlytell. History consists of argumentation and exposition – it seeks to convince itsreaders, instead of just affecting them. This fact is obscured somewhat by thedistinction that historians make nowadays between analysis and narrative – but this

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73 T. H. Uzzell, Narrative Technique: A Practical Course in Literary Psychology (New York:Harcourt, Brace, and Co., 19343), 2. See also p. 4: «The passive state of concentration on one point onlywhich we call hypnosis is the spell which the artist in narrative writing should try to cast over hisaudience».74 D. R. Koontz,Writing Popular Fiction (Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books, 1973), 161-62.75 B. Bova, Notes to a Science Fiction Writer (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981), 11.76 Bova, 115. Such quotations can be multiplied without limit. See, for example: D. Lodge, The Art ofFiction (London: Secker & Warburg, 1992), 10; J. Burroway, Writing Fiction (New York: HarperCollins, 1996), 58; P. Woolley, How to Write and Sell Historical Fiction (Cincinnati: Writer’s DigestBooks, 1997), 91; and J. Gunn, The Science of Science-Fiction Writing (Lanham: Scarecrow Press,2000), 34.

is a false distinction. An historical narrative is a form of historical analysis.Historians write about large and complex events by breaking them down intosequences of small and simple events; and the more detailed the narrative, the moredetailed the analysis.

In addition – as Barthes himself admits – history consists, not of reportedevents, but of reported speech. Historians cannot describe events at first hand (theway novelists pretend to) because historians have not witnessed events at firsthand. Historians have witnessed only documents. As a consequence, all anhistorian can show the reader is an excerpt from the documents on which theirhistories are based: that is to say, when historians want to show instead of tell, theymust stop writing, and simply point to some part of some document, as if to say:«See? What did I tell you?».

In the early 1950s, poet and literary critic Allen Tate captured the differencebetween showing and telling by paraphrasing a scene from Madame Bovary. «Letthe situation be something like this», he said.

A pretty young married woman, bored with her husband, a small-town doctor, has had an affair ofsentiment with a young man, who has by this time left town. Growing more desperate, she permitsherself to be seduced by a neighbouring landowner, a coarse Lothario, who soon ties of her. Our sceneopens with the receipt of his letter of desertion. He is going away and will not see her again. The youngwoman receives the letter with agitation and runs upstairs to the attic, where having read the letter shegives way to hysteria. She looks out the window down into the street, and decides to jump and end it all.But she grows dizzy and recoils. After a moment she hears her husband’s voice; the servant touches herarm; she comes to and recovers.

As a work of fiction, this is clearly not satisfactory: the author is telling usabout Emma Bovary’s near-suicide, instead of showing us; «and as I have reportedthe scene you have got to take my word for it that she is there at all: you do not seeher, you do not hear the rapid breathing and the beating heart, and you have, again,only my word for it that she is dizzy»77.

But Tate’s paraphrase would be perfectly good history. Put his paragraph in thepast tense, add a footnote to point us to the passage from Flaubert’s novel78, andwhat we would have is the equivalent of an historical account: the footnote willpoint us to the passage in question – the literary equivalent of an historicaldocument – and permit us to check Tate’s source for ourselves, instead of us justtaking his word for it.

In fact, after consulting the various histories on which this present article isbased, I began to wonder how Barthes and his followers had persuaded themselvesthat historians have ever been ‘absent’ from their discourses, in any sense of thatword. How, for example, could anyone suggest that Edward Gibbon or A. J. P.Taylor were ever ‘absent’ from their own works? Their styles of writing are


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77 A. Tate, «Techniques of Fiction», Critiques and Essays on Modern Fiction 1920-1951, ed. J. W.Aldridge (New York: Ronald Press, 1952), 39-40.78 For example: G. Flaubert,Madame Bovary, trans. G. Wall (London: Penguin, 2003), 190-91.

unmistakable: as Lord Acton wrote, their strong and impressive personalities casttheir broad shadow upon their pages; or, to use a more contemporary metaphor,their ‘voices’ are clear and distinct. But even when their words are muffled, andtheir personalities are weak and unimpressive, it is the historian’s voice we hear intheir works – always telling – always lecturing – using quotations like slides in aliterary PowerPoint presentation.

It is worth noting that PowerPoint and other presentation programs are knownas ‘persuasion technology’. The art of persuasion, of course, is the province ofrhetoric: and as Barthes says, at the beginning of «Le discours de l’histoire»,discourse analysis had been «the special concern of traditional rhetoric» fromancient times to the recent past. «Recent developments in the science of language»led Barthes to think it was possible to analyze discourse in linguistic terms. But tojudge from the very poor results of this analysis – at least, in the section on «the actof uttering» – this possibility was an illusion. Instead of providing new insights, itseems, this type of pseudo-linguistics just obscures the findings of older, moretraditional disciplines.

But by now, the reader may be wondering what all the fuss is about. After all –who cares what Barthes thought? Isn’t postmodernism over? Who breaks abutterfly upon the wheel?

In 1918, Lenin warned a meeting of workers and deputies that, «whenrevolution comes, it is not the same as with the death of an individual, when thedeceased is carried out of the house. When the old society dies, its corpse cannotbe shut up in a coffin and placed in the grave. It decomposes in our midst; thecorpse rots and infects us»79. What Lenin said about the ‘old society’ then applies,I think, to postmodernism now. Certainly Barthes’ ideas remain infectious, morethan forty years later. In 2006, Alexander Lyon Macfie’s exposure to «Raymond[sic] Barthes’ famous critique of history» led him to confess, in the pages ofRethinking History, that his own works «did employ a variety of narrativetechniques originally designed for fiction to create a sort of reality effect»80. Lessthan a year later, in 2007, Sheldon Pollock invoked «The Discourse of History» ina critical response to Rao, Subrahmanyam and Shulman’s Textures of Time81.Postmodernism may be dead – but its remains require disposal. As distasteful asthe task may seem, historians need to pick up their shovels and start doing thedigging and filling necessary to prevent any further such outbreaks.

Laurentian UniversityOntario, Canada

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79 Quoted in E. Naiman, «When a Communist Writes Gothic: Aleksandra Kollontai and the Politicsof Disgust», Signs, 22, (1996): 17.80 A. L. Macfie, «Rethinking (My) History», Rethinking History, 10, (2006): 492. One can onlywonder at the editorial standards of a journal in which this type of mistake appears.81 S. Pollock, «Pretextures of Time», History & Theory, 46, (2007): 373-74. Cfr. V. N. Rao, D.Shulman, and S. Subrahmanyam, «A Pragmatic Response», History & Theory, 46, (2007): 414, 420-21.

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Bedrich Loewenstein, Der Fortschritssglaube: Geschichte einer europäischenIdee (Göttingen: V&R Unipress, 2009), 463 pp.

Prof. Loewenstein has undertaken the very ambitious task of writing anintellectual history of the West from its origins in Greek mythology – the bookstarts with the Prometheus legend – to the postmodern revolt at the turn to thetwenty-first century against the main body of the Western intellectual tradition, andhas done so very well. The theme around which the book is organized is the «beliefin progress» (p. 8), which he distinguishes from the «theory of progress» and ofcourse from «real progress». The key motive of the «belief in progress» is the«confidence in the future» (p. 9). It is this belief which for him characterized theWestern tradition throughout its history and distinguished it from other traditions,such as the Chinese and the Indian, which supposedly have a cyclical not a linearconception of history. The same is held to be the case of classical Greek andclassical Roman historical thought. China in fact has a very rich tradition ofhistorical writing, going back three millennia, and history plays an important rolein Greek and Roman writing. In fact, however, eschatology is not totally absent inChina, nor were linear conceptions of historical development entirely absent inGreece and Rome. I am thinking of Thucydides’ archaeology in which he outlinesthe upward development of Athens from a pastoral to a highly complex urban andcommercial society in a brief opening section which introduces his narrative of thePeloponnesian War, and of Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura in Rome in which from anaturalistic perspective Lucretius traced the upward development of the universefrom pure atoms to mankind and the onward liberation of human consciousnessfrom primitive superstition to enlightenment. Yet what Thucydides and Lucretiuslacked was the eschatological confidence that this upward development leads tosalvation; for Thucydides it led to imperialism, war, and the self-destruction ofAthens, for Lucretius to the destruction of all illusions.

