STORIA DELLA STORIOGRAFIA History of

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STORIA DELLA STORIOGRAFIA History of Historiography-Histoire de l’HistoriographieGeschichte der Geschichtsschreibung * Rivista internazionale ISSN 0392-8926 * Editorial Board: P. Burke, M. Bentley, J. W. Burrow, M. Cattaruzza, F. Diaz, E. Domanska, H. von der Dunk, S. Foot, E. Gabba, F. Glatz, J. Glénisson, E. O. G. Haitsma Mulier, F. Hartog, G. Hübinger, C. Jouhaud, N. Luraghi, J. G. A. Pocock, G. Ricuperati, C. Simon, B. Stuchtey, R. Vann, I. Veit-Brause, E. Q. Wang, D. Wootton Editors: George G. Iggers, Guido Abbattista, Edoardo Tortarolo Editorial Assistants: Lodovica Braida, Sabrina Balzaretti, Filippo Chiocchetti, Irene Gaddo, Giulia Lami, Guido Franzinetti Direttore responsabile: Edoardo Tortarolo * All correspondences, typescripts, diskettes, books for review must be sent to Storia della Storiografia, c/o Fondazione Luigi Einaudi, Palazzo d’Azeglio, via Principe Amedeo, 34, I-10123 TORINO Email: [email protected]; [email protected] The review has two issues per year. 2008 issues: numbers 53 and 54 Retail price: € 30,00 per copy. One-year subscription: for Italy € 50,00 for Europe: € 55,00 (priority mail) countries outside Europe: € 64,00 (priority mail) Visit Storia della Storiografia web site at http://storiastoriografia.lett.unipmn.it/ with current and past indexes Editoriale Jaca Book Spa, Via Frua, 11 - 20146 Milano La rivista è pubblicata con il contributo del Ministero dei Beni Culturali

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La rivista è semestrale. Uscite 2008: n. 53 e 54 Il prezzo di ogni fascicolo è di € 30,00 Abbonamento annuale: per l’Italia € 50,00 per l’Europa (posta prioritaria) € 55,00 per gli altri paesi (posta prioritaria) € 64,00 Editoriale Jaca Book SpA, via Frua 11, 20146 Milano Tel. (+39) 02.48561520/29 - Telefax (+39) 02.48193361 e-mail: [email protected]; internet: www.jacabook.it Non soggetto ad I.V.A. per il combinato disposto degli art. 74, comma 2 lettera c), del D.P.R. 26.10.1972, n° 633 e successive modificazioni. Non si emettono fatture per il combinato disposto degli art. 74, comma 2 lettera c), e art. 2, comma 3, del D.P.R. 26.10.1972, n° 633 e successive modificazioni. Si invierà ricevuta dell’avvenuto pagamento solo su esplicita richiesta.

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STORIA DELLA STORIOGRAFIA

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NUMBER 53 (2008)

CONTENTS

3

Sophia Menache Israeli historians of the crusades and their main areas of research, 1946-2008

25

Olivier Ferret Paroles édifiantes: les éloges d’Antoine-Léonard Thomas

CULTURAL SITES OF HISTORICAL WRITING. PERSPECTIVES ON RHETORIC, PRACTICE AND POLITICS 43

Henning Trüper, Niklas Olsen Introduction

46

Thomas Etzemüller How to make a historian. Problems in writing biographies of historians

58

Jo Tollebeek A stormy family. Paul Fredericq and the formation of an academic historical community in the nineteenth century

73

Henning Trüper History takes time and writing takes time, too. A case study of temporal notions in historical text

97

Jeppe Nevers The magic of source-criticism: understanding a key concept in Danish academic history

111

Patricia Chiantera-Stutte From philosophy to history, from fascism to communism: a conversion in times of transition 1

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CONTENTS

130

Marnix Beyen Resisting hyperbole. Professional historians in Belgium and the Netherlands and their relationship with wartime historical culture (1940-1945)

BOOK REVIEWS 145

by Ernst Schulin

148

NOTE ON CONTRIBUTORS

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Storia della Storiografia, 53 (2008): 3-24

ISRAELI HISTORIANS OF THE CRUSADES AND THEIR MAIN AREAS OF RESEARCH 1946-2008

Sophia Menache

Yvonne Friedman, discussing the main characteristics of crusader historiography, calls attention to the inner dialogue between research of the crusades and contemporary reality. This link further substantiates, in her view, a differentiation between Israelis and other researchers in the field1. Such differentiation can indeed easily be justified from a geophysical perspective. Crusader castles, fortresses, churches, and manor houses are an integral component of the Israeli landscape and, as such, are part and parcel of the daily experience of Israeli historians2. In this regard, Ronnie Ellenblum’s remarks acquire all the weight of a collective confession. «For me and for my generation of Israeli historians», he wrote, «the study of the Crusades is the study of the history of our country. This in itself is another transformation of the reading of Crusader history: from the ‘Jewish’ reading of its history, focusing on slaughter of the Rhineland Jewish communities in 1096, to a Zionist reading of the Crusades, focusing on seeing them as an inverse prefiguration of the future Zionist movement, and finally to the reading of the Crusades as part of my own country, and to a certain degree, as part of my own history»3. The association between the crusades and the State of Israel, however, also has risks, especially at an ideological level. Comparison with the crusades – with an emphasis on their provisional nature – has characterized Islamic radical and fundamentalist propaganda for the past one hundred years4. Notwithstanding its manipulative character, with all its modern propagandistic weight, such a comparison is hardly new. When asked about his approach toward a Jewish State, the German-Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786) explicitly referred to the crusades and their ephemeral nature as a precedent that should be avoided by any means5. Shmuel Ussishkin, in the first book ever written in Hebrew on the history of the Crusader Kingdom, had in mind the explicit aim of drawing lessons from the downfall of the medieval kingdom for the Zionists in the 1

Y. Friedman, «Crusades and Settlement – Crossroads and Paths in Research», Cathedra, 100 (2000): 260, 264-268 [Hebrew]. 2 This state of affairs is clearly reflected in Yael Katzir’s documentary films, such as A Walk in Crusader Jerusalem (1980), Christianity and Christians in Jerusalem (1981), In Quest of the True Cross (1985), In the Footsteps of the Crusaders in Caesarea and St Jean d’Acre (1996). 3 R. Ellenblum, Crusader Castles and Modern Histories (Cambridge, 2007), 61. 4 E. Sivan, Mythes politiques arabes, tr. Nicolas Weill (Paris, 1995), 23-66; Sophia Menache, «Una historia que no se repite: El Reino Cruzado y el Estado de Israel», Majshavot, 24-3 (1985): 81-86. 5 M. Mendelssohn, «An einen Mann von Stande», in Gesammelte Schriften (Stuttgart, 1976), v. 12-1, 212.

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early 1930s6. Ussishkin highlighted the temporary nature of European support for the kingdom, the small number of Frankish inhabitants, the absence of agricultural settlements, and the Franks’ inability to establish good relations with their Muslim neighbors, who continued to regard them as foreigners7. With or without their contemporaneous nuances, the crusades and the Christian settlements in the Latin East represent a main stream of Israeli historical research over the past fifty years. The broad interest of Israeli historians in the rich spectrum of crusader history is faithfully expressed in the last bulletin of the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East [SSCLE] (2007), which reports more than thirty Israeli members and an ever-increasing number of both Ph.D. dissertations and international conferences held in Israel on diverse aspects of the subject. One should also note the considerable role played by Israeli historians in the organization of the SSCLE. Joshua Prawer was its first vice-president for life; Benjamin Z. Kedar served as president from 1995 to 2002; Sophia Menache has been secretary since 2002. Two of the SSCLE’s six conferences took place in Israel (Jerusalem and Haifa). Kedar took the initiative to found in 2002 the SSCLE’s journal, Crusades, which he co-edits together with Jonathan Riley Smith. One can also mention Outremer, the first Festschrift in honor of a crusades historian [Joshua Prawer] that was published after World War II and was the first of a long series of such publications. The wide interest of Israeli society at large in the crusades is further reflected in the popularity of conferences and local tours sponsored by such organizations as Yad Ben-Zvi that devote much of their program to the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem and its archeological sites8. The impressive interest of Israeli society on the crusades has also drawn the attention of scholars outside Israel, sometimes with overgeneralizations and stereotypical conclusions. The Catalonian historian Josep Torró, for example, regarded the popularity of the crusades as an indirect reflection of Israeli governmental policies and the main trends in Israeli society at large. Thus, Torró considered apartheid policy to be a common denominator defining the crusaders then and the Israelis nowadays. Referring to Joshua Prawer’s approach to the Crusader Kingdom as a colonial society, Torró concludes, rather deterministically: «De toute evidence, l’historien israélien parlait d’une situation qui, à titre personnel, ne lui était pas étrangere». Torró did not refrain from oversimplifications, further claiming in the footnote: «L’intérêt des médiévistes israéliens pour le royaume de Jérusalem ne peut pas s’expliquer en fonction de la seule coïncidence géographique»9. It is not the purpose of this study to reconsider the Crusade-Zionist 6

S. Ussishkin, The History of the Crusaders in the Land of Israel (Tel Aviv, 1931). B. Z. Kedar, «The Crusader Motif in Israeli Political Discourse», Alpayyim, 26 (2004): 26-28 [Hebrew]. 8 See, also, B. Z. Kedar, «Il motivo della crociata nel pensiero politico israeliano», in Verso Gerusalemme. II Convegno Internazionale nel IX centenario della I Crociata, ed. F. Cardini et al. (Lecce, 1999), 135-150; expanded Hebrew version in Alpayyim, 26 (2004): 9-40. 9 J. Torró, «Contre les stéréotypes: Etudes sur la colonization et l’ésclavage – Jérusalem ou Valence: La première colonie d’Occident», Annales, 55 (2000): 985. 7

