HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor

INTRODUCTION 13for centuries after the end of the Middle Ages (whenever that is tobe defined). Certainly new ways of writing history began to be addedin the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: the humanistic focus on classicalantiquity led to a new phase of writing history following classicalmodels; the Protestant challenge to the universality of the Churchled to histories written for specifically polemical religious purposes;a new interest in applying scientific principles to historical learningled to the development of text criticism (including criticism of historicalsource texts), and auxiliary studies such as numismatics. 43 Noneof these marks a clear break with the medieval tradition; after all,new historiographical forms and classical revivals had appeared duringthe Middle Ages also. Perhaps the most significant break ispointed out by Norbert Kersken for national histories, but is alsovalid for other types: until the sixteenth century, historical texts wereproduced in the territory which was their subject, and were writtenfor, and usually by, its own inhabitants. It is thus the humanist interestin other peoples’ histories, and especially the writing of historiesby foreigners, which marks the end of the medieval historiographicaltradition. 4443See Breisach (1994), 153–70.44In this volume.