But for Loewenstein the belief that history has a meaning constitutes the coreof the belief in progress which in turn constitutes the core of the Westernconception of history. Like Karl Löwith in Meaning in History: The TheologicalImplications of the Philosophy of History (1949), Loewenstein sees the modernconception of history as a secularized form of the Judaeo-Christian eschatologicaltradition. But one must be careful in speaking of a Judaeo-Christian tradition. Boththe Jewish and the Christian tradition view history in teleological terms and share amessianism «looking toward a future fulfilment» (Löwith, p. 196). However, themessianism of Hebrew prophets such as Isaiah and Micha was this worldly,oriented toward social justice and peace on this earth, while as both Loewensteinand Löwith stress, the Christian faith in fulfillment fails to understand the future interms of «real history».


Both Loewenstein and Löwith deal with the secularization of what theyconsider to be the Judaeo-Christian eschatology. Löwith begins with Burckhardtand goes back to the Bible; Loewenstein follows the history of the belief inprogress chronologically, beginning with the classical Greeks and Romans whosehistories, both claim, focused on events and lacked any concept of continuity ordevelopment. Loewenstein’s book is much more substantial in length and contentthan that of Löwith which restricts itself to a very limited number of outstandingthinkers, primarily in the modern period, from Bossuet and Vico to Burckhardt andNietzsche. Loewenstein examines at greater depth a much larger number ofhistorical thinkers and links them to the intellectual atmosphere of their time. Wethus move from Löwith’s history of great ideas in a narrow sense to a muchbroader history of historical culture.

Not only do the thinkers with whom Löwenstein deals share a linear conceptionof the historical world, but his own portrayal is also linear; he traces theprogressive secularization of historical eschatology from the age of Augustinethrough the Middle Ages to the late twentieth century. The turning point comeswith the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century which preceded theEnlightenment. Before then neither Renaissance Humanism nor the ProtestantReformation were from his perspective truly modern in their historical outlook.Thus Luther’s critique of the rational ethics of the Humanists and his attacks onwhat he considered the commercialism and aesthetics of the Church represented anoutlook closer to the Middle Ages than did the Roman church (p. 57), and whilethe Reformation sought to abolish «papal superstition», it had as yet no «interest inthe natural sciences» (p. 69). This interest developed with the scientific revolutionof the seventeenth century which saw the world increasingly in mechanistic terms.The high point of this process was the Enlightenment, particularly in its French,English, and Scottish forms. The significance of the Enlightenment was that itapplied concepts of rationality to the social and political sphere. Economic wellbeing, as advocated by the Scottish school, became part of the concept ofcivilization.

It may be asked whether Loewenstein’s discussion of the intellectualatmosphere of the Age of Enlightenment in which a secular belief in progressplayed a central role does not underplay the important counter Enlightenmentcurrents such as the fundamentalist religious revivals of which Pietism, Methodism,Swedenborgianism, all of which affirmed religious eschatologies, were examples, aswere the first stirrings of Romanticism. Loewenstein does give proper place to thecounter-revolutionary thought of Edmund Burke, in many ways a father ofhistoricism, and to Joseph de Maistre. The nineteenth century was marked by thetriumph of industrial capitalism which, not withstanding its negative aspects of«bleak working class slums and the destruction of traditional crafts» (p. 303), gaverise to the optimistic «notion of a ‘lawful’ progressive technological development ofcivilization» (p. 282) linked to growing nationalism. This optimism also led to apositivistic cult of science as propagated by Auguste Comte and to a new cult ofbiology in the form of a Social Darwinism which taught and practiced racial

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inequality and justified the colonization of non-Western peoples consideredculturally backward. Yet at this point a strong note of cultural pessimism emerged.America was seen as the high point of a society and a culture dominated bytechnology which was to be either emulated or rejected. The undercurrent ofoptimism among broad segments of the population was increasingly replaced bypessimism regarding the character of modern Western civilization. Loewensteinexamines two responses to the barbarization of war in the twentieth century: on theleft the Neo-Marxism of Georg Lukács and Ernst Bloch, who despite their criticalview of the modern world maintained confidence in a humane post-capitalist future,and on the right thinkers such as Ernst Jünger and Italian Fascists who glorifiedviolence and war in an age of advanced military technology, Oswald Spengler sawthe dissolution of the Western humanistic values which he rejected and GeorgesSorel in his The Illusions of Progress built a bridge between Marxism and a cult ofproletarian violence.

A final chapter deals with the most recent discussions. The idea of progress isreplaced by that of modernization «separated from concrete cultural values anddefined as an objective process, capable of being measured» (p. 445). Again theWest is viewed as the moving force of modernization as it was of progress, whichit was argued «culturally less progressive countries» must follow, an outlook whichamounted to the cultural «arrogance» of the West (p. 446). China, India, and theIslamic world will surely accept aspects of modernization in the area oftechnology, but they will integrate them into their own culture (p. 460). The futureis open, but «the complacent grand narrative of the linear upward movement ofmankind», which was the theme of the book, «is a remnant of the past» (p. 447).

Georg G. IggersSUNY, Buffalo

Andrea Primo, La storiografia sui Seleucidi da Megastene a Eusebio diCesarea, Studi ellenistici Pisa (Pisa, Roma: Serra, 2009), 408 pp.

The recent burst of scholarly interest in the Seleucid kingdom has addressed,naturally enough, questions of a basically historical nature: administrative structureand economy, colonization and identity, politics and warfare. Andrea Primo’s Lastoriografia sui Seleucidi da Megastene a Eusebio di Cesarea (hereafter Lastoriografia) is the first work to examine comprehensively the kingdom’s literaryproduction. This is a difficult task. Seleucid court authors have sufferedparticularly harshly the general shipwreck of Hellenistic literature. The structure ofthe Seleucid empire (itinerant kingship, multiple capitals) directed its culturalenergy differently to the rooted, scholarly worlds of Alexandria and Pergamum;Antioch received its first library as late as the reign of Antiochus III at the end ofthe third century BCE. Moreover, the Seleucid court failed to generate or cultivatewriters whose influence on later, especially Roman, authors would assist their

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survival. Accordingly, most of the court authors studied by Primo must beexcavated and reconstructed from the quotations, paraphrases, and allusions oflater, extant works. For the most part, Primo achieves this operation with admirablecaution, clarity, and methodological awareness, limiting himself to the themes andgeneral arguments of the ‘reliquiae’ in question.

La storiografia is divided into four chapters. The first, «Politica e cultura allacorte dei Seleucidi», is an overview and general discussion of the nature of theSeleucid court’s literary production; it contains the book’s most importantconclusions. Primo periodizes Seleucid court literature into two distinct phases (p.19). The ‘pioneering’ reigns of Seleucus I Nicator (305-281 BCE) and Antiochus ISoter (281-261 BCE) encouraged ethnographic and geographic treatises, such asMegasthenes’ Indica and Patrocles’ periplus of the Caspian Sea. We know of nohistorian active at the Seleucid court in the first two generations (a striking contrastto the cultural production of early Ptolemaic Alexandria). Primo’s second phase,during the reign of Antiochus III the Great (223-187 BCE), was characterized byhistorical and antiquarian works of an overtly propagandistic nature (pp. 24-25).Antiochus’ authors extolled the dynasty’s early history, thereby systematicallyproducing precedents and justification for Antiochus the Great’s conquests. Primoacutely relates the literary celebration of the Seleucid past to Antiochus’introduction of the cult of the progonoi (his royal ancestors) and the stabilization ofpreceding kings’ epithets. Primo ends the chapter with a helpful coda on thebroader intellectual life of the Seleucid court, discussing the philosophers, artists,and doctors who served the kings and surface, from time to time, in the literaryrecord.