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equivalence or to discuss its ideological factors, an intellectual adventure that is usually predefined by an ideological point of departure. My purpose, rather, is to trace the main areas of research by Israeli historians during the past fifty years, with special reference to the leading researchers and their main works. Israeli historiography of the crusades is closely related to the personality and works of Joshua Prawer (1917-1990), whose main merit was to turn the crusades into an independent domain of research, while fostering a new generation of young historians in the field10. Prawer emigrated from Poland to Palestine in 1936 and began his studies in the department of history of the young Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He wrote his Master’s thesis on «The Impact of the Crusades on Jewish Communities», a study that he later developed into his well-known book, The History of the Jews in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Oxford, 1988). His Ph.D. dissertation, entitled «The Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem (1099-1291)» (1947), as well, provided the core of important books to follow, some of them originally written in Hebrew but soon translated into European languages. Among Prawer’s most important monographs, one should mention these: A History of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, 2 vols. (Jerusalem, 1963, 1971), The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem: European Colonialism in the Middle Ages (London, 1972), and Crusader Institutions (Oxford, 1980). As the irrefutable father of crusader studies in Israel, Prawer saw the crusader period as an integral part of the country’s history. This was a bold act, for which he was repeatedly attacked, and we all owe him gratitude for blazing this originally unpopular trail. The same may be said for his insistence on excavating in crusader areas, such as Caesarea and Belvoir. About one hundred articles, of both a scholarly and a popular nature, complemented Prawer’s work11 and turned him into one of the leading twentieth-century researchers of the crusades worldwide12. From a chronological perspective, Prawer’s work focused on the ‘classical’ period of the crusades: namely, from Urban II’s call in Clermont in 1095 until the fall of Crusader Acre in 1291. Though some of Prawer’s students – notably Sylvia Schein in her book, Fideles Crucis: The Papacy, the West, and the Recovery of the Holy Land (1274-1314) (Oxford, 1991) – expanded their research to later crusades, much of Israeli historiography focused on the two hundred years of the Crusader 10

One should note, however, that though Prawer was undoubtedly the father of the study of the crusades at the university level, he was not the first Palestinian Jew to publish a book on the Crusading Kingdom; that distinction, as mentioned, belongs to Shmuel Ussishkin. Prawer, who in his own first Hebrew book, published in 1947, mentions Ussishkin’s work, was evidently influenced by his predecessor. See notes 6-7. 11 Prawer’s publications are listed in Outremer: Studies in the History of the Crusading Kingdom of Jerusalem presented to Joshua Prawer (Jerusalem, 1982), 7-13, and in Mediterranean Historical Review, 5 (1990): 114-116. 12 On Prawer’s contribution to the history of the crusades, see, B. Z. Kedar, H. E. Mayer, and R. C. Smail, «Joshua Prawer – An Appreciation», in Outremer, 1-4; B.Z. Kedar, «Joshua Prawer (19171990): Historian of the Crusading Kingdom of Jerusalem», Mediterranean Historical Review, 5 (1990): 106-117; J. Riley Smith, «History, the Crusades and the Latin East, 1095-1204: A Personal View», in Crusaders and Muslims in Twelfth-Century Syria, ed. M. Shatzmiller (Leiden-New York, 1993), 2.

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Kingdom of Jerusalem (1099-1291). Similarly, in contrast to attempts to generalize the crusades as military and political expeditions fostered by the pope to fight the enemies of the faith in various geographical areas – a historiographical trend that has recently found a wide echo in Europe – most Israeli historians followed Prawer’s approach and restricted the definition of crusade to those expeditions whose ultimate goal was to conquer or secure the Holy Land and, by extension, the places holy to Christianity in the Latin East. Being himself a resident of Jerusalem, Prawer fought in Jerusalem during the War of Independence in 1948 and witnessed the unification of the city following the Six Day War (1967). His familiarity with the city, its history and multifarious character left its mark on the numerous studies that Prawer devoted to Crusader Jerusalem as a main factor in the emergence and development of the crusader movement13. This view found full reflection in Sylvia Schein’s last book, Gateway to the Heavenly City: Crusader Jerusalem and the Catholic West (1099-1187) (Aldershot, 2005). Rather significantly, the book, which appeared shortly after Schein’s premature death, was devoted «To Joshua Prawer, a temporary citizen of the Earthly Jerusalem». The central place of Jerusalem in what could tentatively be called ‘crusader mentality’ was further investigated by Yvonne Friedman, who emphasized the strong bonds of medieval people to the city, its history, and buildings14. Beyond Jerusalem, Prawer’s immediate knowledge of the country’s physical environment had advantages as was clearly reflected in his analysis of the geographical factors and their weight in the Battle of Hattin (1187)15. Benjamin Z. Kedar, discussing the road system and water resources, later contributed additional information on the material-physical factors that influenced the crucial battle and basically revised Prawer’s reconstruction16. Although Prawer’s pioneering research left its mark on Israeli historiography as a whole, indeed, some of his premises were later questioned and eventually invalidated by younger researchers, many of them having previously been numbered among Prawer’s students. Some examples may clarify this point. Unlike Prawer – who focused on the Frankish Kingdom of Jerusalem, a state of affairs that 13

J. Prawer, «The Settlement of the Latins in Jerusalem», Speculum, 27 (1952): 490-503; J. Prawer, «Jerusalem, Capital of the Crusader Kingdom», in Judah and Jerusalem (Jerusalem, 1957), 90-104 [Hebrew]; J. Prawer, Jerusalem – Living City (Jerusalem, 1968, translated into English, French, German and Spanish); J. Prawer, «Jérusalem terrestre, Jérusalem celeste. Jérusalem dans la perspective chrétienne et juive au haut moyen âge et à la veille de la première croisade», in Jérusalem: l’unique et l’universel (Vandôme, 1979), 17-27; J. Prawer, «Jerusalem in the Christian and Jewish Perspectives of the Early Middle Ages», in Settimane di studi sull’alto medio evo (Spoleto, 1980), 1-57. 14 Y. Friedman, «The City of the King of Kings: Jerusalem in the Crusader Period», in The Centrality of Jerusalem: Historical Perspectives, eds. M. Porthuis and Ch. Safrai (Hague, 1996), 190-216; Y. Friedman, «‘See Jerusalem and Die’: Jerusalem as a Last Stop in Crusader Times», in Jerusalem and Eretz Israel, eds. J. Schwartz, Z. Amar, and I. Ziffer (Tel-Aviv, 2000), 89-99. 15 J. Prawer, «La bataille de Hattin», Israel Exploration Journal, 14 (1964): 160-179. 16 B. Z. Kedar, «The Battle of Hattin Revisited», in Horns of Hattin, ed. B. Z. Kedar (JerusalemLondon, 1992), 190-207.

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was undoubtedly influenced if not dictated by geopolitical limitations – subsequent Israeli historians also did work on the history of the crusades in the entire Frankish Levant, including such areas as Cyprus, Crete, Chios, and Constantinople17. Another example relates to Prawer’s considering the economy of the Latin Kingdom in a Eurocentric and colonial perspective as having been underdeveloped and exploited by Western traders. David Jacoby, professor emeritus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, introduced a new approach, emphasizing the vitality and market-orientation of agriculture and industry, the crucial role of local traders, and the importance of the service sector to the kingdom’s economy18. Prawer was undoubtedly the first to study Frankish colonization – his interest clearly reflecting his training under Richard Koebner, the expert on medieval colonization east of the Elbe. Meiron Benvenisti continued his work, and Ronnie Ellenblum revolutionized it. Prawer was also the first to deal with Frankish demography, and Benvenisti continued it19. Research on crusader society, especially its way of life, economy, and institutions, led Prawer to posit the existence of an ‘apartheid’ (e.g., a colonial) society, whose lack of knowledge of or interest in its neighbors eventually brought about its collapse. A continuous lack of security and, most especially, the crusaders’ being a minority surrounded by a powerful enemy further justified in Prawer’s eyes their concentration in fortified cities and fortifications. The sense of insecurity characteristic of crusader society as a whole, moreover, did not arise solely from the external danger but from the potential collaboration of the indigenous Christian and Muslim populations with external enemies, as well. Prawer thus concluded that only the indigenous inhabitants lived in rural areas and engaged in agriculture20. 17

