Schmitt C.B. (ed.) The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy
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The
theory of history
747
numbered among these 'humanities' but in other senses it had particular
relationships with them, beginning most fundamentally with the first two
members
of
the old medieval
trivium,
grammar and rhetoric. According to
Quintilian and his humanist
followers,
the
ars
grammatica
was divided into
two
parts, of which the first was
historia,
that
is, the words, the primordial
substance
of
language
(sensus
historicus
being equivalent to grammatical or
literal
interpretation)
and the second, 'method'
(methodus),
that
is, syntax or
form.
4
In this distinction, familiar to most schoolchildren down to the
present century, one may see a rudimentary model of scientific method,
which
Bacon for one defined as the application of reason to experience,
which
is to say 'history' in a general and 'empirical' sense.
5
The affiliations
of
history with rhetoric were both formal and epistemological, since it
proposed to
understand
the world in concrete, causal and didactic terms,
and moral, since it aimed at right action and perhaps the public good. As
'philosophy teaching by example' (a formula deriving from Dionysius of
Halicarnassus), history had an even more direct connection with moral
philosophy.
6
As for poetry, although it was usually
(that
is, Peripatetically)
distinguished from history, certain Renaissance
authors
came to believe
that
in fact
—
historically
—
history had emerged from poetry. In these
ways
the
impetus of 'history' was towards the humanisation of traditional
philosophy.
Medieval
authors
had possessed a 'sense
of
history' to the extent
that
they
distinguished it formally from annals and substantially from poetry and
insisted on its narrative and
truthful
character, but they showed little
awareness of perspective or the scholarly problems of gaining access to
'antiquity'. They were indeed conscious of Christian tradition and various
formulae
of
cultural change - 'reformation' or 'renovation', the conflict of
'ancients' and 'moderns', a 'translation of studies'
(translatio
studii
or
sapientiae,
analogous to the
translatio
imperii),
ideas of periodisation and
even
of anachronism
—
but they lacked the self-conscious, self-confident,
self-promoting curiosity of Petrarch and his humanist successors.
7
Pet-
rarch's first motive was a kind of artificial nostalgia. 'Among the many
subjects
that
interested me I dwelt especially upon antiquity,' he wrote, 'for
our own age has always repelled me, so
that,
had it not been for the
love
of
those dear to me, I should have been born in any other period
than
our own.
In order to forget my own time, I have continually striven to place
myself
in
4.
Bude 1535, f.
xvi
v
.
5. See Seifert 1976.
6. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, De arte rhetorica xi.2.
7.
See
especially
Schulz
1909; Sporl 1935;
Goez
1958; Ladner 1952;
Buck
1957, 1958; Renucci 1953.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
748
Philosophy and humanistic disciplines
spirit in other ages.'
8
And so indeed he did in his letters to
Cicero,
Livy
and
Homer. Yet Petrarch was also capable of sophisticated historical criticism,
perhaps best illustrated in his exposure of a forged Austrian donation,
allegedly
made by Caesar to the Habsburgs; and he was careful to
distinguish his own historical method both from scholasticism and from
mere chronicle. 'I am neither the peace-maker among conflicting historians
nor the collector
of
every
minute fact', he remarked in the preface to his De
viris
illustribus,
'but
rather,
I am the copier
of
those whose verisimilitude or
greater authority demands
that
they be given greater credence.'
9
Whatever
their provenance, Petrarch's sentiments and
attitudes
have been essential for
the modern study of history.
At
the
start
humanist ideas of history consisted of hardly more
than
a
litany of
classical
topoi praising history for its truthfulness (Cicero's
prima
lex
historiae)
and for its unique combination of pleasure
(voluptas)
and
instruction
(utilitas).
Guarino da Verona represented
Clio,
the muse of
history, with a
trumpet
in one
hand
and a book in the other,
thus
symbolising
the polarity of history,
torn
between
entertainment
and
education or between propaganda and erudition.
10
Most famous was the
formula
of
Cicero,
that
history was 'the witness
of
time, the
life
of
memory,
the mistress
of
life
and the messenger
of
antiquity'.