In chapter two, «Scrittori e storiografia alla corte dei Seleucidi», Primoexamines the court authors one by one, reconstructing the outline of their texts andlocating them within the court milieu. In several cases, Primo’s interpretations areingenious. For example, he follows Athenaeus in identifying the author of theTroïca, attributed to Cephalon of Gergis, as the grammarian Hegesianax ofAlexandria Troas (FGrHist 45) and so understands the pseudo-archaicmythography as Hellenizing propaganda: at a time when Roman discourse wasassimilating the Seleucids to the Achaemenids, Antiochus III, like Pyrrhus beforehim, could represent his war with Rome as a new battle of Greeks and Trojans (pp.92-93). Another case: Primo brilliantly identifies the memoirs of the Seleucidgeneral Patrocles (FGrHist 712) as the ultimate source for Diodorus’ account ofNicator’s reconquest of Babylon and Plutarch’s description of Seleucus’ treatmentof Demetrius Poliorcetes (pp. 77-78, 186-187, 230-232). Primo concludes thechapter with useful discussions of two papyrus fragments – P. Berol 21 286,perhaps from Hieronymus or Alexander Polyhistor, and Papyrus Hamburgensis deGalatis, describing the encounter between a Hellenistic king and Galatian warriors.

Unfortunately, the brevity of the chapter’s entries and the variety of genrescovered make Primo’s analysis, on occasion, incomplete and limited. The firstauthor Primo discusses, Megasthenes (FGrHist 715), is also one of the best known:Arrian, Strabo, and Diodorus preserve extensive and overlapping sections of his

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Indica. Primo does not relate Megasthenes’ work to the well-established andinfluential Indographic tradition, classical and Alexandrian, within which he waswriting and against which he was innovating. Accordingly, Primo does not notecertain of the ethnography’s characteristics that are particularly meaningful in aSeleucid context. For example, it is crucial for the Indica’s analogous function thatMegasthenes depicts the land as a highly rational, realistic, and non-utopiankingdom. It is important, given the terms of the treaty between Seleucus I andChandragupta Maurya, that Megasthenes shifts the Indian heartland from the Industo the Ganges basin, allowing the Mauryan kingdom its own center and periphery.Similarly, while Primo recognizes some of the meaning and force of Berossus’Babyloniaca (FGrHist 680), such as Nebuchadnezzar II’s role as a prototype forAntiochus I (pp. 69-71), he bypasses the independent and complex Babylonianreligious-literary context in which the priest of Bēl-Marduk, Bēl-re’ušunu, livedand was trained.

In chapter three, «I Seleucidi visti dall’esterno», Primo tackles the depictions ofthe Seleucid empire, court, and kings in the writings of important non-courtHellenistic historians – Nymphis, Phylarchus, Polybius, and Posidonius. Given theexternality of these authors, Primo is eager to determine the extent to which theyabsorb and adapt elements of a semi-official Seleucid court narrative. Nymphis ofHeraclea Pontica (FGrHist 432), preserved in books 9 to 16 of Memnon’ Historyof Heraclea, stands out in this group, as a local rather than universal historian, asthe only of these writers to benefit personally from the Seleucid state, having beenrestored from exile after the Battle of Corupedium, and as the author mostsuccessfully and creatively examined by Primo. La storiografia demonstrates that,in contrast to other accounts of the Diadoch period, Seleucus I played a major andpositive role in Nymphis’ histories: the Heracleote appears to have included motifsdrawn from court propaganda, such as Nicator’s pothos to return to hisMacedonian home (pp. 111-112) and Antiochus I’s city foundations in Caria (p.116). Accordingly, as we shall see, Primo regards Nymphis as the major andearliest source for the later, composite «Seleucus Romance» (p. 33, 117).

The histories of Phylarchus, Polybius, and Posidonius share a fundamentallyhostile attitude to the Seleucid state, characterized by a moralizing critique of thekingdom’s supposed decline and decadence. Primo suggests that Phylarchus(FGrHist 81) repeatedly transformed pro-Seleucid partisan episodes intocondemnations of excessive adulation (e. g. the veneration of Seleucus I andAntiochus I by the Athenians on Lemnus) or the loss of Hellenic identity (e. g.relations with India) (pp. 120-122). Even if Polybius adopted several Phylarchanmotifs of Seleucid decay, Primo persuasively shows that the Megalopolitanhistorian also absorbed some of the legitimist propaganda emitted by the Seleucidcourt. This is most apparent in Polybius’ (fragmentary) narrative of Molon’s andAchaeus’ revolts and in his account of Antiochus III’s anabasis, in which theSeleucid monarch is depicted as the ideal courageous, forgiving, and just warrior-king; but even in the Roman War, Polybius, although he adopts a pro-Romeviewpoint, reproduces the salient arguments of the Seleucid court (pp. 130-141).

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Naturally enough, Polybius’ portrait of Demetrius I, his personal acquaintance, issympathetic. For Posidonius, Primo emphasizes both the Apamean scholar’sadhesion to the decadence narrative (with the partial exception of Antiochus VIISidetes) and the importance of his local, geographical knowledge.

Primo completes La storiografia with a final chapter, «I Seleucidi dopo iSeleucidi», on the major extant works that narrate Seleucid history by theirincorporation, reproduction, and adaptation of the otherwise lost or fragmentaryauthors of chapters two and three. These include Diodorus Siculus, Justin, Appian,Josephus, Plutarch, Athenaeus, Libanius, and Malalas. Primo’s purpose in thischapter is to ensure that, having restored authorship to ‘lost’ writers, he fullyrecognizes the authorial rights of the ‘secondary’ histories that preserve them;inevitably, there is much repetition. Primo has two key arguments. First, hesuggests that the extant encomiastic narratives of the early kingdom, the so-called«Seleucus Romance» of Appian, Diodorus, Justin, Plutarch, Libanius, and Malalas,derives from the stabilization and transmission of three complementary buttemporally distinct channels: Nymphis’ contemporary laudatory work, the dynastichistories of Antiochus III’s court, and Timagenes of Alexandria’s biography.Understandably, Primo cannot suggest the route of transmission orconglomeration. Second, Primo demonstrates that almost all the surviving accountsof Seleucid history take their broad outline from, in succession, Phylarchus for thereigns of Antiochus I to Seleucus II, Polybius for Seleucus III to Demetrius I, andPosidonius for the kingdom’s closing agony. The only exceptions are Josephus,who absorbs in addition the independent Jewish tradition from I Maccabees, andLibanius, whose encomium of Antioch (Or. 11) required the systematic omissionof all negative events and hostile charges. Ultimately, La storiografia’s success ismost apparent in Primo’s treatment of Justin and Appian; he is able to show thattheir narratives incorporate the full panorama of the Seleucid historiographydiscussed in the book and map out the orientations of all the different traditions.

The catalogue form of chapters two to four is a useful and accessible approachto the individual authors, but it is limited as intellectual history. Primo’s analysis ofthe political orientation of his writers is restricted, for the most part, to determiningallegiance: was X pro- or anti-Seleucid? Did Y reproduce Roman or Seleucidjustifications for the Bellum Antiochicum? Does Z prefer Demetrius I or AlexanderBalas? This bypasses big and important themes that emerge between texts, such asthe recurring trope of decadence, the characterization of good and bad kingship,and the ways in which Seleucid ideology expressed itself.

More problematic is Primo’s principle of inclusion, or rather, exclusion. Eversince Kuhrt and Sherwin-White’s groundbreaking From Samarkand to Sardis(London, 1993) scholars have increasingly recognized the Near Eastern context forthe Seleucid kingdom. Primo’s project, focusing only on writers operating withinthe Greek historiographic tradition, inevitably over-emphasizes the kingdom’sHellenic identity. The Book of Daniel, the Babylonian Chronicles, and theBorsippa Cylinder are as much products of the Seleucid world as Megasthenes’Indica, the Erythraean paean to Seleucus I, and Posidonius. More to the point, if

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Primo is happy to discuss Berossus and Josephus, why does he not examine in itsown right II Maccabees? This well-informed and heavily Hellenizing work ofJewish historiography engages in a fascinating dialogue with Seleucid courtideology, from less peripheral a position than Polybius or Athenian comedy. Myobjection is not so much that these texts are not included – they require training toorarely offered to classical historians – but that their exclusion is considered naturaland unproblematic.