See, for example, David Jacoby’s studies: «The Demographic Evolution of Euboea under Latin Rule, 1205-1470», in The Greek Islands and the Sea, eds. J. Chrysostomides, C. Dendrinos, J. Harris (Surrey, 2004), 131-179; D. Jacoby, «Les Latins dans les villes de Romanie jusqu’en 1261: le versant méditerranéen des Balkans», in Byzance et le monde extérieur. Contacts, relations, échanges, eds. M. Balard, É. Malamut, J.-M. Spieser (Paris, 2005), 13-26; D. Jacoby, «The Economy of Latin Constantinople, 1204-1261», in Urbs capta. The Fourth Crusade and its Consequences, ed. Angeliki Laiou (Paris, 2005), 195-214; D. Jacoby, «The Venetian Government and Administration in Latin Constantinople, 1204-1261: a State within a State», in Quarta Crociata. Venezia - Bisanzio - Impero Latino, eds. G. Ortalli, G. Ravegnani, P. Schreiner (Venezia, 2006), 19-79; D. Jacoby, «Les États francs du Levant et Chypre sous les Lusignans: un siècle de rapports (1192-1291)», in Chypre d’Aphrodite à Mélusine. Éclairages archéologiques et historiques, eds. M. Campagnolo, M. Martiniani-Reber (Genève, 2007), 63-83. 18 D. Jacoby, «Mercanti genovesi e veneziani e le loro merci nel Levante crociato», in Genova, Venezia, il Levante nei secoli XII-XIV, eds. G. Ortalli and D. Puncuh, Atti della Società Ligure di Storia Patria, n. s. 41 (115)/1 (2001): 213-256; D. Jacoby, «The Economic Function of the Crusader States of the Levant: A New Approach», in Europe’s Economic Relations with the Islamic World – 13th – 18th Centuries, ed. S. Cavaciocchi (Firenze, 2007), 159-191; D. Jacoby, «The Supply of War Materials to Egypt in the Crusader Period», Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 25 (2001): 102-132. 19 See a critical view of Prawer’s work, along with important new data, by B. Z. Kedar and M. alHajjuj, «Muslim Villagers of the Frankish Kingdom of Jerusalem: Some Demographic and Onomastic Data», in Itinéraires d’Orient: Hommages à Claude Cahen, eds. R. Curiel and R. Gyselen (Bures-surYvette, 1994), 145-156. 20 J. Prawer, The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem: European Colonialism in the Middle Ages, 524.

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A strong emphasis on the interplay of archeological evidence, much of it new, and documentary testimonies has led to a rejection of the assumptions and conclusions of what may be called Prawer’s ‘segregation model’, and to the further revealing of cross-cultural influences between the conquerors and the conquered. The main merit in this regard goes to Ronnie Ellenblum, head of the School of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. While extensively surveying and studying Frankish rural settlements, castles, and construction techniques, Ellenblum was able to reconstruct a considerable number of crusader agricultural settlements, some of them close to those inhabited by Oriental Christians, thus revealing greater numbers of Latin settlers than those estimated by Prawer21. He also found strong evidence of the existence of some Latin settlers living together with Syrians. Moreover, showing the shortcomings of the colonialist-segregationist school, Ellenblum convincingly connects Frankish military architecture to its local environment and to the medieval framework as a whole. The Frankish Kingdom of Jerusalem, like other medieval political entities, Ellenblum further claims, did not possess clearly delineated borders in the modern sense of the term. Thus, especially during the first decades, the defense potential of Frankish castles depended mainly on the army, and not on their proximity to a border, which did not actually exist22. As to the crusader castles, Ellenblum concludes that they «should be regarded also as the most evident visual expression of the cultural dialogue between East and West. Not because one of the sides ‘borrowed’ an architectural expression from the other but because they were the outcome of a lengthy, ongoing dialogue between two schools of military tactics and approaches»23. The considerable gap between Ellenblum’s and Prawer’s conclusions may better be understood in the light of the difference in perspectives and methodologies that the two historians applied. Whereas Prawer relied, for the most part, on a comparative study of texts, the rich spectrum of more recent archeological finds allowed Ellenblum to advance new perspectives on the crusades in general, and on the theme of intercultural exchange in particular. New archeological finds further allowed Adrian Boas, of the University of Haifa, to clarify various aspects of daily life in both urban and rural settlements in the crusader period, including domestic architecture and ceramics, in addition to fortifications24. 21

From a Muslim perspective, see, also, Y. Frenkel, «The Impact of the Crusades on Rural Society and Religious Endowments: The Case of Medieval Syria (Bilad al-Sham)», in War and Society in the Eastern Mediterranean 7th-15th Centuries, ed. Y. Lev (Leiden, 1997), 237-248; D. Talmon-Heller, «Arabic Sources on Muslim Villagers under Frankish Rule», in From Clermont to Jerusalem: The Crusades and Crusader Society, 1095-1500 (Turnhout, 1988), 103-117. 22 R. Ellenblum, Frankish Rural Settlement in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Cambridge, 1998), 338; R. Ellenblum, Crusader Castles and Modern Histories, 55 ff. 23 R. Ellenblum, Crusader Castles and Modern Histories, 304. Crusader art, as well, corroborates the existence of a close dialogue between the conquerors and the conquered in the Latin Levant; see below. 24 A. J. Boas, Crusader Archeology: The Material Culture of the Latin East (London and New York, 1999); A. J. Boas, Jerusalem at the Time of the Crusades (London and New York, 2001). Another book, Domestic Settings, will be published by Brill (Leiden and Boston).

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The past forty years have indeed witnessed a flowering of archeological research dealing with the Frankish period25. Under the auspices of the Israel Antiquities Authority — the governmental authority responsible for all archaeological matters, including the issuing of excavation licenses — diverse new archeological findings have come to light. Numerous excavations throughout the country thus allow a better understanding of the material culture in the crusader period as reflected, inter alia, in ceramics, coins26, and glass objects27. Additional studies on the sugar industry also illuminate commercial ties and medieval technology28. The very fact that such scientific periodicals as Atiqot [Antiquities] (1997) and Qadmoniot [Ancient Times] (1998) devoted special issues to Crusader Acre29 further testify to the growing interest in the Crusader Kingdom as an integral part of what may be called Israeli ‘local’ history. Although Prawer was aware of the importance of the Military Orders and regarded the Templars, Hospitallers, and Teutonic Knights as one of the most innovative, if not the only original development in the Crusader Kingdom30, he wrote only one article on the subject31. The Military Orders encountered some attention in the studies by David Jacoby, in the framework of his Mediterranean economic history32, and by Benjamin Kedar, who focused on the Jerusalem Hospital33. Other researchers of the Military Orders are concentrated at the University of Haifa. Sophia Menache wrote extensively on the Templars, their image in medieval Christendom, and the political and ecclesiastical factors that 25

See Appendix 1 for the leading Israeli archeologists and their excavations in crusader sites. See Appendix 2 for the main Israeli publications on numismatics. 27 Y. Rosen, «Excavation of the Courthouse Site at ‘Akko: Medieval Glass Vessels (Area TA)», Atiqot, 31 (1997): 75-85 [Hebrew]; Y. Gorin-Rosen, «The Glass Vessels», in Tel Yoqne’am Excavations on the Acropolis, ed. M. Avissar, IAA Reports, 25 (2005): 103-109 [Hebrew]. 28 E. Stern, «The Excavations at Lower Horvat Manot: A Medieval Sugar Production Site», Atiqot, 42 (2001): 277-308 [Hebrew]; E. Stern, «The Sugar Industry in Palestine during the Crusader, Ayubid and Mamluk Periods in Light of Archeological Finds» (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, MA thesis, 1999); E. Stern, «Trade and Distribution of Ceramics in the Mediterranean during the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries as Reflected in the Excavations of Crusader Acre» (University of Haifa, Ph.D. dissertation, 2007) [Hebrew]. 29 A. Boas edited a special issue of Qadmoniot, 33 (2000) that was entirely devoted to crusader archaeology. 30 J. Prawer, The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem: European Colonialism in the Middle Ages, 252. 31 J. Prawer, «Military Orders and Crusader Politics in the Second Half of the Thirteenth Century», in Die geistllichen Ritterorden Europas, eds. J. Fleckenstein and M. Hellman (Sigmaringen, 1980), 217229. 32 D. Jacoby, «Hospitaller Ships and Transportation across the Mediterranean», in The Hospitallers, the Mediterranean and Europe: Festschrift for Anthony Luttrell, eds. K. Borchardt, N. Jaspert and H. Nicholson (Aldershot, 2007), 57-72; D. Jacoby, «Les communes italiennes et les orders militaries à Acre: aspects jurisdiques, territoriaux et militaries (1104-1187, 1191-1291)», in États et colonisation au moyen âge, ed. M. Balard (Lyon, 1989), 193-214. 33 B. Z. Kedar and S. Schein, «Un projet de ‘passage particulier’ proposé par l’ordre de l’Hôpital, 1306-7», Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des Chartes, 137 (1979): 211-226; B.Z. Kedar, «A Twelfth-Century Description of the Jerusalem Hospital», in The Military Orders, Welfare and Warfare, ed. Helen Nicholson (Aldershot, 1998), 3-26; B. Z. Kedar, «A Note on Jerusalem’s Bimaristan and Jerusalem’s Hospital», in The Hospitallers, the Mediterranean and Europe: Festschrift for Anthony Luttrell, 9-10. 26

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brought about their downfall34. Judith Bronstein has recently published a monograph on the Hospitallers after the Battle of Hattin, making an important contribution to our understanding of the Order’s international links, as well as its economic and organizational character35. Bronstein has also published a series of articles on the mobilization of the Hospitallers’ manpower, economic policies, and the brethren’s self-perception36. Menache and Bronstein also called attention to the development of Military Orders of both an international and a local character on the Iberian Peninsula, thus contributing a comparative perspective of the Orders across the Pyrenees37. In her last book, Encounter between Enemies, Yvonne Friedman pointed to the ransoming of Christian captives by the Military Orders as being an integral part of their ideological code38. Archeological finds have further improved our knowledge and understanding of the Military Orders, their strategy, and the scope of their activities in the Holy Land. Following the pioneer book by Meiron Benvenisti39, Adrian Boas published an important survey40, which was complemented by particular reports of additional archeological excavations41. 34

