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The Origins of Study of the Past: A Comparative Approach

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

J. G. A. Pocock
Affiliation:
University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

Extract

In this paper I shall attempt to consider how far the history of historiography can be treated as the history of the problems occasioned by men's awareness of the past in different societies, and of their attempts to deal with these problems. This kind of approach has not, so far as I know, been made before. That is to say, the history of historiography has not been approached as primarily a part of the history of social man's awareness of his past and his relations with it; and this is understandable enough, as the historical phenomena we call by the collective name of historiography have been by no means limited to the attempts made by historians and other thinkers to understand the past and its relationship to the present.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1962

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References

1 Cf. Shils, E., “The Intellectuals and the PowersComparative Studies in Society and History, I, no. 1 (1958), p. 6: “The population of every society, and above all those who exercise authority in it, need to have at least intermittently some sense of the stability, coherence and orderliness of their society, they need therefore a body of symbols, such as songs, histories, poems, biographies, and constitutions, etc., which diffuse a sense of affinity among the members of the society.”Google Scholar

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9 Chronology, the attempt first to rationalise mythical happenings and then to date them, provides in works like Newton's, IsaacThe Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (London, 1728) a classic instance of the sterility of this form of interpretation.Google Scholar

10 I have been constrained to take the following translations more or less at their face value. They appear to display a series of attitudes of mind consonant with the theme of this article.

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22 Anti-Tribonian, pp. 36–37, 101–2, 137–8.

23 Anti-Tribonian, p. 140.

24 Baudouin, De institutione historiœ universe et emus cum jurisprudentia conjunctione, 1561; Bodin, Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem, 1566.

25 See Gassendi, Pierre, Life of Peireskius, Engl. trans. Rand, W. (London, 1657), pp. 200–02: “For he studied the Lawes, after the liberal method of Cujacius, which tends to illustrate the said Lawes from the Fountains themselves, and fundamental Maxims of Equity and Right, rather than from the Rivulets of the Doctors or Lawyers. And this it was, that chiefly made him affect the study of Antiquity; because it gave him great light therein… And what I said occasionally touching his study of Antiquity, comprehends principally Universal History, which he had so printed in his mind and memory, that a man would have thought he had lived in all places and times. For he held it evermore as a Maxime, that History did serve exceedingly, not only to give light to the study of the Law, but to the ordering of a man's life, and the possessing of his mind, with a rare and ingenuous delectation. For he counted it in some sort, more effectual then Philosophy, because she instructs men indeed with words, but History inflames them with examples; and makes in some sort, that we ought not to think much of our short life, making the same partaker of things and times that are past”.Google Scholar

26 Duck, De Usu et Auctoritate Juris Civilis Romani in Dominiis Principum Christianorum (1653), criticised in Giannone's introduction to his Istoria Civile del Regno di Napoli (1723).

27 Pocock, op. cit., Chap. III.

28 Seyssel, Speculum Feudorum (Basle, 1566), pp. 12–16. Seyssel died in 1520 and this work belongs to an early stage of his career.

29 The main sources for humanist study of feudal law are Cujas, Opera qua de iure fecit, II (Paris, 1637) and Hotman, De Feudis commentatio tripertita (Lyons, 1573), “Disputatio de feudis” which contains (Chap. II) an analysis of the opinions of other scholars “de feudorum origin et instituto”. See also Pocock, ibid.

30 For analysis see Pocock, op. cit., Chaps. III and 1V.

31 Published 1669, but written earlier.

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36 Gibson, E., ed., Reliquice Spelmanniame (London, 1698), pp. 127–32.Google Scholar

37 If the unfinished treatise “Of Parliaments” (Reliquice, pp. 57–65) was composed in 1641; Pocock, pp. 120–22.

38 Pocock, Chap. VIII.

39 “Epistle to the Candid Reader” in Brady, Introduction to the Old English History (1684): “…but as to the Matter here treated of, whoever reads our Old Historians and hath not a true Understanding and Apprehension of it, neither can he truly, and as he ought, understand them, nor will he ever be able to arrive at the Knowledge of our Ancient Government, or of what Import and Signification the Men were that lived under it according to their Several Denominations; of what Power, and Interest they were, what they did, and how they behaved themselves; nor who, nor what they were, that contended with our Ancient Kings about Liberty, and Relaxation of the Government, nor indeed what truly the Liberties were they contended for”.

40 Pocock, pp. 218–27.

41 Robbins, Caroline, The Eighteenth-century Commonwealthman (Cambridge, Mass., 1959).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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43 A Discourse of Government with Relation to Militias (Edinburgh, 1698). I am indebted to Professor Robbins for drawing my attention to this work.Google Scholar

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47 Dictionary of National Biography, article “Craig, Thomas” see generally Pocock, , Ancient Constitution, pp. 7990.Google Scholar

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49 The development of Sicilian historical thought is studied in Romeo, R., 11 Risorgimento in Sicilia (Bari, 1950).Google Scholar

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59 Lemaire, , op. cit., pp. 92, 101–2.Google Scholar

60 Particularly in the Essais sur la Noblesse de France (Amsterdam, 1732),Google Scholar and the Lettres sur les Anciens Parlements de France (London, 1753).Google Scholar Cf. Simon, R., Henry de Boulainviller (Gap, 1940); I follow the familiar if inaccurate spelling.Google Scholar

61 Essais, pp. 273–300.

62 Maraini, F., Meeting with Japan (London, 1959), pp. 151, 377;Google ScholarTsunoda, de Bary and Keene, , Sources of the Japanese Tradition (New York, 1958), pp. 472–75, 479–88, 506–540.Google Scholar

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