Despite these qualifications, La storiografia sui Seleucidi da Megastene aEusebio di Cesarea is a well-researched and authoritatively argued book. It is, evenmore than an excellent addition to Seleucid studies, a necessary companion tofuture research.

Paul J. KosminHarvard University

Allan Megill, Historical Knowledge, Historical Error. A Contemporary GuideTo Practice, with contributions by Steven Shepard and Phillip Honenberger (Chi-cago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), XIV + 267 pp.

«Questo», scrive Allan Megill, sul profilo personale redatto per la pagina webdella University of Virginia, dove insegna Storia delle idee dell’Europa moderna eTeoria e Filosofia della storia, «credo sia il mio libro migliore». Nel 1985 l’autoresi era cimentato in una ricostruzione delle filosofie di Nietzsche, Heidegger, Fou-cault e Derrida, sintetizzandone il significato nell’icastica espressione del titolo:Prophets of Extremity. Nel 2002 aveva, invece, contestualizzata la filosofia diMarx nella tradizione opposta del razionalismo occidentale: Karl Marx: The Bur-den of Reason1. Con questo libro Megill non propone, come ci si aspetterebbe, unavia di mezzo o una sintesi tra le tendenze opposte esaminate negli altri due, ma de-linea un’alternativa teorica che poteva essere evinta sin dall’inizio. Finora, infatti,l’autore aveva scelto oggetti d’interpretazione storica coi quali non aderiva a pieno,ragion per cui il suo punto di vista emergeva dal modo della trattazione, più che daltema trattato. Questo libro, invece, esplicita le questioni metodologiche ed episte-mologiche che lo hanno guidato fin qui, offre una veste teorica al suo approcciostoriografico. In prima istanza, va quindi riconosciuto che Megill, assieme aZagorin, Hunt, Evans, Bentley, Tortarolo e alcuni altri, fa parte di quella nuovagenerazione di specialisti della storiografia (nel suo caso quella ‘high intellectualhistory’ che nelle nostre università è praticata dagli storici della filosofia) che dia-

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1 A. Megill, Prophets of Extremity: Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida (Berkeley and Los An-geles, CA: University of California Press, 1985) e Karl Marx: The Burden of Reason. Why Marx Reject-ed Politics and the Market (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002). All’interpretazione razionali-stico-essenzialistica della filosofia di Marx offerta dal testo di Megill, ha risposto in modo critico e con-vincente J. Fracchia, «Whose Burden», History and Theory, 42, (2003): 378-397.

lettizzano il proprio impegno storico con una disposizione teorica che lo rende au-to-consapevole e attento alle sfide del presente.

Per quel che riguarda la ‘dislocazione del testo entro il dibattito contempora-neo’, si può forse iniziare a proporne un’interpretazione richiamando le ultime bat-tute di una recensione di Profeti dell’estremità, vergata da Warren Wagar nel 1986per The American Historical Review:

Il movimento di pensiero che [i filosofi presi in considerazione da Megill] rappresentano – scriveva Wa-ger – ha ora più o meno esaurito le sue possibilità. La carriera di Derrida segna la fine del ‘nuovo inizio’propugnato da Nietzsche. Ma qualsiasi cosa accada da ora in avanti dovrà molto al lavoro di de-molizione che Derrida, e tanti suoi contemporanei, hanno compiuto con impareggiabile efficacia2.

Ciò, verrebbe da dire, vale anche per questo scritto di Megill, che alle maceriee alla desolazione scettica, così come a un’insostenibile immagine della ‘Ragione’,oppone un’alternativa teorica che prospetta la necessità di impegnarsi nellacostruzione del ‘migliore dei mondi storici possibili’. Con ciò – come si vedrà piùavanti – non si allude al fatto che da questi saggi emerga una teoria sistematica eunitaria di filosofia della storia riconducibile a Leibniz, ma, per utilizzare le parolestesse dell’autore, con il riferimento a Leibniz si vuol richiamare «la nozione se-condo cui è possibile immaginare un infinito numero di mondi differenti e alterna-tivi» (p. 214), che i criteri procedurali ed epistemologici di cui disponiamo, ci con-sentono di selezionare e costruire aspirando a una conoscenza legittima, ma maidefinitiva, del nostro passato3. Per questo molto del fascino di questo libro viene daun atteggiamento che se non fosse per l’insidiosa ampiezza semantica del termine,piacerebbe chiamare illuministico, in riferimento a quella disposizione teorica chea partire dalla coscienza dei limiti, della finitudine e della storicità delle impreseumane, non abdica di fronte allo scetticismo e al relativismo4. È interessante il fattoche ciò accada proprio «dopo il lavoro di demolizione» che Derrida e contempo-ranei hanno compiuto «con impareggiabile efficacia». Megill, infatti, non elude leistanze teoriche poste da Derrida e contemporanei, ma le dispone all’estremo diuna tensione irrisolta con le pratiche procedurali, metodologiche ed epistemo-logiche degli specialisti. Questa tensione che non trova soluzione in una sintesi o inuna mediazione, è riconosciuta dall’autore come il tratto caratteristico dell’impresadello storico: «a voler pensare chiaramente all’epistemologia storica è necessarioprospettare il tratto distintivo con cui lo storico approccia il passato [...] questoqualcosa lo si può definire con vari nomi. Io preferisco chiamarlo una dialettica ir-risolta o una irrisolta tensione» (p. 2). Questa dialettica aperta non asserisce veritàe oggettività assolute, ma non rinuncia a tematizzare queste nozioni come poli in

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2 W. Warran Wager, «Review of A. Megill, Prophet of Extremity», The American Historical Review,91, (1986): 100.3 Questo riferimento a Leibniz non ha, dunque, nulla a che spartire con la teoria della storia universa-le di Leibniz, così com’è descritta, per esempio, in S. Givone, Il bibliotecario di Leibniz. Filosofia e ro-manzo (Torino: Einaudi, 2005).4 Cfr. E. Tortarolo, Illuminismo. Ragioni e dubbi della modernità (Roma: Carocci, 1999).

tensione con soggettività, prospettivismo e speculazione. Megill stesso ne offre (in-volontariamente) una metafora, quando per illustrare il rapporto tra descrizione espiegazione storica, rimanda alla conquista della terra ferma nel lago olandese diZuider (p. 99), ma forse una metafora insulare rende meglio l’idea: guadagnare ter-ra ferma in mare aperto, terra più grande e più ampia, ma sapendo che attorno si èsempre circondati dal mare. Proprio grazie a questa dialettica irrisolta, allora, siconfigura quella prospettiva, che con le restrizioni e le contestualizzazioni dette,possiamo definire come aspirazione al ‘migliore dei mondi storici possibili’: possi-bili, appunto, per quest’uomo fatto così e così, pressato dal presente e dalla memo-ria, eppure capace di mettere in atto procedure disciplinari di controllo e di distan-ziamento dall’immediatezza.

Se questa, in estrema sintesi, la prospettiva teorica di Megill «nel contesto deldibattito contemporaneo» sulla filosofia della storia, una disamina più accurata del-la ‘struttura del testo’ consente di chiarirne le strategie argomentative. In una re-censione, davvero autorevole, del libro che presentiamo, Jonathan Gorman, dopoaver riportato dalla Prefazione questa considerazione dell’autore: «non penso cheuna singola teoria, né sulla scrittura storica in generale né sull’epistemologia stori-ca in particolare, possa essere offerta» (p. X), scrive:

Sembra che questo sia un modo diverso per dire che nessun argomento generale (overall argument) – oper lo meno nessuno che sia valido – strutturi il libro: (in esso) è implicata una pluralità di teorie tale davenir offerta una molteplicità di modi in cui i contenuti del libro possono essere selezionati e strutturati[...] la connessione tra le sue parti non è teoretica, ma contingente [...] la molteplicità di punti di vistanon implica incoerenza [...] e, nonostante la ‘minaccia di frammentazione’ sollevata dall’autore stesso,[i diversi capitoli del libro] formano un intero coerente [...] in relazione alla riflessione teoretica relativaalla pratica storiografica5.