11
Such in general was the
basis for the praise and conceptual inflation of historical studies carried on
by
Coluccio
Salutati, Leonardo Bruni and other humanists, especially as
expressed in letters, prefaces to historical works, educational treatises and
finally in a new genre known as the 'art of history' (ars
histórica),
on the
analogy
of the Horadan
ars
poética.
12
The rising stock of historical studies
was
reflected in various
ways,
not only in historiography, including the
publication and translation of classical historians, but also in chairs
established for the teaching of history from the late fifteenth century and,
perhaps most broadly, in certain humanist
attempts
to revise the traditional
classification
of the sciences, starting with Polydore
Vergil's
popular
encyclopaedia
organised on historical or genetic principles, according to the
'inventors of things' (the inventor
of
history itself being Moses, though its
'laws'
were formulated by
Cicero).
13
8. Petrarch 1955, pp. 2-19 ('Letter to posterity'). See G.
Billanovich
1951, 1974; Handschin 1964;
Kessler
1978; Mommsen 1959, pp. 106—29. More generally, W. K. Ferguson 1948; Burke 1969.
9.
Kohl
1974, p. 139; also Petrarch 1910.
10.
Cited by Sabbadini 1922, p. 78. 11.
Cicero,
De oratore
11.2.36.
12.
Cotroneo 1971 now replaces E.
MafFei
1897. See also Landfester 1972; Theoretiker humanistischer
Geschichtsschreibung
1971;
Grande antología
1964-,
x, pp. 1-59
(Vegas);
Late Italian Renaissance 1970,
pp.
91-133
(Spini); Nadal 1965; Reynolds 1953; also n. 39 below.
13.
Vergil
1536, p. 49.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
The
theory of history
749
It was mainly in the tradition of the
artes historicae
(to which
Vergil's
chapter on 'who first founded history' indeed belonged)
that
the Renais-
sance theory
of
history was worked out and
that
history began to declare its
conceptual independence. George of Trebizond's treatise on rhetoric
(1434),
perhaps the first contribution to this genre, defined history not
simply
as past events
(res gestae)
or even the recollection thereof
(rerum
gestarum memoria)
but
rather
as their accurate description
(rerum
gestarum
diligens expositio)
according to an order which was topical and chronological
(rerum
et
temporum ordo).
14
History was concerned above all with causes,
dealing
as it did with motives, acts and consequences
(consiliaprimum, deinde
actus,
post
eventus).
History's interest in vicarious experience
(plena
exemplorum)
gave it common ground with oratory, but it was distinct
because
of
its method
(modus historicus)
and its 'verisimilitude'. This line of
argument was pursued in a number of later works, including those of
Guarino,
Lorenzo
Valla,
Paolo Cortese, Bartolommeo della Fonte, Giorgio
Valla,
Giovanni Pontano and Polydore
Vergil.
History was not only
separated from rhetoric but also raised above poetry (contradicting
Aristotle's
dictum
that
this literary form was more philosophical) because of
its explanatory power, practical value and ability, in Guarino's words, 'to
gather many ages into one
view'.
15
In his oration 'in praise
of
history' della
Fonte went on to provide history with its own pedigree, beginning with
Herodotus and
Thucydides,
while in his
Actius
of
1499
Pontano assembled a
sort of
summa
of the humanist conception of history, emphasising its
historical relations with poetry but extending its domain over 'places,
peoples,
nations, tribes, manners,
laws,
customs' and other aspects
of
human
society.
16
The
largest claims on behalf of history had been made by
that
arch-
rhetorician Lorenzo
Valla
in his history of Ferdinand of
Spain.
'History is
more robust
than
poetry because it is more truthful',
Valla
argued. 'It is
oriented not towards abstraction but towards
truth
. . . [and] teaching by
example.'
17
It was even superior to philosophy, since 'the discourse of
historians exhibits more substance, more practical knowledge, more
political
wisdom . . ., more customs and more learning of
every
sort
than
the precepts
of
any
of
the philosophers'. In his
Disputationes dialecticae
Valla
provided a theoretical justification for historical studies in the broadest
'philological'
sense, while the practical value of historical scholarship he
14-
George of Trebizond 1547, pp. 5fT. 15. Guarino da Verona
1915-19, 11,
p. 458.