S. Menache, «Contemporary Attitudes Concerning the Templars’ Affair: Propaganda Fiasco?», Journal of Medieval History, 8 (1982): 135-147; S. Menache, «The Templar Order: A Failed Ideal?», The Catholic Historical Review, 79 (1993): 1-21; S. Menache, «A Clash of Expectations: Self-Image Versus the Image of the Knights Templar in Medieval Narrative Sources», Analecta Turonensia, 13 (2005): 47-58; S. Menache, «Elections in the Military Orders in the Late Middle Ages: An Achilles’ Heel?», Analecta Turonensia, 14 (2007): 1-15. 35 J. Bronstein, The Hospitallers and the Holy Land: Financing the Latin East (1187-1274) (Woodbridge, 2005). 36 J. Bronstein, «Caring for the Sick or Dying for the Cross? The Granting of Crusade Indulgences to the Hospitallers», in The Hospitallers, The Mediterranean and Europe. Festschrift for Anthony Luttrell, 39-47; J. Bronstein, «The Mobilization of Hospitallers’ Manpower from Europe to the Latin East in the Thirteenth Century», in International Mobility in the Military Orders, eds. H. J. Nicholson and J. Burgtorf (Cardiff, 2006), 11-25; J. Bronstein, «Cambios estructurales y económicos en la orden de San Juan de Jerusalén en la mitad del siglo XIII», in IV Encontro sobre Ordens Militares’, Palmela, Portugal, 30/1 – 2/2/2002, ed. I.C.F. Fernandes (Lisbon, 2005), 227-235. 37 S. Menache, «La Orden de Calatrava y el Clero Andaluz (siglos XIII-XV)», in En la España Medieval: Estudios en memoria del Profesor D. Claudio Sánchez Albornoz 5-1 (1986), vol. 1, 633-653; S. Menache, «A Juridical Chapter in the History of the Order of Calatrava: The Mastership of Don Alonso de Aragón (1443-1444)», The Legal History Review, 55 (1987): 321-334; S. Menache, «Una personificación del ideal caballerezco en el medioevo tardío: Don Alonso de Aragón», Revista de la Universidad de Alicante, 6 (1987): 9-29; J. Bronstein, «La organización internacional de la Orden del Hospital: Algunas reflexiones sobre la contribución de los prioratos ibéricos a la Orden en Tierra Santa», in Ordenes Militares en la Edad Media (Ciudad Real, forthcoming). 38 Y. Friedman, Encounter between Enemies: Captivity and Ransom in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Leiden, 2002), 187-211. 39 M. Benvenisti, Crusader Fortresses in the State of Israel (Jerusalem, 1974) [Hebrew]. See, also, his important general survey, which precedes this volume by a few years, M. Benvenisti, The Crusaders in the Holy Land (Jerusalem, 1970). 40 A. Boas, Archeology of the Military Orders: A Survey of the Urban Centres, Rural Settlements and Castles of the Military Orders in the Latin East (c.1120-1291) (London-New York, 2006). 41 E. Stern, «The Center of the Order of Hospitallers in Acre», Qadmoniot, 33 (2000): 4-12 [Hebrew]; A. Kloner and M. Cohen, «The Crusader Fortress at Beth Guvrin», Qadmoniot, 33 (2000): 32-39

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Archeological finds thus shed new light on the rich social spectrum of the Crusader Kingdom, among which the Italian communes had paramount importance. David Jacoby undoubtedly is the leading authority in this field worldwide. Dozens of his articles clarifying the various aspects of Western expansion and the subsequent meeting of the West, Byzantium, the Crusader States, and the Muslims have been collected in five volumes in the Variorum series42. Jacoby devoted much study to economic relations and interaction, which constituted a major factor in the development of the Italian communes across the Mediterranean. A new reading of published and unpublished primary sources, analyzed within their contemporary context and in a comparative framework, provides a new view of the Mediterranean trade, with Venice at the lead, and the economy of the Frankish States43. One of Jacoby’s students, Ruth Gertwagen, of Oranim College, has investigated the Venetian Empire from a maritime perspective44, offering new insights into the contribution of the crusades to the development of maritime commerce and port prosperity along the Mediterranean45. [Hebrew]; M. Ben-Dov, «The Excavation of the Crusader Fortress of Kohav-Hayarden (Belvoir)», Qadmoniot, 2 (1969): 22-27 [Hebrew]; B. Z. Kedar and D. Pringle, «La Fève: A Crusader Castle in the Jezreel Valley», Israel Exploration Journal, 35 (1985): 164-179; R. Frenkel and N. Gatzov, «The History and Plan of Monfort Castle», Qadmoniot, 19 (1986): 52-57 [Hebrew]. 42 D. Jacoby, Société et démographie à Byzance et en Romanie Latine, (London, 1975); D. Jacoby, Studies on the Crusader States and on Venetian Expansion (Northampton, 1989); D. Jacoby, Trade, Commodities and Shipping in the Medieval Mediterranean (Aldershot, 1997); D. Jacoby, Byzantium, Latin Romania and the Mediterranean (Aldershot, 2001); D. Jacoby, Commercial Exchange Across the Mediterranean (Aldershot, 2005). 43 See, for instance, D. Jacoby, «A Venetian Manual of Commercial Practice from Crusader Acre», in I comuni italiani nel regno crociato di Gerusalemme, eds. B. Z. Kedar and G. Airaldi (Genoa, 1986), 403-428; D. Jacoby, «Venetian Anchors for Crusader Acre», The Mariner’s Mirror, 71 (1985): 5-12; D. Jacoby, «The Venetian Presence in the Latin Empire of Constantinople (1204-1261): The Challenge of Feudalism and the Byzantine Inheritance», Jahrbuch der Osterreichischen Byzantinistik, 43 (1993): 141-201; D. Jacoby, «Venetian Settlers in Latin Constantinople (1204-1261): Rich or Poor?», Biblioteca dell’Istituto Ellenico di Studi bizantini e postbizantini di Venezia, 19 (Venice, 1998): 181204; D. Jacoby, «Pèlerinage médiéval et sanctuaries de Terre Sainte: la perspective vénitienne», Ateneo Veneto, 24 (1986): 27-58. 44 R. Gertwagen, «The Venetian Port of Candia, Crete (1299-1363); Construction and Maintenance», Mediterranean Historical Review, (1988): 141-158; R. Gertwagen, «Venetian Modon and Its Port (1358-1500)», in The Mediterranean Urban Culture, ed. A. Cowan (Exeter, 2000), 125-148, 248-254; R. Gertwagen, «The Venetian Colonies in the Ionian and Aegean Seas in Venetian Defense Policy in the Fifteenth Century», Journal of Mediterranean Studies, 12-2 (2002): 351-384; R. Gertwagen, «The Contribution of Venice’s Colonies to Its Naval Warfare in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Fifteenth Century», Mediterranea. Ricerche Storiche, 4 (2007): 53-110; R. Gertwagen, «Corfu and Its Port in the Venetian Policy in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Period (14th and 15th Centuries)», The Journal of International Maritime History 19, 1 (2007): 181-210. 45 R. Gertwagen, «Maritime Activity Concerning the Ports and Harbours of Cyprus from the 12th to the Late 16th Centuries», in Cyprus and the Crusades, eds. N. Coureas and J. Riley-Smith (Nicosia, 1995), 511-538; R. Gertwagen, «The Concept of Medieval Ports in the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean: Construction and Maintenance: The Case of Crete to the End of the 15th Century», International Journal of Maritime History, 12 (2000): 63-133; R. Gertwagen, «Harbours and Port Facilities along the Sea Lanes to the Holy Land», in Logistics and Warfare in the Age of the Crusades, ed. J. Pryor (Aldershot, 2006), 95-118.

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Jacoby also devoted much attention to the development of thirteenth-century Acre, which served as capital of the Crusader Kingdom from 1191 to 1291. Three of his articles reveal important facets of the urban layout and topography46. In the special issue of Atiqot devoted to Crusader Acre, one may find additional data that enables a convincing reconstruction of the content and plan of the crusader city47. Kedar, as well, provides a brilliant interdisciplinary study of the Frankish Acre layout, a reading that has had a profound impact on our understanding of the city’s development in the crusader period48. Pilgrimage and pilgrims present another important facet of medieval history that received further impetus with the transfer of the Holy Land into Christian hands. Generations of Prawer’s students heard his explanations about the impact of Urban’s call from Clermont, in which the very mention of such cities as Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Nazareth opened an emotional flood of unprecedented scope in the «medieval mind»49. Though Prawer himself did not devote much attention to pilgrims and pilgrimage in the crusader period50, some of his disciples, notably Aryeh Grabois, professor emeritus of the University of Haifa, presented new perspectives of research. Grabois’s book, Le pèlerin occidental en Terre Sainte au Moyen Âge (Paris-Bruxelles, 1998), summarized twenty years of earlier research while providing a broad perspective of pilgrims and pilgrimage. Besides investigating the reports of particular pilgrims, like John of Würzburg and Burchard of Mount Sion51, Grabois faced challenging questions with regard to both the spiritual and material factors that encouraged medieval people to leave their familiar homeland. His investigation reveals facets of the personal profile of some pilgrims and the socio-religious and economic background behind their pilgrimage. Of particular interest is Grabois’s analysis of the pilgrims’ encounter with the geophysical environment of the Holy Land, its fauna and flora, vis-à-vis the biblical heritage, which they brought from Europe. Such a meeting reveals a very