È vero, Megill non offre in nessun punto una teoria sistematica della storio-grafia. Ciò dipende oltre che dai convincimenti richiamati da Gorman, ed espressinella Prefazione, dalla struttura del testo. Esso è composto da dieci capitoli, rac-colti in quattro sezioni, la prima dedicata alla memoria (pp. 17-59), la seconda alnarrativismo (pp. 63-103), la terza al problema dell’obiettività (pp. 107-156),l’ultima alla frammentazione della storia (pp. 159-208). Se a questi capitoli ven-gono aggiunti l’Introduzione (pp. 1-14) e la Conclusione (pp. 209-215), che costi-tuiscono saggi autonomi, si arriva a dodici studi di diversa consistenza e appro-fondimento, nati in occasioni diverse e pubblicati, a esclusione di soli tre, in unraggio temporale relativamente lungo, tra il 1989 e il 2004. In una struttura com-posita di questo tipo è ovvio che non si trovi la consequenzialità che generalmenteè offerta da un libro di concezione unitaria, in cui i capitoli si susseguono richia-mandosi e i progressi nell’argomentazione sono riassunti e ripresi per rendere piùagevole la lettura. Non è contraddittorio, allora, – ci si potrebbe chiedere – affer-mare assieme, come abbiamo fatto, che manca una teoria unitaria e sistematica ep-

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5 J. Gorman, «Review of A. Megill, Historical Knowledge, Historical Error», Journal of the Philos-ophy of History, 3, (2009): 79-89, 86.

pure che vi è una precisa unità di prospettiva? Proprio l’‘analisi della struttura’ deltesto mostra di no, perché l’unità di prospettiva qui, emerge da una strategia argo-mentativa che non ha nulla a che vedere con lo sviluppo sistematico di una teoria eche piuttosto potrebbe essere resa con l’immagine di una costellazione. Intendodire che, seppure una teoria univoca della scrittura storica e dell’epistemologiamanca, il lettore attento e attivo si trova di fronte a una costellazione di tesi coeren-ti e interconnesse, che si sviluppano attorno ad alcuni punti di addensamento. Ipunti di addensamento sono quelli (li diamo nell’ordine in cui li tratteremo noi)della narrazione, dell’obiettività, della coerenza e della memoria. La costellazioneè tenuta insieme dalla contiguità dei problemi e dalla connessione delle tesi chetentano di venirne a capo, come se ciascun centro problematico con le suesoluzioni esercitasse sull’altro una forza gravitazionale.

Il problema della narrazione è affrontato nella II parte del libro enell’Introduzione. In proposito, l’autore afferma che la narrazione ha valore cogni-tivo suo proprio e autonomo come mostrato a partire all’inizio degli anni Settantada Mink, Barthes, Ricoeur, Gallie e Hayden White, ma il compito dell’attuale ri-flessione filosofica sulla storia è far emergere «i limiti epistemologici» (p. 65) ditale valore, secondo criteri esterni «al contesto della narrazione stessa» (p. 73). Giàqui troviamo il movimento caratteristico che si diceva. L’autore mostra la vitalitàdella narrazione nonostante gli annunci apocalittici della sua crisi e del suo tramon-to (pp. 66-71). Prende quindi posizione contro il depotenziamento («view fromnowhere») della descrizione (p. 86), contro la riduzione del recounting a mera spie-gazione cronologica, o secondo l’accusa di Furet, a logica del post hoc, ergopropter hoc (p. 91). Al contrario, alla narrazione riconosce una logica autonoma –irriducibile a quella della spiegazione – fondata sulle interconnessioni tra il pianodell’azione, degli eventi, dei caratteri e degli scenari (p. 95). Giunge a concludereche «al livello delle totalità, sì, i corpi narrativi traggono con sé un punto di vistasul mondo, che non esiste prima e viene in essere con la narrazione stessa» (p. 72).«Un punto di vista» in cui si addensano le immagini irriflesse del passato, gliaspetti inconsci soggettivi e comunitari, i desideri del presente e le forme dellamemoria (p. 73), tutti elementi che svolgono una loro funzione positiva e un ruololegittimo nella costruzione della storia. Da questo lato, quindi, l’autore accoglie laportata della svolta linguistica, del narrativismo degli anni Settanta e Ottanta.Dall’altro, però, e questo è un movimento tipico nel suo ‘ragionamento’, Megilldice no, la narrazione, quando si discenda a livello empirico, non ha valore cogniti-vo. Essa, per essere accettata, ha bisogno di una giustificazione che faccia ricorsoall’evidenza, alla verità di fatto. Non si può, dunque, rinunciare al valore positivodella narrazione, ma questo non è sufficiente e va giustificato con criteri epistemo-logici esterni alla narrazione stessa: «argomentazione e giustificazione, e non solonarrazione, fanno della ricerca e della scrittura storica ciò che sono» (p. 76). Ilrichiamo all’epistemologia e alle procedure elaborate dagli specialisti pongono,quindi, un argine alla trasformazione della scrittura storica e del narrativismo insoggettivismo e relativismo assoluti.

Un esempio di questo virtuoso equilibrio Megill lo scorge in The Reurn of Mar-

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tin Guerre (pp. 1-5)6. Natalie Z. Davis pur proiettando nella ricerca sulla con-dizione di Bertrande, al ritorno del falso Martin Guerre, il suo interesse per la que-stione femminile, si attiene sempre all’evidenza e alla giustificazione del racconto.Il punto di vista prospettico, che emerge nella narrazione, ha dunque una funzioneeuristica positiva, giacché, senza quest’interesse e quest’impegno non avremmoavuto una trattazione storica tanto originale sulla condizione delle donne nella soci-età rurale francese del Cinquecento, ma esso è altresì accettabile solo per il ricorsoall’evidenza storica. I due aspetti sono entrambi necessari. Certo, la Davis non potràaffermare un diritto all’esclusività per la sua narrazione, ma qualsiasi altra recount-ing della storia sociale dei contadini della provincia francese del sedicesimo secolo,per poter essere assunto legittimamente accanto al suo, dovrà rispettare gli stessicriteri procedurali. La storia è «un récit véridique», scrive l’autore citando PaulVeyne (p. 11), e grazie a questa dialettica irrisolta tra il sostantivo e l’aggettivo, èpossibile mantenere le ragioni del soggettivismo senza abdicare al relativismo.

L’altro punto d’addensamento della costellazione di tesi tracciata da Megill èsviluppato nella terza parte del libro e ruota attorno alla questione dell’obiettività edella spiegazione storica. Anzitutto l’autore offre una rassegna di quattro tipi diobiettività, propendendo per l’obiettività disciplinare, procedurale e dialettica edescludendo la possibilità di continuare a concepire l’obiettività come «God’s eyeview» o neutralità olimpica (pp. 115-117). Va segnalato che più volte nel corso deltesto l’autore procede secondo distinzioni tipologiche analoghe. Il problemadell’utilizzazione della tipologia, in questo caso, sta nell’astrattezza: Megill ècostretto spesso a forzare e semplificare le sue analisi storiche per mantenere le suedistinzioni tipologiche. Le categorie dell’obiettività assoluta e di quella dialettica,per esempio, non sono utilizzabili nel caso di Hegel, che non può certo essere sus-sunto nell’uno o nell’altro tipo, dal momento che propose la costituzione diun’‘obiettività assoluta’ proprio a partire dal ‘processo dialettico’. Un altro luogoin cui le distinzioni concettuali di Megill paiono troppo rigide è offerto nellasezione sul narrativismo che abbiamo già preso in considerazione. Qui l’autoremette a fuoco quattro compiti della produzione storica: la descrizione o recounting,la spiegazione, la giustificazione e l’interpretazione (p. 97). La distinzione tra i pri-mi tre è argomentata molto accuratamente, ma la differenza tra interpretazione edescrizione sembra conseguita solo al prezzo di una delimitazione arbitraria tra ledue. Se, infatti, recounting ed explanation rispondono a due logiche differenti, nar-rativa una e inferenziale-controfattuale l’altra, non pare che per la distinzione tradescrizione e interpretazione l’autore offra una ragione altrettanto salda e convin-cente. Cosa distingue, infatti, così nettamente la domanda «What was the case» da«What was the case for me» o «for us»? Non il ricorso all’evidenza! Dal momentoche, secondo l’autore stesso, il ricorso all’evidenza è la logica della spiegazione edella giustificazione storiche, non quella della descrizione o recounting.