16.
Cited by Trinkaus i960; Pontano 1943 {Actius).
17.
L.
Valla
1962,
11,
pp. 5-6 (De rebus a Ferdinando Hispaniarum rege . . . gestis).
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
750
Philosophy and humanistic disciplines
demonstrated in a variety of
writings,
including critical notes on
Livy
and
the New Testament, analyses of the texts of Roman law, translations of
Herodotus and Thucydides, his famous 'declamation' on the forged
Donation of Constantine and especially his efforts to restore the 'elegance'
of
the Latin language, which represented the central
thrust
of
his
attempts
to
reconstruct
Romanitas,
ancient civilisation as a whole, illustrating again the
Petrarchan combination of aesthetic and historical motives.
18
In these
philological
enterprises
Valla
was followed by Erasmus, Guillaume Bude
and the great 'critics'
of
a later generation, including Joseph
Justus
Scaliger,
Isaac Casaubon and Mabillon.
PROTESTANT
VARIATIONS
The
Protestant
Reformation introduced a new, yet also very old, element in
the humanist theory and practice
of
history. It shifted
attention
again to the
problem of tradition, largely religious tradition, but understood in a
spiritual as
well
as an institutional sense; and it restored as
well
the old
Augustinian scheme of history, 'four world monarchies', 'translation of
empire' and all.
19
Yet humanist themes were preserved in modified
confessional form, most notably in the motto 'back to the sources'. In
general Luther celebrated the didactic value of history and on
that
basis
declared
that
'historians are the most useful people and the best teachers'.
20
Melanchthon was still more firm in his Ciceronian conviction
that
'without
history one remains for ever a child', which he tried to put into practice by
making the study
of
history an integral
part
of
his enterprise of'reforming'
the universities
of
Lutheran Germany
by
joining humanism and evangelical
truth.
21
Calvin
was more circumspect, arguing
that
Scripture and not
history was the 'mistress of
life'.
22
In general the evangelical Reformers
made a fundamental, indeed fundamentalist, distinction between a
pure
spiritual doctrine, preserved over the centuries by a few scattered 'witnesses
to the
truth'
and 'proto-martyrs', and base 'human traditions', which had
produced an accumulation of'error' (popular topic
of
historiography) and
the corrupt institutions of the modern kingdom of the antichrist.
23
The
18.
Kelley
1970a,
ch. 1; Gaeta 1955.
19.
See Polman 1933; Bertelli
1973;
Joachimsen 1910; Bietenholz 1966.
20. Luther
1883-,
L,
p. 384 (Vorrede zu Historia Galeatii Capellae,
1538).
Cf. Headley 1963;
Lilje
1932.
21.
Melanchthon 1834-60, 11, col. 862 (De studiis linguae Graecae); col. 705 (preface to Chronicon
Carionis);
cf. Brettschneider 1880; Fraenkel 1961.
22.
Calvin
1863-1900,
11,
col. 86 (Commentarius in Epistolam Pauli ad Romanos); cf. Berger 1955.
23.
Bullinger 1548.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
The
theory of history
751
purpose of the 'new learning' was to recover the thought and
life
of the
'primitive church', especially by applying the techniques of historical
criticism to degenerate modern tradition, an effort made by
Gallicans like
Charles Dumoulin as
well
as all sorts of evangelical interpreters.
From such perspectives history was once again universal, beginning not
merely
ab
urbe
but
ab
orbe
condito,
as Augustine's editor
Juan
Luis
Vives
put it,
and ending in conjectures about the last judgement.
24
Because
of
religious
controversy the early sixteenth century saw a revival of interest in the
speculative philosophy
of
history. One example was Charles de
Bovelles,
a
student
of Lefèvre d'Étaples and admirer of Nicholas of Cusa, who
interpreted
the process
of
history as an unfolding
(evolutio)
of
God's
will
and
who
divided it according to the conventional Augustinian seven ages (from
creation to the flood, to Abraham, to David, to the
birth
of
Christ and from
Christ to the last times);
25
another
was Guillaume Postel, who continued
Pico's
search for 'concord' with special emphasis on
Judaic
tradition,
prophetic elements and
cyclical
patterns.