46 D. Jacoby, «Crusader Acre in the Thirteenth Century: Urban Layout and Topography», Studi Medievali, 20 (1979): 1-45; D. Jacoby, «Montmusard, Suburb of Crusader Acre: The First Stage of Its Development», in Outremer: Studies in the History of the Crusading Kingdom of Jerusalem presented to Joshua Prawer, 205-217; D. Jacoby, «L’évolution urbaine et la function méditerranéenne d’Acre à l’époque des croisades», in Città portuali del Mediterraneo, storia e archeologia, ed. E. Poleggi (Genova, 1989), 95-109. 47 See, for instance, R. Kool, «The Genoese Quarter in Thirteenth-Century Acre: A Re-interpretation of Its Layout», Atiqot, 31 (1997): 187-200. 48 B. Z. Kedar, «The Outer Walls of Frankish Acre» cit., 157-180; updated French version in Bulletin Monumental, 164 (2006): 45-52. See, also, B.Z. Kedar and E. Stern, «A Vaulted East-West Street in Acre’s Genoese Quarter?», Atiqot, 26 (1995): 105-111. 49 J. Prawer, A History of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, vol. 1, 82-84. 50 J. Prawer, «The ‘Lovers of Zion’ in the Middle Ages: Immigrations to Palestine in the Crusader Period», in Western Galilee and the Coast of Galilee (Jerusalem, 1965), 129-136 [Hebrew]. 51 A. Grabois, «Le pélerin occidental en Terre sainte à l’époque des croisades et réalités: Jean de Wurzbourg», in Mélanges E. R. Labande (Poitiers, 1974), 367-376; A. Grabois, «Christian Pilgrims in the Thirteenth Century and the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem: Burchard of Mount Sion», in Outremer, 285-296.

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exciting facet of what Prawer had called «sacred geography»52. Indeed, throughout the two hundred years of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, the never-ending search for the holy places where Jesus and the apostles lived and preached, and where some of them also died, encouraged pilgrims to report their experiences, thus developing a unique literary genre that became very popular in the crusader period53. Grabois emphasizes the changing character of the reports, which during the thirteenth century became more authentic and closer to actual reality. Another researcher in this vein, Ora Limor, at present rector for academic affairs at the Open University, focuses upon the meeting of pilgrims with the holy places and their changing views54. Yvonne Friedman analyzed the spiritual and ideological factors behind pilgrimages55, while clarifying some practical matters, such as available road systems in the Holy Land at the time56. David Jacoby, as well, contributed to a better understanding of pilgrimage, in part by investigating the development of changing centers of attraction throughout the crusader period57, to which Kedar added a comparative dimension. The latter’s research on Ovadiah, the Norman Christian who repudiated his faith and converted to Judaism, provided new insights into the rather rare phenomenon of conversion from Christianity to 52

J. Prawer, The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem: European Colonialism in the Middle Ages, 200-227. A. Grabois, «Les pèlerins occidentaux en Terre Sainte et Acre: d’Accon des croisés à Saint-Jean d’Acre», Studi Medievali, 3, 24 (1983): 247-264; A. Grabois, «De la «géographie sacrée à la ‘Palestinographie’: changements dans la description de la Palestine par les pèlerins chrétiens au XIIIe siècle», Cathedra, 31 (1984): 43-54 [Hebrew]; A. Grabois, «Les pèlerins occidentaux en Terre Sainte au Moyen Age: une minorité étrangère à sa patrie spirituelle», Studi Medievali, 3, 30 (1989): 15-48. 54 O. Limor, «‘Holy Journey’: Pilgrimage and Christian Sacred Landscape», in Christians and Christianity in the Holy Land. From the Origins to the Latin Kingdoms, eds. O. Limor and G. Stroumsa (Turnhout, 2006), 321-353; O. Limor, «Sharing Sacred Space: Holy Places in Jerusalem Between Christianity, Judaism, and Islam», in In Laudem Hierosolymitani: Studies in Crusades and Medieval Culture in Honour of B.Z. Kedar, eds. I. Shagrir, R. Ellenblum, and J. Riley-Smith (Aldershot, 2008), 219-231. 55 Y. Friedman, «Pilgrimage to the Holy Land as an Act of Devotion in Jewish and Christian Outlook», in Rashi et la culture juive en France du Nord au moyen âge, eds. G. Dahan and G. Nahon (Paris, 1997), 278-301; Y. Friedman, «Pilgrims in the Shadow of the Crusader Kingdom», in Knights of the Holy Land, ed. S. Rosenberg (Jerusalem, 1999), 100-110; Y. Friedman, «‘In the Name of God and Profit’ – Holy Land Itineraria in the Mamluk Period», in Eretz Israel and Jerusalem, 4-5 (2007): 199217. 56 Y. Friedman and A. Peled, «Did the Crusaders Construct Roads?», Qadmoniot, 20 (1988): 119-123 [Hebrew]; Y. Friedman, «The Map of Roads in Galilee in the Middle Ages», in Hikrei Eretz: Studies in the History of the Land of Israel, eds. Y. Friedman, Y. Schwartz , and Z. Safrai (Ramat Gan, 1997), 323-341 [Hebrew]. 57 D. Jacoby, «Bishop Gunther of Bamberg, Byzantium and Christian Pilgrimage to the Holy Land in the Eleventh Century», in Zwischen Polis, Provinz und Peripherie. Beiträge zur byzantinischen Geschichte und Kultur, eds. L. Hoffmann and A. Monchizadeh (Wiesbaden, 2005), 267-285; D. Jacoby, «Il ruolo di Acri nel pellegrinaggio a Gerusalemme», in Il cammino di Gerusalemme, ed. M. S. Calò Mariani (Bari, 2002), 31-50; D. Jacoby, «Pilgrimage in Crusader Acre: The Pardouns d’Acre», in De Sion exibit lex et verbum domini de Hierusalem. Essays on Medieval Law, Liturgy and Literature in Honour of Amnon Linder, ed. Y. Hen (Turnhout, 2001), 105-117; D. Jacoby, «Christian Pilgrimage to Sinai until the Late Fifteenth Century», in Holy Space, Hallowed Ground: Icons from Sinai, eds. R. S. Nelson and K. M. Collins (Los Angeles, 2006), 79-93. 53

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other religions in an era characterized by social and religious intolerance58. The crusades and the Latin strongholds in the Levant thus left their mark on a growing number of people, who left their familiar surroundings to meet a new environment across the Mediterranean59. An unknown number of them, however, were not lucky enough to return and tell their stories, since they died or fell captive. Yvonne Friedman, from the University of Bar-Ilan, is one of the leading authorities on captives and juridical practices regarding them. In her book, Encounter between Enemies, she examines the customs, legal codes, and socioeconomic mechanisms that evolved from the encounter between Christians and Muslims60. The book further reveals the main changes in Western mentality and acculturation processes, from which the imperative to redeem captives eventually emerged, and made payment of ransom to the infidel not only conceivable but also acceptable. It is rather symbolic that Friedman’s book opens with the tragic story of the Israeli navigator Ron Arad, who fell captive to guerilla fighters in Lebanon (October 1986) and all efforts to ransom him have unfortunately failed up to the present (p. xi). The very mention of Arad hints at the link, which Friedman acknowledges so well, between Israeli research of the crusades and political reality (see note 1). Friedman also wrote a considerable number of articles on the various concepts of ransoming captives from among the different social and religious groups that fought one another in the Levant for two hundred years61. From a more optimistic viewpoint, this researcher also advanced investigation of conciliation and peace-making processes in the Crusader Levant, a subject that has not lost its validity in this troubled region to these very days62. 58

B. Z. Kedar, «Dimensioni comparative del pellegrinaggio medievale», in Fra Roma e Gerusalemme nel Medioevo. Paesaggi umani et ambientali del pellegrinaggio a Gerusalemme nel Medioevo, ed. M. Oldoni, 3 vols. (Salerno, 2005), vol. 1, 255-277; B.Z. Kedar, «The Voyages of Giuàn-Ovadiah in Syria and Iraq and the Enigma of his Conversion», in Giovanni-Ovadiah da Oppido, proselito, viaggiatore e musicista dell’età normanna, eds. A. de Rosa and M. Perani (Florence, 2005), 133-147. 59 About the multifarious essence of crusader society, see the illuminating article by B. Z. Kedar, «The Passenger List of a Crusader Ship, 1250: Towards the History of the Popular Element on the Seventh Crusade», Studi Medievali, 13 (1972): 267-279. 60 For the Muslim perspective, see, also, Y. Lev, «Prisoners of War During the Fatimid-Ayyubid Wars with the Crusaders», in Tolerance and Intolerance: Social Conflict in the Age of the Crusades, eds. M. Gervers and J. Powell (Syracuse, forthcoming), 1-40; Y. Lev, «The Human Cost of Warfare: Wars in the Medieval Middle East, . 9th-12th Centuries», in La liberazione dei ‘captivi’ tra Cristianità e Islam. Oltre la crociata e il Giha¯ d: tolleranza e servizio umanitario, ed. G. Cipollone (Città del Vaticano, 2000), 635-648. 61 Y. Friedman, «Women in Captivity and Their Ransom in the Crusader Period», in Cross Cultural Convergences in the Crusader Period, eds. M. Goodich, S. Menache, and S. Schein (New York, 1996), 75-87; Y. Friedman, «The Ransom of Captives in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem», in Autour de la Première Croisade, ed. M. Balard, (Paris, 1996), 177-189; Y. Friedman, «The ‘Great Precept’ of Ransom: The Jewish Perspective», in La liberazione dei ‘captivi’ tra Cristianità e Islam, ed. G. Cipollone, Collectanea Archivi Vaticani, 46 (Città del Vaticano, 2000), 161-172; Y. Friedman, «Captivity and Ransom: The Experience of Women», in Gendering the Crusades, eds. S. Lambert and S. Edgington (Wales Press, 2001), 121-139. 62 Y. Friedman, «Gestures of Conciliation? Peacemaking Endeavours and Cultural Consequences», in