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6 N. Z. Davis, The Return of Martin Guerre (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983; trad.it. Il ritorno di Martin Guerre. Un caso di doppia identità nella Francia del Cinquecento, Torino: Ei-naudi, 1984).

Il problema della spiegazione e della giustificazione, si diceva, è affrontato daMegill nella terza parte in rapporto a quello dell’obiettività. Il punto di partenza èl’analisi epistemologica, condotta assieme a Steven Shepard e Phillip Honenberger,del saggio storico di Joshua D. Rothman sulla relazione amorosa tra Thomas Jef-ferson e la sua schiava Sally Hemings7. I tre studiosi mostrano come dispiegandocriteri epistemologici associati alla «inference to the best explanation» (p. 127) lostorico non possa che rimanere agnostico rispetto alla questione della risonanzadella relazione amorosa tra Hemings e Jefferson nel vicinato, ovvero rispetto allatesi difesa da Rothman. L’«inference to the best explanation», teoria fatta oggettodi una trattazione filosofica molto accurata anche da Avizier Tucker nel 20048, èpertanto il cuore dell’argomentazione di Megill e dei suoi colleghi:

Il grado di certezza attribuibile a un insieme di credenze sul passato dipende dal grado in cui l’adozionedi queste credenze serve a dar senso alla totalità dei documenti storici [...] ovvero alla totalitàdell’evidenza storica, rintracciata o rintracciabile, relativa al problema in questione (p. 128).

Il racconto nel suo complesso per essere giustificato deve funzionare comeun’inferenza o un’abduzione in senso peirceiano. L’abduzione è l’elaborazione diuna spiegazione a partire dall’effetto. Quando lo storico giustifica il suo racconto ospiega un fatto non deduce né induce in senso proprio, ma dall’effetto inferisce lacausa. La regola generale a cui deve attenersi in questa inferenza è quella per cui lasua spiegazione (individuazione della causa) deve render conto nel modo più am-pio delle evidenze disponibili (effetti da cui ha avvio il ragionamento). Quando ciònon avviene e la spiegazione e la giustificazione non sono in grado di render contoefficacemente di un raggio ampio di evidenze, lo storico deve dichiarare esplicita-mente che la sua spiegazione non è al di là di ogni sospetto. Che «Cesare passò ilRubicone» non è una verità logica né un evento percepito direttamente, ma «unaspiegazione dei dati di gran lunga migliore del suo contrario che dunque può sem-plicemente esser detta vera» (p. 128). La nota essenziale che distingue l’inferenzadalla descrizione storica, così come dalla spiegazione scientifica (p. 155), secondoMegill, è il suo carattere controfattuale: tale per cui ferme restando tutte le altrecondizioni, se la causa individuata come esplicativa della situazione storica venissea mancare (condizione contro-fattuale), agli occhi dello storico verrebbe a mancareanche l’effetto. Con questa interpretazione ristretta della controfattualità, l’autoresi oppone alla decostruzione relativistica e ai rischi revisionistici insiti nella VirtualHistory di Ferguson e colleghi9 (p. 152), eppure non scivola nell’epistemologia du-

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7 J. D. Rothman, «James Callender and Social Knowledge of Interracial Sex in Antebellum Virgi-nia», Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson: History, Memory, and Civic Culture, eds. J. E. Lewis and P.S. Onuf (Charlottesville, VA; London: University Press of Virgina, 1999).8 A. Tucker, Our Knowledge of the Past: A Philosophy of Historiography (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2004). Megill cita Tucker in nota, registrando l’affinità e dichiarendo che il capitolo dicui si discute era già pronto nelle sue linee essenziali prima che il testo di Tucker fosse pubblicato.9 Virtual History: Alternatives and Conterfactuals, ed. N. Ferguson (New York: Basic Books, 1999).La storia virtuale, secondo Megill, non ha nulla a che spartire con la spiegazione controfattuale. La Vir-tual History, infatti, avvia il suo ragionamento da un’asserzione che esprime un fatto non accaduto, ispi-

ra di Hempel. La più alta obiettività possibile è il frutto dell’applicazione di criteriepistemologici, che non eliminano la speculazione a nessun livello dell’impresastorica, ma la sottopongono a procedure di controllo e regolamentazione: «lo stori-co deve speculare», ma «la nostra opinione», dice l’autore, «è che egli debba spe-culare onestamente e intelligentemente» (p. 125).

Prima di procedere, bisognerà però soffermarsi su una questione, a nostroparere, non sufficientemente approfondita da Megill. Come si è visto uno dei cardi-ni su cui l’autore costruisce le sue distinzioni concettuali e riconosce valore alleprocedure epistemologiche, è il ricorso all’evidenza. Contro la tradizione realisticasembra che egli intenda indebolire questo concetto. Nell’Introduzione, per esem-pio, scrive che «l’evidenza è sempre evidenza a favore o contro una particolare as-serzione [...] in virtù di un argomento che lo storico costruisce» (pp. 6-7). Nel trat-teggiare la nozione peirceiana dell’inferenza abduttiva, però, l’evidenza torna comel’insieme dei dati di partenza da spiegare. Da queste due differenti formulazioni, ineffetti, non risulta del tutto chiaro se l’evidenza debba esser concepita ‘in funzionedi un’asserzione’ o come ‘l’insieme dei dati’ che lo storico trova di fronte a sé.Questi dati da spiegare sono stati costruiti o sono delle oggettività? E se sonocostruiti, come sembrerebbe, a che livello o in che modo, secondo quale logica eche processo, emergono? A nostro parere l’autore elude queste domande spostandoil problema della speculazione al livello della narrazione e del grado di certezzadella spiegazione, ma lasciando inevaso il terreno altrettanto insidiosodell’evidenza. Un’asserzione come «Cesare passò il Rubicone», scrive l’autore,può esser ritenuta ‘vera’ se rende conto delle evidenze di cui disponiamo (quindimai in senso assoluto): ma le evidenze stesse di cui disponiamo quando possonoesser ritenute vere? Anche il problema dell’‘obiettività possibile dell’evidenza’,crediamo, debba entrare a far parte di una trattazione epistemologica della stori-ografia.

La quarta sezione del libro è dedicata alla frammentazione della storia e allaricerca della coerenza. In verità tra i primi due e l’ultimo saggio che la compon-gono si registra un leggero spostamento d’accento. Nel primo (pp. 159-164)l’autore conclude che di fronte alla frammentazione delle narrazioni e del metododella storiografia, lavori «che cadono [...] nell’ambito della storiologia [historiolo-gy]», come quelli di Novick, Mink, de Certeau, Veyne e Ankersmit, «potrebberoassumere un ruolo integrativo importante» (p. 164). Anche nel secondo saggio (pp.165-187) Megill ribadisce che all’età della frammentazione metodologica, in cuiogni speranza di giungere a un racconto unitario e totale è venuta meno, si può farfronte con «un punto di vista riflessivo», «orientato al compito filosofico di riflet-tere sul significato di fatti in un certo senso già conosciuti» (p. 187). Nell’ultimo,

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randosi al principio della contingenza storica («se la Germania nel 1940 fosse riuscita a invaderel’Inghilterra...») e poi nega lo stesso principio di contingenza derivando con necessità da quella asser-zione (causa) gli effetti. Al contrario, la spiegazione controfattuale parte dagli eventi reali (effetto) e in-ferisce la causa che rende meglio conto dell’insieme delle evidenze, senza dover ricorrrere ai principi fi-losofici della contingenza o della necessità del corso storico.

invece, dopo una perlustrazione del problema della coerenza storica, condotta dallestraordinarie esperienze delle diverse generazioni delle Annales (Febvre, Braudel eFuret, soprattutto) fino ai progetti della New Cultural History di Bonnell e Hunt10,Megill conclude che il compito dello storico non è cercare coerenza e unità, bensì«mischiare le carte, mostrando le vie molteplici in cui il passato è davvero incoe-rente con sé stesso» (p. 207).