26
This was also the scheme
accepted by the magisterial Reformers, including Luther, Melanchthon and
Calvin,
and by such
standard
overviews as the influential chronicle of
Johann
Cario and Nicolas Vignier's
Bibliothèque
historiale.
The whole
sweep of God's plan was the object of the new science of chronology
established
by
J. J. Scaliger as
well
as innumerable
cosmological,
millenarian
and prophetic visions which go far beyond the territories of history or of
philosophy.
As
the
official
historiographer
of
the Lutheran party
Johann
Sleidan was
perhaps the most effective promoter of the Reformed vision
of
history, ac-
cording to which the culmination
of
God's
plan came with the last
of
the four
great world empires, which reached its political pinnacle with Charles V
and its religious perfection simultaneously with Luther.
27
Sleidan's
life
task was to explain this culminating phase through a pioneering combina-
tion
of
sacred and
civil
history, Eusebius in a sense joined to Thucydides, the
perspective of Luther to the 'political and social sciences* of moderns like
Commines and
Seyssel.
Responding to hostile criticisms, Sleidan issued an
'apology',
in which he defended his veracity and non-partisanship in the
most conventional Ciceronian terms, while acknowledging also
that
he had
undertaken his work for the glory
of
God.
28
Sleidan's perspective (as
well
as
24.
Vives
1782-90, vi, p. 393 (De tradendis disciplinis sive de doctrina v.2).
25. Bovelles
1520. See also Brause 1916; Bouwsma 1957; Patrides 1972.
26.
Huppert 1970.
27.
Sleidan 1559; see also
Kelley
1980. 28. Sleidan 1558 (Apologia).
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
752
Philosophy
and
humanistic disciplines
some
of his
materials)
was
shared
by
other Protestant interpreters
of
Christian tradition, most notably
the
martyrologists
Jean
Crespin and
John
Foxe
and the
Lutheran ideologist Flacius Illyricus, whose purpose was
no,
only
to
reconstruct tradition through
a
revisionist sort
of
hagiography
but
also
to
provide lessons
for
modern readers.
29
THE
PRACTICE
OF
HISTORY
In various ways historiographical practice served as
an
impetus
to
historical
theory
in the
sixteenth century.
30
Emulation
of
classical models became
more sophisticated, especially with
the
translation
of
Greek historians;
antiquarian enthusiasm became
at
once deeper, broader
and
more critical
(resulting
in the
overthrow
of
various legends, including those
of
Roman
and Carolingian
as
well
as
Trojan origins);
the
mutual reinforcement
between the study
of
history and the practice
of
politics
increased, especially
because
of
the intrusion
of
religious
controversy; and
in
general the effort
to
recapture the letter and spirit of'antiquity', especially
in the
form
of
various
national,
civic
and
local traditions, became more intense
and
more
widespread. Nor should one forget
the
effects
of
the new typographical
art,
which
not
only increased
and
made permanent
the
common stock
of
historical knowledge
and
interpretation
but
also shaped attitudes, assump-
tions
and
critical standards
in
more ways
than
are
immediately perceptible.
'The
invention
of
printing', as Guillaume Bude
put
it, 'is
the
restitution
and
restoration
of
antiquity'.
31
Humanist historians tried
not
only
to
record
and to
explain
but
also
to
give
shape
to the
accessible past
on a
European
as
well
as a
national
level.
Most
influential
was the
work
of
Flavio Biondo,
who
like Petrarch
lamented
the
corruption
of the
present
(praesens
tempus)
but
who, unlike
him, tried
to
recapture
the
contours
of the
'Middle Age'
in
terms
of the
civilising
mission
of the
Roman Church.