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Since the crusades actually represent the meeting among opposing religions/cultures/societies, a crucial aspect of crusader research is undoubtedly connected with the perception of the ‘other’, a subject that has recently been investigated from several angles63. This complex subject received full attention in Benjamin Z. Kedar’s pioneer book, Crusade and Mission: European Approaches toward the Muslims (Princeton, 1984). One of the leading members of the Israeli Academy of Sciences and president of the Israel Antiquities Authority, with more than 140 publications to his credit, Kedar has left a profound impact on the research of the crusades in Israel and worldwide. The title of his book, Crusade and Mission, faithfully reproduces the two main options facing medieval Christendom that apparently eliminated each other; namely, should Christian society invest all its efforts to convert the infidels to the true faith, a path apparently favored by the Franciscans, with Ramon Lull at their head? Or, rather, should Christian society exterminate the Muslims, thus ‘purifying’ the holy places of their presence and/or influence? In his carefully nuanced study of Catholic attitudes toward Islam up to the fourteenth century, Kedar convincingly proves that mission and crusade were not two distinct and divergent options, as commonly assumed, and that there were many combinations of the two alternatives. Kedar further suggests new directions of research, while contributing to a better understanding of medieval theology and the crusade idea64. Two collections of Kedar’s main studies, published in the Variorum series, further reflect the multifaceted character of his research, especially from the perspective of intellectual history65. Kedar’s interest in the Muslims before and during the crusader period is also reflected in a series of articles on the subject that place special emphasis on unpublished source material66. Other Israeli scholars have continued this trend and supplied additional information on the indigenous population based on Arabic documentation. The In Laudem Hierosolymitani, 31-48; Y. Friedman, «Christian-Muslim Peacemaking in the Medieval Latin East», in Peace, War and Violence, eds. J. Duellfer and R. Frank (forthcoming). 63 S. Menache, «When Jesus met Mohamed in the Holy Land: Attitudes toward the ‘Other’ in the Crusader Kingdom», Medieval Encounters, 14 (2008): 218-237; S. Menache, «Emotions from the Holy Land: The First Crusader Kingdom» (forthcoming). On forced conversion, see, Y. Lev, «Persecutions and Conversion to Islam in Eleventh-Century Egypt», Asian and African Studies, 22 (1988): 73-91. See, also, Y. Frenkel, «The Qur’a¯ n versus the Cross in the Wake of the Crusade: The Social Function of Dreams and Symbols in Encounter and Conflict (Damascus, July 1148)», Quaderni di Studi Arabi, 2021 (2002-2003): 105-132. 64 See, also, B. Z. Kedar, «Croisade et jihad vus par l’ennemi: une étude des perceptions mutuelles des motivations», in Autour de la première croisade, 345-355. 65 B. Z. Kedar, Franks, Muslims and Oriental Christians in the Latin Levant: Studies in Frontier Acculturation (Aldershot, 2006). 66 See, for instance, B. Z. Kedar, «The Subjected Muslims of the Frankish Levant», in Muslims under Latin Rule, 1100-1300, ed. J.M. Powell (Princeton, 1990), 135-174; B. Z. Kedar, «Some New Sources on Palestinian Muslims before and during the Crusades», in Die Kreuzfahrerstaaten als multikulturelle Gesellschaft, ed. H. E. Mayer (Munich, 1997), 129-140; B. Z. Kedar, «Multidirectional Conversion in the Frankish Levant», in Varieties of Religious Conversion in the Middle Ages, ed. J. Muldoon (Gainesville, 1997), 190-199.

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leading Middle Eastern scholars in Israel who work on the crusader period include Emmanuel Sivan, Daniella Talmon-Heller, Reuven Amitai, Joseph Drory, Yaacov Lev, and Yeoshua Frenkel. As Sivan wrote in the preface to his ground-breaking book, L’Islam et la croisade: Idéologie et propagande dans les réactions musulmanes aux croisades (Paris, 1968), historical research of the crusades at the mid-twentieth century did not provide the desirable equilibrium between the Western perspective, which received most of the attention, and the Eastern, local outlook67. Such a claim, however, has lost much of its substance in the past fifty years. Sivan himself investigated in depth the Muslims’ reactions to the crusades, placing special emphasis on Islamic religious culture and values68; he further provides a fresh perspective on the particular condition of Muslim and Oriental Christian communities under foreign rule and the place of Jerusalem in Islamic ideology during the crusader period.69 Daniella Talmon-Heller focuses on Islamic piety and religion and the very concept of public space in the crusader period70. Of particular interest are her articles on Muslim martyrdom, Muslim preaching against the crusaders, and the fate of those who survived the 1099 massacre in Jerusalem71. The Islamic world as a whole in the crusader period has received much attention lasting recent years. Yaacov Lev’s research on Fatimid Egypt, Saladin, 67

E. Sivan, L’Islam et la croisade: Idéologie et propaganda dans les reactions musulmanes aux croisades (Paris, 1968), 5. For a more up-to-date study on the early period, see, J. Drory, «Early Muslim Reflections on the Crusades», Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 25 (2001): 92-101. 68 E. Sivan, Modern Arab Historiography of the Crusades (Tel Aviv, 1973); E. Sivan, «La genèse de la contre-croisade: un traité damasquin du début du XIIe siècle», in Les relations des pays d’Islam avec le monde latin du milieu du Xe siècle au milieu du XIIIe siècle, ed. F. Micheau (Paris, 2000), 26-51 [first published in 1966]; E. Sivan, «Muslim Representations of the Crusades», in Verso Gerusalemme, 125-133; E. Sivan, «Islam and the Crusades: Antagonism, Polemics, Dialogue», in Religionsgespräche im Mittelalter, eds. B. Lewis and F. Niewohner (Wiesbaden, 1992), 207-215. 69 E. Sivan, «Notes sur la situation des chrétiens à l’epoque ayyubide», Revue de l’histoire des religions, 172-2 (1967): 117-130; E. Sivan, «Le caractère sacré de Jérusalem dans l’Islam aux XIIeXIIIe siècles», Studia Islamica, 27 (1967): 149-182; E. Sivan, «Réfugiés syro-palestiniens au temps des croisades», Revue des études islamiques, 35 (1967): 135-148. 70 D. Talmon-Heller, Islamic Piety in Medieval Syria: Mosques, Cemeteries and Sermons under the Zangids and Ayyu¯bids (Leiden, 2007); D. Talmon-Heller, «Hanbalite Islam in 12th-13th Century Jabal Nablus and Jabal Qasyun», Studia Islamica, 79 (1994): 103-120; D. Talmon-Heller, «Religion in the Public Sphere: Rulers, Scholars and Commoners in Zangid and Ayyubid Syria (1150-1260)», in The Public Sphere in Muslim Societies, eds. M. Hoexter, S.N Eisenstadt, N. Levtzion (Albany, 2002), 4964; D. Talmon-Heller, «Fidelity, Conformity and Cohesion within Madhhabs in Zangid and Ayyubid Syria», in The Islamic School of Law: Evolution, Devolution, and Progress, eds. P. Bearman, R. Peters, and F. Vogel (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard Series in Islamic Law) 2 (2005), 94-116; D. Talmon-Heller, «Muslim Martyrdom and Quest for Martyrdom in the Crusading Period», Al-Masaq Journal for the Study of the Medieval Mediterranean, 14 (2002): 131-140; D. Talmon-Heller, «Islamic Preaching in Syria during the Counter-Crusade (Twelfth-Thirteenth Centuries)», in In Laudem Hierosolymitani, 61-75. 71 D. Talmon-Heller and B. Z. Kedar, «Did Muslim Survivors of the 1099 Massacre of Jerusalem Settle in Damascus? The True Origins of the al-Salihiyya Suburb», Al-Masaq - Journal for the Study of the Medieval Mediterranean, 17-2 (2005): 165-169; See, also, Y. Katzir, «The Conquest of Jerusalem, 1099 and 1187: Historical Memory and Religious Typology», in The Meeting of the Two Worlds, ed. V. P. Gross (Kalamazoo, 1986), 103-114.