Questo richiamo al compito critico dello storico ci conduce, infine, alla que-stione della memoria e dell’esperienza storica, sviluppate dall’autore rispettiva-mente nella prima parte del libro e nella Conclusione. Il punto di avvio della rifles-sione è la teoria della discontinuità e dell’invalicabile frattura tra passato e presentedi Michel de Certeau (p. 38). Proprio questo dovrebbe armarci, secondo l’autore,contro la seduzione di ridurre l’attività storiografica alla memoria. La memoria in-dividuale e collettiva, in tutte le sue manifestazioni, dalla testimonianza alle occa-sioni pubbliche delle commemorazioni, è una dimensione legata al presente,all’esperienza, all’‘ora’. Essa è sempre una funzione immediata della soggettivitàe, di frequente, si configura come risposta all’identità minacciata (pp. 42-46). Maproprio questa sua aderenza al presente e all’esperienza devono indurre lo storico adiffidare di essa. L’obiettività, come si è visto, è il frutto di una complicata e fra-gile costruzione, in cui devono essere dispiegate procedure epistemologiche e dicontrollo del ragionamento, che non hanno nulla a che fare con la funzione affer-mativa della memoria. Megill discute la questione con ampiezza d’angolazione,prendendo in esame le tesi di Ricoeur (p. 24), di Pierre Nora, di Nietzsche (p. 52),ma giunge ad affermare «la memoria è un’immagine del passato costruita da unasoggettività nel presente [...] D’altro canto la storia, in quanto disciplina, hal’obbligo di essere oggettiva, unificata, ordinata, giustificata» (p. 57), pertanto, «lamemoria è l’Altro della storia, come la storia l’Altro della memoria» (p. 58). Si sagià che queste asserzioni vanno prese con beneficio d’inventario e che Megill nonallestisce la glorificazione di un’obiettività impossibile. Anche in questo caso, piut-tosto, si tratta di una dialettica irrisolta: la memoria è un polo, una «conditio sinequa non» (p. 25) della storiografia. Non è possibile fare a meno della dimensionespeculativa che nel discorso storico s’addensa anche attraverso la memoria; e tut-tavia la storia non può coincidere con essa. La storiografia come disciplina deve faremergere un ‘altro passato’, un passato che sia in una relazione di tensione col pre-sente e non in una disposizione affermativa rispetto a esso. Il che significa che lacritica dello storico al presente non deve essere politica, perché la sfera della politi-ca pertiene alla stessa dimensione della memoria e dell’esperienza, bensì epistemo-logica. Solo attraverso «la ricognizione della distanza» e della frattura che separa‘il passato’ e ‘i passati’ dal presente è dato aspirare al migliore dei mondi storicipossibili. Allora sì, questo esercizio complesso e difficile di conquista diun’oggettività sempre parziale e precaria, «questi passati distanti, umanamente im-maginati e immaginativamente ricostruiti», scrive l’autore riportando le parole del-

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10 Beyond the Cultural Turn: New Directions in the Study of Society and Culture, eds. V. E. Bonnelland L. Hunt (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999).

lo storico del Medioevo Thomas Bisson, «possono porre in prospettiva il nostrofragile presente» (p. 214). Una volta che la storia s’è affrancata dal presente, comepuò, il ragionamento storico può fungere anche da modello per un’interpretazioneintelligente e onesta del mondo in cui viviamo:

Nel 2003 – scrive Megill – gli Stati Uniti andarono in guerra contro l’Iraq, un’avventura giustificata dalfatto che l’Iraq possedesse armi di distruzione di massa, immediatamente disponibili, che potevano esse-re usate contro gli Stati Uniti e i suoi interessi. Di fatto, la ricerca che avrebbe dovuto giustificare questaconclusione fu lacunosa, corrotta dal desiderio di qualcuno di trovare un casus belli persuasivo [...] unadisciplina storica focalizzata sulla ‘memoria’ e affermativa rispetto al presente non è nella posizione dicontrastare un tale errore. Una disciplina storica attenta all’epistemologia storica in senso proprio, d’altrocanto, può servire da modello di onestà e di intelligenza per l’indagine del mondo umano (p. 215).

È difficile, al riguardo, dissentire. Rimane solo da osservare che dopo aver con-figurato l’analisi della storiografia come disciplina, non viene meno l’esigenza diun’analisi filosofica dell’esperienza storica, per dir così, extra-disciplinare. Inquesta direzione, credo, e non in quella di una sostituzione dell’esperienza storicaalla conoscenza storica, possono essere proficuamente utilizzate le riflessioni re-centi di Gumbrecht, Ankersmit, Jay e Runia sulle nozioni di esperienza sublime edi presenza11.

Ci sembra, per concludere, che lo scopo del libro sia stato raggiunto. Nono-stante l’assenza di una teoria sistematica, infatti, esso – come abbiamo visto – offreuna prospettiva unitaria che gli conferisce un posto e un compito precisi nel dibat-tito contemporaneo. Così, attrezza la «generazione più giovane» (p. 13), se non diuna guida pratica, certo di un esempio concreto di come sia possibile impostare iproblemi teorici al di là delle soluzioni o dissoluzioni, ormai stanche, del postmo-dernismo. Che esso, infine, possa fungere, per la generazione dei giovani storiciche vorranno accoglierlo, anche da ‘guida pratica’ è possibile, ma la focalizzazionedi questo libro rimane prevalentemente teorica e non prescrittiva.

Davide BondìUniversità di Firenze

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11 H. U. Gumbrecht, Production of Presence: What Meaning Cannot Convey (Stanford: Stanford Uni-versity Press, 2004); F. R. Ankersmit, Sublime Historical Experience (Stanford, CA: Stanford Universi-ty Press, 2005); M. Jay, Songs of Experience: modern American and European Variations on a univer-sal Theme (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005); E. Runia, «Presence», History & Theory,45, (2006): 1-29, e E. Runia, H. U. Gumbrecht, F. R. Ankersmit, E. Domanska, M. Bentley, R. Peters,«Forum on Presence», History & Theory, 45, (2006): 305-374. L’autore cita e discute, di sfuggita, il so-lo libro di Ankersmit.

ABSTRACTS

Rolf Torstendahl, “Historical professionalism. A changing product of communitieswithin the discipline”

Historical professionalism has been mainly treated as a unified process ofprofessionalisation that has taken place some time in the past. This article takesanother view. Professionalism is conceived here as closely related to communitiesthat have basic values in common.The article discerns several phases of professionalism based on different

communities. After a proto-professionalism in Germany (only) in the eighteenthcentury, Rankeanism represents the first international phase of professionalism fromthe 1830s. It was followed by a professionalism concentrated on methods andmethodology from the 1880s, which became very international. Social and, above all,economic historians formed competing and parallel communities from the 1920s and,after WW2, social science history in several forms (Braudel, the Bielefeld school, thenew Marxist wave, dependence theory) challenged traditional professionalism. After1980 postmodernism made the communities even more disparate and the commonprofessionalism among historians has tended to disappear.

*

Stefano Meschini, “Bernardino Corio e le fonti della Storia di Milano (1503)”

This article tries to make clear that Bernardino Corio’s Storia di Milano,though written in Italian vulgar, is, in some way, dependent, with regard to sourcesand documents employed, on Ludovico il Moro and ducal chancellery’sendeavours to promote the visconteo-sforzesca dynasty’s exaltation.Many sources handled by Corio, among which we number the most important

Middle Ages’s Northern Italian chronicles (such as Paolo Diacono, GalvanoFiamma, Jacopo d’Acqui, Sagacino Levalossi) are the same ones in those yearsused by the régime’s two aulic historians, that is to say Giorgio Merula andTristano Calco: in fact we often can recognize in these three authors somecoincidences in the documents and in the sources we cannot deem fortuitous.