32
Biondo's lead
(if not his
Romanism) was followed by many national historians writing
in the
Italian
style,
most notably Paolo Emilio
in
France, Polydore
Vergil
in England and
Beatus Rhenanus
and
others
in
Germany, all
of
them marked by critical use
of
sources
h
well
as
conventional rhetorical style. Despite providentialist
asides, these authors regarded history
in
general
as a
largely human
enterprise which concerned
the
words
and
deeds
of
men
and the
causes
and
effects
thereof
(consilia, causae, dictae, factae, casus
et
exitus,
in the words of
29.
Flacius Illyricus 1556;
see
also Preger
1859-61;
Scheible 1966a.
30. This
is
doubted
by
Cochrane 1981;
the
French
and
German evidence suggests otherwise.
31.
Bude 1547,
p. 63. 32.
Biondo 1483;
see
also
Hay
1959; Cochrane 1981.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
The
theory
of
history
753
Polydore
Vergil).
33
This Latinate tradition was followed, often slavishly,
by
the
national historians
of the
sixteenth
and
seventeenth centuries,
although the best
of
them
-
Sigonio,
Pasquier, Camden and others
-
greatly
enriched
the
scholarly base
of
historical
interpretation.
34
The
Florentine tradition
of
historiography remained
the
model
for
political
narrative.
35
In
his pioneering
Historiarum
Florentinipopuli
libri
XII
Bruni enquired into social forces as
well
as individual motives, and in this
he
was
emulated even more acutely
by his
followers Machiavelli
and
Guicciardini.
Machiavelli
shifted emphasis from diplomatic and military
to
constitutional history
and in
this connection claimed
to
find
patterns,
cyclical
as
well
as
dialectical,
in
the course
of
the history
of
his city. In a sense
his
Istorie
fiorentine
represented
a
case study
in a
larger project
of
political
philosophy
in
which history represented
a
'new' humanistic route, while
the more general implications
of
historical analysis
Machiavelli
presented
in
his
Discorsi sopra la prima deca
di
Tito
Livio.
Machiavelli applied in
particular
to
Polybius'
notion
of
the repeating historical
cycle
(avaKOKAcocLs)
to explain
the change of constitutions from monarchy (and despotism)
to
aristocracy
(and
oligarchy)
to
democracy (and
ochlocracy).
36
Even more pessimistical-
ly,
Guicciardini followed Machiavelli
in
this sort of deterministic analysis,
arguing
that
'past events throw light upon the future, because the world has
always
been
the
same as
it
now is,
and
all
that
is now,
or
shall
be
hereafter,
has been
in
times past. Things accordingly repeat themselves
. . .'
37
This
sort
of
naturalistic historical theory, though
not
always appropriate
or
acceptable
in an
age
of
religious
enthusiasm, held fascination
for
many later
political
historians, including those held
in the
spell
of
'Machiavellism'
or
'Tacitism'
—
although
the
influence
of
Tacitus
was equally
important
in the
encouragement
of
romantic notions
of
Germanic origins
and
national
character.
38
THE
THEORY
OF
HISTORY
The
theory
of
history continued
to be
pursued most directly
in the
expanding genre
of
the
ars
histórica,
which from
the
1540s was increasingly
associated with problems
of
philosophy and method. The Aristotelian
view
33.
Vergil
1536,
p. 49; see
also
Hay
1952.
34.
Besides Cochrane 1981
and
Kelley
1970a,
see
Levy
1967
and A. B.
Ferguson 1979
as
well
as the
standard works: Fueter 1936; Thompson 1942,
1.
35.
Wilcox
1969; Baron 1966; Ullman 1973,
pp.
321-43;
Cochrane 1981, passim.
36.
Machiavelli,
Discorsi 1.2;
cf.
Istorie fiorentine v.i;
see
also
F.
Gilbert 1965; Albertini 1955.
37.
Guicciardini 1951,
p. 87
(B 114);
see
also Phillips 1977, 1983; Hassinger 1978.
38.
Schellhase
1976;
Etter 1966; Buschmann 1930; Tiedemann
1913;
Joachimsen
1911;
TofFanin 1921;
and Borchardt 1971.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
754
Philosophy and humanistic disciplines
that
history was inferior to, because less philosophical
than,
poetry was
urged by Sperone Speroni in 1542 and more famously by Francesco
Robortello in
1548.