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and Nur-al-Din, to mention just a few among his main topics, has become an integral component of crusader bibliography72. Of great relevance for a more comprehensive understanding of the crusades are Reuven Amitai’s studies on the Mongols, their tactics, and varying relations with Christendom and the leading powers in the Levant73. Amitai’s book, Mongols and Mamluks: The MamlukI¯lkhaanid War 1260-1281 (Cambridge, 1995), presents a political and military history of the Mamluk-Ilkhânid war from the first clash, the battle of ‘Ayn Jâlut in 1260, until the second battle of Homs in 1281. Based on contemporary or nearcontemporary sources composed, mainly, in Arabic, Persian, and Armenian, this study is essential to understanding the Mamluk and Ilkhaânid states, both of them military elites of Eurasia steppe origin who ruled over large, sedentary Muslim populations. Dealing with a completely different aspect, Hanna Taragan provides architectural developments in Islamic art related to the Frankish period74. Architecture, architectural sculpture, monumental paintings, and the minor arts in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem provide an additional important reflection of 72

Y. Lev, State and Society in Fatimid Egypt (Leiden, 1991); Y. Lev, Saladin in Egypt (BostonMass., 1999); Y. Lev, Charity, Endowments, and Charitable Institutions in Medieval Islam (Gainesville, 2005); Y. Lev, «The Social and Economic Policies of Nur al-Din (1146-1174): The Sultan of Syria», Der Islam, 81 (2004): 218-242; Y. Lev, «Aspects of the Egyptian Society in the Fatimid Period», in Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras, eds. U. Vermeulen and J. Van Steenbergen (Leuven, 2001), 1-33; Y. Lev, «The Fatimids and Byzantium», Graeco-Arabica, ( 2000): 156-169. 73 R. Amitai, «Mongol Raids into Palestine (A.D. 1260 and 1300)», Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, (1987): 236-255; R. Amitai, «Mamluk Espionage among Mongols and Franks», Asian and African Studies, 22 (1988): 173-181; R. Amitai, «Mamluk Perceptions of the Mongol-Frankish Rapprochement», Mediterranean Historical Review, 7 (1992): 50-65; R. Amitai, «The Mongols and Karak in Trans-Jordan», Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi, 9 (1995-1997): 5-16; R. Amitai, «Northern Syria between the Mongols and Mamluks: Political Boundary, Military Frontier and Ethnic Affinity», in Frontiers in Question: Eurasian Borderlands c. 700-1700, eds. N. Standen and D. Power (London, 1999), 128-52; R. Amitai, «Edward of England and Abagha Ilkhan: A Reexamination of a Failed Attempt at Mongol-Frankish Cooperation», in Tolerance and Intolerance: Social Conflict in the Age of the Crusades, eds. M. Gervers and J. M. Powell (Syracuse, 2001), 75-82; R. Amitai, «Foot Soldiers, Militiamen and Volunteers in the Early Mamluk Army», in Texts, Documents and Artifacts: Islamic Studies in Honour of D. S. Richards, ed. C. F. Robinson (Leiden, 2003), 232-249; R. Amitai, «A Mongol Governor of al-Karak in Jordan? A Re-examination of an Old Document in Mongolian and Arabic», Zentralasiatische Studien, 36 (2007): 263-275; R. Amitai, «Mongol Provincial Administration: Syria in 1260 as a Case-Study», in In Laudem Hierosolymitani, 117-143. 74 H. Taragan, «Historical Reference in Medieval Islamic Architecture: Baybars’s Buildings in Palestine», Bulletin of the Israeli Academic Center in Cairo, 25 (2002): 31-34; H. Taragan, «The Tomb of Sayyidna `Ali in Arsuf: The Story of a Holy Place», Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, (November 2004): 83-102; H. Taragan, «Holy Place in the Making: Maqam Nabi Musa in the Early Mamluk Period», Aram, 18-19 (2006-2007): 621-639; H. Taragan, «Mamluk Patronage and Crusaders Memory», Assaph. Studies in Art History, 10 (2006): 225-234; H. Taragan, «Politics and Aesthetics: Sultan Baybars and the Abu Hurayra/Rabbi Gamliel Building in Yavne», in Milestones in the Art and Culture of Egypt, ed. A. Ovadih (Tel-Aviv, 2000), 117-143; H. Taragan, «Doors that Open Meanings: The Baybars Portal to the Red Mosque (Safed)», in Mamluks in Egyptian and Syrian Politics and Society, eds. M. Winter and A. Levanoni (Leiden, 2004), 3-20; H. Taragan, «‘Sign of the Times’: Reuse of the Past in Baybars’s Architecture in Palestine», in Mamluk and Ottoman Studies in Honour of Michael Winter, eds. D. Wasserstein and A. Ayalon (London, 2006), 54-66.

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the development of crusader society and culture. The traditional European school, which was advanced by the founder of the Department of Art History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Moshe Barasch, and faithfully reflected in Prawer’s chapter on the subject75, regarded crusader art as another manifestation of the colonialist nature of the Crusader Kingdom and, as such, lacking original or authentic elements of its own. Though recognizing differences according to the medium, Barasch’s main conclusion was rather clear: «…in spite of the limited area, the works that have come down to us do not display a uniform character nor do they represent a specific Crusader style. They reflect various trends of style, which suggest they originated in different traditions of European sculpture. It seems certain that the sculptors who worked in the Latin Kingdom came from Europe as trained craftsmen, carrying with them, and perpetuating in the Holy Land, the models and customs of work acquired in their native countries. [...] As far as figural sculpture is concerned, we cannot speak of Crusader art [emphasis mine]»76. With the improving access to crusader structures and fragments, especially in Jerusalem, the ‘colonialist view’ began to be challenged by various Israeli scholars after 1969. One should mention in this regard the important studies by Nurith Kenaan-Kedar, the former dean of the Faculty of Arts at Tel Aviv University, who contributed a new reading of the façade and the symbolism of the lintels of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, as well as of the significance of the church’s architectural plan77. Kenaan-Kedar’s pioneering contribution focuses on the discovery of a local crusader school in Jerusalem, which she saw as a faithful reflection of its time and, no less important, its ethnic environment and their specific significance for the patron, the audience and the artists78. The acknowledgment of a local crusader school also characterizes Gustav Kühnel’s study of wall paintings, in which he differentiates among Western, Byzantine, and local trends in both iconographic choices and column paintings79. The late Zehava Jacoby identified the work of various local sculpture workshops, examples of which she found in the Temple area in Jerusalem, the St. John Church 75

J. Prawer, The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem: European Colonialism in the Middle Ages, 416-468. M. Barasch, Crusaders Figural Sculpture in the Holy Land: Twelfth-Century Examples from Acre, Nazareth and Belvoir Castle (Jerusalem, 1971), 223, 9-11. 77 N. Kenaan-Kedar, «Local Christian Art in Twelfth-Century Jerusalem», Israel Exploration Journal, 23 (1973): 167-175, 221-229; N. Kenaan-Kedar, «Symbolic Meaning in Crusader Architecture: The Twelfth-Century Dome of the Holy Sepulcher Church in Jerusalem», Cahiers archéologiques, 34 (1986): 109-117; N. Kenaan-Kedar, «A Neglected Series of Crusader Sculpture: The Ninety-Six Corbels of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre», Israel Exploration Journal, 42 (1992): 103-114. 78 N. Kenaan-Kedar, «The Role and Meaning of Crusader Architectural Decoration: From Local Romanesque Tradition to Gothic Hegemony», Schriften des historischen Kollegs, 37 (1997): 165-178; see, also, N. Kenaan-Kedar, «The Cathedral of Sebaste: Its Western Donors and Models», in The Horns of Hattin, 99-120; G. Fishhof, «Reading Pictorial Languages: Art as Text», in Pictorial Languages and Their Meanings: Liber amicorum in honor of Nurith Kenaan-Kedar, ed. C. B. Verzar and G. Fishhof (Tel Aviv, 2006), xxx. 79 G. Kühnel, Wall Paintings in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Berlin, 1988). 76

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of the Hospital in Acre, and the Annunciation Church in Nazareth, with some pieces transferred to Cairo after 129180. She photographed all known pieces of crusader sculpture in Israel, many of which she herself found, with the intention of publishing a corpus. Her collection (comprising more than 800 photos) is available for viewing at the University of Haifa website81. The studies by Bianca Kühnel, who represents a younger generation, culminate in an important survey of twelfthcentury crusader art, which she complemented with new archeological findings82. As well noted by Esther Grabiner, the numerous studies conducted by Israeli art historians faithfully reflect their immediate contact with crusader sights and remnants, a contact that enabled them to provide new and challenging perspectives of the meeting points of local innovations and foreign influences83. Ester Grabiner herself contributed to this perception in her dissertation and then in later writings, which refer to the colonnette coude and the family of such forms in crusader architecture as prominent local forms, later exported to Europe84. Social stratification, contacts, and acculturation thus become a main subject of relevance to our understanding of the crusades and their impact in the Levant. Benjamin Z. Kedar has pointed that there is more evidence of Oriental Christian sympathy for the Franks than is usually assumed; his Variorum volume, Franks, Muslims and Oriental Christians in the Latin Levant contains several studies on the peculiar relationship of Latins and Oriental Christians, multidirectional conversion, and the intercultural career of Theodore of Antioch85. David Jacoby, as well, investigated the interrelationship of society, culture, and the arts in crusader society86. A category of its own is provided by Amnon Linder on the liturgical reaction of 80 Z. Jacoby, «Le portail de l’église de l’annonciation de Nazareth au XIIe siècle», in Monuments et mémoires 64 (1981), 141-194; Z. Jacoby, «The Workshop of the Temple Area in Jerusalem in the Twelfth Century: Its Origin, Evolution and Impact», Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 45 (1982): 325394; Z. Jacoby, «The Tomb of Baldwin V, King of Jerusalem (1185-1186), and the Workshop of the Temple Area», Gesta, 18-2 (1979): 3-14. 81 http://www.haifa.ac.il, Library, Digital Media Center, Crusader Sculpture in the Land of Israel. 82 B. Kühnel, Crusader Art of the Twelfth Century: A Geographical, an Historical or an Art Historical Notion? (Berlin, 1994). 83 E. Garbiner, «Israeli Research of Crusader Art and Its Local Character», Mutar, 7 (1999): 33-38 [Hebrew]; see, also, her «Le cloître du Saint-Sépulchre», Bulletin Monumental, 151 (1993): 169-180. 84 E. Grabiner, La colonnette coude, diffusion d’un element architectural entre orient et occident aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles (Université de Paris I- Sorbonne, 1995); E. Grabiner, «La cloître de SainteSepulchre», Bulletin Monumental, 151 (1993): 169-180. 85 B. Z. Kedar, Franks, Muslims and Oriental Christians in the Latin Levant, Studies Nos. V, VI, and XV. 86 D. Jacoby, «Knightly Values and Class Consciousness in the Crusader States of the Eastern Mediterranean», Mediterranean Historical Review, 1 (1986): 158-186; D. Jacoby, «La littérature française dans les états latins de la Méditerranée orientale à l’époque des croisades: diffusion et création», in Essor et fortune de la chanson de geste dans l’Europe et l’Orient latin. Actes du IXe Congrès international de la Société Rencesvals pour l’étude des épopées romanes (Padoue-Venise, 1982) (Modena, 1984), 617-646; D. Jacoby, «Society, Culture and the Arts in Crusader Acre», in France and the Holy Land: Frankish Culture at the End of the Crusades, eds. D. H. Weiss and L. Mahoney (Baltimore, 2004), 97-137.