*

Neil Hargraves, “Resentment and history in the Scottish Enlightenment”

This article explores the ways in which Scottish Enlightenment writers such as

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Lord Kames, Adam Smith, David Hume and William Robertson used the conceptof ‘resentment’ as a means of understanding and, hopefully, taming the Scottishpast. It argues that historical narrative was crucial to the process of analyzing therole of the passions in human relations, and that while it drew on the developingsocial theory of the Scottish Enlightenment, it also provided a distinctive andnuanced account of the various operations of resentment that more theoreticalformulations could not adequately represent

*

Philipp Müller, “Doing historical research in the early nineteenth century. LeopoldRanke, the archive policy, and the relazioni of the Venetian Republic”

This article examines the historical conditions of archival research faced by thehistorian Leopold Ranke whilst on research mission in Central Europe in the earlynineteenth century. In 1827, the historian was granted a study leave and was tosearch for original manuscripts. However, access to both libraries and archives wasrestricted. Particularly access to the archive, integral part of the arcane sphere ofthe state, was closely monitored by the state administration. Moreover, afterNapoleon’s imperialism in Europe state governments were rather sensitive due tothe disorder and recent recasting of the political map. But in this period ofenhanced nation building process leading statesmen were also keen on to puthistory based on archival research into service. I contend that the historian’sresearch unfolded at a very early stage of his research process in a field of forces inwhich Ranke, although he benefited from his recently established scholarlyreputation, took the position of a (foreign) subject. Ranke was to ask forpermission to use archive material. To achieve his goal, the historian deployedvarious means and strategies in the anteroom of the archive. Moreover, theadministrative examination of the historian’s request impacted on Ranke’srelationship to members of state governments, his agenda of research, the historicalnotion of knowledge and truth, his reputation as a historical scholar and, finally, onthe choice of his favoured materials, the relazioni.

*David M. Leeson, “Barthes and the ‘act of uttering’ in historical discourse”

Roland Barthes’ 1967 essay “Le discours de l’histoire” begins with twoquestions: does the narration of past events really differ, “in some specific trait, insome indubitably distinctive feature, from imaginary narration, as we find it in theepic, the novel, and the drama”?; and, “if this trait or feature exists, then in whatlevel of the historical statement must it be placed”? By the end of Section I – thesection on “énonciation” or, as translator Stephen Bann renders it, “the act of

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uttering” – Barthes has concluded that the answer to his first question is “no”: thatthe discourse of history has no such trait or feature. In its references to itself,historical discourse does not really differ from the discourse of ancient creationmyths (which resemble both poetry and prophecy); while in its lack of referencesto both writer and reader, the discourse of history does not really differ from thediscourse of the novel. On the one hand, “the presence in historical narration ofexplicit signs of uttering would represent an attempt to ‘dechronologize’ the‘thread’ of history and to restore, even though it may merely be a matter ofreminiscence or nostalgia, a form of time that is complex, parametric and not in theleast linear: a form of time whose spatial depths recall the mythic time of theancient cosmogonies, which was also linked in its essence to the words of the poetand the soothsayer”. On the other hand, the absence from historical narration ofspecific signs of the utterer seems like “a particular form of imaginary projection,the product of what might be called the referential illusion, since in this case thehistorian is claiming to allow the referent to speak all on its own” – an illusionwhich realistic novelists have created as well.Using evidence from a selection of classic histories (and one classic historical

novel), my paper will show that what Barthes says about “the act of uttering” inhistorical discourse is mostly wrong. In his discussion of historical discoursedeixis, Barthes omits any discussion of the most obvious and important shifters inhistorical discourse, and wrongly credits anthropologists with practices thatoriginated with historians. He takes a necessary condition of human existence –the asynchronous nature of experience – and tries to make it seem like a peculiarweakness of historical discourse. He stresses one type of inauguration thatscarcely exists in actual history-writing (the ‘performative opening’), and makesplainly false claims about another (the preface). His claims about references to thereader in both literary and historical discourse are equally false. Worst of all, heblames historians for ‘absenting themselves’ from their discourse, like the narratorof a realistic novel, when in fact historical discourse is distinguished from(realistic) literature chiefly by the historian’s clear and continuous presence. Evenif we could look past these problems, and somehow make what Barthes says cometrue, what he says would be trivial: his arguments prove too much.

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NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Rolf Torstendahl ([email protected]) is Professor Emeritus of History atthe Department of History of Uppsala University (P.B. 628, SE-751 26 Upp-sala, Sweden). His main research is concentrated on the history and theory ofhistory, and social processes in nineteenth and twentieth century European so-ciety, such as the development of professional groups and bureaucratisation. Heis the author and editor of several books and many articles in these fields. Forseveral years he was a member of the International Commission for the Historyand Theory of Historiography

Stefano Meschini ([email protected]) is Ph. D. and he cooperates withthe department of Scienze Storiche at Catholic University of Milan. He worksas school teacher in Milan. He is the author of Uno storico umanista alla cortesforzesca. Biografia di Bernardino Corio and more recently of Luigi XII ducadi Milano, Gli uomini e le istituzioni della prima dominazione francese (1499-1512),Milano, F. Angeli, 2004 and of La Francia nel ducato di Milano. La Po-litica di Luigi XII (1499-1512), Milano, F. Angeli, 2006, 2 voll.. His researchinterests include Milan’s political history in earlier sixteenth century and Mi-lan’s Renaissance historiography.

Neil Hargraves ([email protected]) is Lecturer in History and Philoso-phy at Newbattle Abbey College, Midlothian, Scotland. His principal researchinterests lie in the historiography of the Scottish Enlightenment, principally theworks of William Robertson, and the history of ‘popular enlightenment’ andadult education in Scotland. He has published articles in Journal of the Historyof Ideas, Eighteenth-Century Life, History of European Ideas, Anthropology ofthe Enlightenment, the Adam Smith Review and History of Education.

Philipp Müller ([email protected]) is Lecturer in Modern German Histo-ry at University College London. Prior to his current position he obtained hisPh.D. at the Istituto Universitario Europeo in Florence in 2004 and was Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Research Centre Media of History – History of Media atthe Universität Erfurt. Selected Publications: Auf der Suche nach dem Täter.Dramatisierung von Verbrechen im Berlin des Kaiserreichs (Campus: Frank-furt a.M., 2005); «Geschichte machen. Überlegungen zu lokal-spezifischenPraktiken in der Geschichtswissenschaft und ihrer epistemischen Bedeutung im19. Jahrhundert», Historische Anthropologie, 12, (2004); ed., Vom Archiv. Er-fassen, Ordnen, Zeigen. Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswis-senschaften, 18, (2007).


David M. Leeson ([email protected]) is an assistant professor of history atLaurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. He received his PhD fromMcMaster University in 2003, and has held his current position since 2005. Hehas published articles in the fields of British and Irish history; historiographyand the philosophy of history; and video-game studies. He has recently comple-ted a book on the Black and Tans – British Police and Auxiliaries in the IrishWar of Independence (1920-21) – and is presently writing a second book on theBritish Army’s first major offensive on the Western Front in World War I.

Paul J. Kosmin ([email protected]) is a PhD candidate in Ancient His-tory at Harvard University. His dissertation investigates the spatial ideology ofthe Seleucid Kingdom.

Davide Bondì ([email protected]) is a PhD student in Philosophy of Historyand Historiography at the University of Florence (Department of Philosophy).He deals with Italian and German intellectual history in the second half of thenineteenth century and early twentieth century. Alongside his studies, he isdeveloping a research project on the contemporary discourse about the Philoso-phy of History after the Linguistic and Narrative Turn, focusing in particularon H. White, L. Mink, A. Danto, R. Barthes, M. de Certeau, P. Veyne and F.Ankersmit. He collaborates with the Rivista di storia della filosofia and Magaz-zino di filosofia, for which he has written «Il giovane Croce e Labriola.Ricezione e circolazione della Völkerpsychologie in Italia alle soglie del Nove-cento» (Rivista di storia della filosofia, 4, 2004, 895-920) and «Filologia e psi-cologia. Considerazioni intorno ai primi scritti di Benedetto Croce» (Il Magaz-zino di filosofia, 14, 2004, 213-224).

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Stampato e confezionatoda New Press, Como

ottobre 2009

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