39
Yet Speroni also defended the claims
of
history to be a
species
of'rational philosophy' as
well
as a
true
art (as Campanella would do
later), while Robortello insisted on the political and moral value
of
history.
The
debate over the dignity and purpose of history was carried on
repetitiously by a series
of
authors, including Atanagi, Francesco Patrizi da
Cherso,
Ventura
Cieco,
Antonio Possevino, Orazio Toscanella, Antonio
Riccoboni,
Uberto Foglietta, Alessandro Sardi and non-Italian emulators
like
Bartholomaeus Keckermann, Reinhard Reineccius, J. J. Beurer and
Gerardus Vossius. Perhaps the most penetrating discussion was
that
of
Patrizi, who rejected the Ciceronian-Aristotelian orthodoxy and tried to
extricate history from rhetoric by emphasising epistemology - history as
'the memory
of
human things' grasped according to what Foglietta called
the 'Polybian norm'
(norma
Polybiana)
of
objective
truth.
40
If
the task
of
the
philosopher was to
understand
causes,
that
of the historian was to
understand
both causes and their effects and so have a
better
grasp of
truth
(cognition
del
vero).
For Patrizi history was indeed an autonomous, though a
very
eclectic, science.
The
'universal' character of history, insisted on by all parties in
contemporary religious controversies, was urged by other contributors to
the 'art of history'. Like Patrizi, the Platonising Spanish scholar Sebastian
Fox-Morcillo
urged the superiority of history over poetry because of its
educational and cultural value, for without history (as Plato had said, and
Cicero
and Melanchthon after him) men would remain for ever children.
41
The
most encyclopaedic celebration
of
universal history was the treatise of
Christophe Milieu published in 1551 and divided into four categories:
nature,
prudence (the practical and mechanical arts), political organisation
(principatus)
and wisdom
(sapientia),
including
literature
and history itself
besides the other branches
of
academic learning.
42
In the work
of
Milieu
(as
well
as
that
of
Poly
dore
Vergil,
Louis Le Roy, Henri de la Popeliniére and
others) we can see the promotion
of
history to
another
level,
that
is,
the very
39.
Speroni 1542 (Dialogo delta istoria); Robortello 1548a, repr. in Theoretiker humanistischer
Geschichtsschreibung
1971, along with the treatises
of
Atanagi,
Patrizi da Cherso,
Aconcio,
Viperano,
Foglietta,
Sardi and Speroni, with further bibliography for each. See also n. 12 above.
40. F. Patrizi [da Cherso] 1560, p. 7.
41.
Fox-Morcillo, De histórica institutione in Artis historicae penus 1579, including also the treatises of
Bodin,
Patrizi da Cherso, Pontano, Baudouin, Viperano, Robortello, Milieu, Foglietta, Chytraeus,
Secundus,
Pezel,
Zwinger, Sambucus, Riccoboni and the ancient works of Dionysius of
Halicarnassus and Lucian. 42. Milieu 1551.
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The
theory of history
755
organising principle
of
the classification
of
sciences
and a way
of
looking
at
particular disciplines, including philosophy and political science.
Religious
controversy and the rise of scepticism called the study of
history into question, perhaps even a
state
of
crisis,
in the middle years
of
the
sixteenth century. In his analysis of the 'corruption of the arts'
Vives
expressed scepticism about the value of history, while Henricus Cornelius
Agrippa,
in an even more intemperate assault on the 'vanity
of
the
arts
and
sciences',
denied any fidelity or integrity to the study of history; and such
charges were repeated by other critics, for instance Charles de la Ruelle,
who
refused to believe
that
history had any moral or political value.
43
Other religious
partisans
tried to shape history to their own confessional
ends. Most famous was the confrontation between the
Ecclesiastica
historia
(the so-called Magdeburg 'Centuries'), assembled by Flacius Illyricus and
his
équipe
in order to
give
substance to the Lutheran perspective, and the
monumental counter-history constructed by Cardinal Baronius, who
accomplished
for the Romanist
interpretation
of
the western tradition what
Bellarmine
and others were attempting to do for theology. A significant
by-product of this historical debate was the effort to establish principles of
criticism
and
interpretation.
Most wide-ranging on the Catholic side was
the work of the Spanish theologian Melchor Cano, whose
Loci
theologici
(1563)
provided a critique and a rehabilitation of the ideas of tradition and
authority.
44
Cano took a very utilitarian
attitude
towards historical
evidence,
and in order to make optimum use
of
it devised a set
of
rules for
historical judgement, authentication, credibility and proof. So, on the
Protestant
side, did Flacius, who reorganised universal history according to
Lutheran 'commonplaces' and formulated the proper 'method of writing
history'. In this connection, and even more
influentially, Flacius also laid
down
the rules
—
indeed founded the modern tradition
—
of historical
hermeneutics, later celebrated and carried on by Schleiermacher, Dilthey
and Gadamer.
45
For history the most fruitful of all interdisciplinary contacts came with
the field
of
law,
and indeed this alliance in
effect
transformed history from a
literary 'art' to a social 'science'. The context
of
this transformation was the
massive
sixteenth-century search for a proper and
effective
'method' not
only
for particular disciplines but also for knowledge and philosophy in
general.
The problem of'method'
(methodus,
but also implied by such
terms
43.
Vives
1782-90,
vi, p. 101 (De causis corruptarum
artium
11.5);
Agrippa
1530, cap. 5; La Ruelle 1574.
44.
Cano 1776; see also Franklin 1963, pp.
103-15.
45.
See Dilthey
1914-36,
v, p. 334 (Die Entstehung der Hermeneutik).
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756
Philosophy and humanistic disciplines
as
institutio,
partitiones,
ratio,
etc.) was both pedagogical and 'scientific'; and
while
the emphasis was usually on mnemonic ordering and utility (after the
fashion
of
Ramus and Melanchthon), some methodologists also considered
improving the quality of knowledge and even discovering new knowl-
edge.
46
This was the implication of the approaches of Cano, Flacius and
Patrizi, and it would be even more deliberate in the French 'methods' of
history in the
latter
part
of the century. In these works
attention
was very
consciously
shifted to the reading
rather
than
the writing
of
history, and so
problems of testimony, veracity, authenticity and the criticism of sources
became the objects of intense and 'methodical' study. The novelty of the
French approach to the theory
of
history lay in its unique combination of
three
rather
conventional intellectual
patterns:
the critical techniques of
humanist
philology,
the universal chronological and geographical horizons
of
Protestant
historiography and the sources and to some extent methods of
civil
law. The result was, both epistemologically and methodologically, to
make the study of history more philosophical.
The
first of these French 'methods' was Francois Baudouin's De
institutione historiae universae et eius cum iurisprudentia conjunctione of 1561,
which
combined the so-called
mos
gallicus
(legal humanism) with the ars
histórica.
Like Simon Grynaeus, Baudouin celebrated the position of man
in the
'theatre'
of
the world, which made him not only a protagonist but also
an ideally placed observer and judge
{spectator,
interpretator
and
iudex
are the
key
terms).
47
Baudouin had an ideological purpose, which was to preach
the ecumenical message
of
the 'irenic' party in France on the eve
of
the Wars
of
Religion and to enquire into problems of Christian tradition; but this
detracted in no way from the conceptual value
of
his
attempt
to expand and
to reform historical studies. 'Historical studies must be placed on a solid
foundation of law', he declared, 'and jurisprudence must be joined to
history.' Among the reasons for this was
that
legal sources reflected the very
substance of human (social, institutional and political) history, offered
means
of
judging evidence and behaviour and suggested general
patterns
of
historical
interpretation.
Like
jurists, historians had to evaluate testimony,
investigate political and social causes and
effects,
judge human motivation,
attend
to chronological order, take into account various geographical and
anthropological facts and enquire into mythology and the problem of
origins.
For Baudouin the universalism of the Roman legal tradition was
reinforced by the historical perspectives
of
Eusebius and
of
Polybius,
whose
46.
N. W. Gilbert i960; J. L. Brown 1939.
47.
Baudouin 1561; see also
Kelley
1970a; Erbe 1978.
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