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Christendom to the demise of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem87. Using a new corpus of manuscripts, much of them unedited, Linder analyzes the five main types of liturgy that evolved in the Late Middle Ages—namely, the Clamor, the three principal Mass prayers, the dedicated war Mass, the English Trental of St Gregory, and the Bidding Prayers – thus clarifying additional aspects of late medieval culture88. One should also note the excellent studies by Cyril Aslanov, of the French Department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, on the Franks’ language, its evolution, and development89. New sources discovered or critically re-edited close this survey of Israeli historians of the crusades and their main areas of research in the past fifty years. Emmanuel Sivan published excerpts from al-Sulami’s Kitab al-Jihad, the earliest treatise advocating an anti-Frankish Jihad90. Among the many contributions made by David Jacoby to this field, one may note his edition of unpublished documents, mainly notarial charters91, and his survey of an unpublished Venetian trade manual from Acre, dating to ca. 127092. Kedar, as well, devoted much of his research to the discovery and scientific publication of contemporary manuscripts. From a long list, one may mention the writings of Gerard of Nazareth, which shed much light on the phenomenon of saintly hermits who lived either alone or in small groups near Jerusalem and on Jerusalem’s walls, in the Galilee, and near Antioch. The description of daily life in the Jerusalem Hospital in the 1180s is also important for a better understanding of Frankish and Oriental medicine, the history of hospitals, 87

A. Linder, Raising Arms: Liturgy in the Struggle to Liberate Jerusalem in the Late Middle Ages (Turnhout, 2003). 88 On other aspects related to the ecclesiastical history of the Crusader Kingdom, see, Y. Katzir, «The Mystery of the True Cross», in The Crusaders in their Kingdom, ed. B. Z. Kedar (Jerusalem, 1987), 243-253 [Hebrew]; Y. Katzir, «The Latin Church in the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem», in The Jerusalem Book, ed. J. Prawer and H. Shmai (Jerusalem 1991), vol. 3, 161-175 [Hebrew]; Y. Katzir, «The Patriarch of Jerusalem Primate of the Latin Kingdom», in Crusade and Settlement, ed. P. Edbury (Cardiff, 1984), 169-175; Y. Katzir, «The Second Crusade and the Redefinition of Ecclesia, Christians and Papal Coercive Power», in The Second Crusade and the Cistercians, ed. M. Gervers (New York, 1992), 3-12. 89 C. Aslanov, Evidence of Francophony in the Mediaeval Levant – Decipherment and Interpretation. (MS Paris Bnf copte 43) (Jerusalem, 2006); C. Aslanov, Le français au Levant, jadis et naguère. A la recherche d’une langue perdue (Paris, 2006). 90 E. Sivan, «La genèse de la contre-croisade: un traité damasquin du début du XIIe siècle», Journal asiatique, 254 (1966): 197-224. 91 D. Jacoby, «New Venetian Evidence on Crusader Acre», in The Experience of Crusading, eds. P. Edbury and J. Phillips (Cambridge, 2003), vol. 2, Defining the Crusader Kingdom, 240-256; D. Jacoby, «Le consulat vénitien d’Alexandrie d’après un document inédit de 1284», in Chemins d’outre-mer. Études sur la Méditerranée médiévale offertes à Michel Balard, eds. D. Coulon, C. Otten-Froux, P. Pagàs, and D. Valérian (Paris, 2004), vol. 2, 461-474; D. Jacoby, «A Venetian Sailing to Acre in 1282: Between Private Shipping and Privately Operated State Galleys», in In Laudem Hierosolymitani, 395410. 92 D. Jacoby, «A Venetian Manual of Commercial Practice from Crusader Acre», in I comuni italiani nel regno crociato di Gerusalemme, 403-428; D. Jacoby, «The Pisan Commercial Manual of 1278 in the Mediterranean Context», in «Quel mar che la terra inghirlanda»: Studi mediterranei in ricordo di Marco Tangheroni, eds. F. Cardini and M. L. Ceccarelli Lemut (Pisa, 2007), 449-464.

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childbirth in a hospital, and the treatment of foundlings, among others. Kedar also provided critical editions of the canons of the Council of Nablus (1120), the Tractatus de locis et statu sancte terre ierosolimitane, Patriarch Eraclius’ call for help (September 1187), and some of the ecclesiastical legislation in the Kingdom of Jerusalem (1253-1254)93. He also discovered a series of biographies of Muslim holy men who lived in the vicinity of Nablus in the twelfth century. The microfilms of these important Arabic texts – obtained from Damascus – were later published by one of Kedar’s students, Daniella Talmon-Heller94. Notwithstanding the important contributions of the past fifty years, much work has still to be done, and the new generation of Israeli crusader historians is undoubtedly well prepared to perform the task. Iris Shagrir’s investigation of the development of naming-systems, especially, naming patterns in the Frankish Kingdom of Jerusalem, reflects the fresh insight of the new generation95. One should also take note of the contribution made by Yuval N. Harari, who has revolutionized our understanding of Frankish warfare96. Kate Raphael, as well, deals with military history, archery, and fortifications, both crusader and Muslim, from the eleventh-thirteenth centuries; furthermore, she has investigated climate and natural disasters and their impact on political and military affairs in the Levant97. Merav Mack, after completing her dissertation on The Merchant of 93

B. Z. Kedar, «Gerard of Nazareth: A Neglected Twelfth-Century Writer in the Latin East. A Contribution to the Intellectual and Monastic History of the Crusader States», Dumbarton Oaks Papers 37 (1983], 55-77; B. Z. Kedar, «A Twelfth-Century Description of the Jerusalem Hospital», in The Military Orders, vol. 2, 3-26; B. Z. Kedar, «On the Origins of the Earliest Laws of Frankish Jerusalem: The Canons of Nablus, 1120», Speculum, 74 (1999): 310-335; B. Z. Kedar, «The Tractatus de locis et statu sancta terre ierosolimitane», in The Crusades and Their Sources: Essays presented to Bernard Hamilton, eds. J. France and W. G. Zajac (Aldershot, 1998), 111-133; B. Z. Kedar, «Ein Hilferuf aus Jerusalem vom September 1187», Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters, 38 (1982): 112122; B. Z. Kedar, «A Western Survey of Saladin’s Forces at the Siege of Acre», in Montjoie: Studies in Crusade History in Honour of Hans Eberhard Mayer, eds. B. Z. Kedar, J. Riley Smith and R. Hiestand (Aldershot, 1997), 113-122; B. Z. Kedar, «Raising Funds for a Frankish Cathedral: The Appeal of Bishop Radulph of Sebaste», in Entrepreneurship and the Transformation of the Economy (10th-20th Centuries): Essays in Honour of Herman Van der Wee, eds. P. Klep and E. Van Cauwenberghe (Leuven, 1994), 443-455. 94 D. Talmon-Heller, «‘The Cited Tales of the Wondrous Doings of the Shaykhs of the Holy Land’ by Diya «al-Din Abu ‘Abd Allah Muhammad b. ‘Abd al-Wahid al-Maqdisi (569/1173-643/1245): Text, Translation and Commentary», Crusades, 1, (2002): 111-154. 95 I. Shagrir, Naming Patterns in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Oxford, 2003); I. Shagrir, «The Medieval Evolution of By-Naming: Notions from the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem», in In Laudem Hierosolymitani, 49-59; I. Shagrir, «The Naming Patterns of the Inhabitants of Frankish Acre», Crusades, 4 (2005): 107-116. 96 Y. N. Harari, «The Military Role of the Frankish Turcopoles: A Reassessment», Mediterranean Historical Review, 12 (1997): 75-116; see, also the three chapters that he devoted to the crusades in his book, Special Operations in the Age of Chivalry, 1100-1550 (Woodbridge, 2007), 53-108. 97 K. Raphael, «Crusader Arms and Armour», in Knights of the Holy Land: The Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, ed. S. Rozenberg (Jerusalem, 1999), 149-159; K. Raphael and Y. Tepper, «The Archaeological Evidence from the Mamluk Siege of Arsuf», in Mamluk Studies Review, 9-1 (2005): 85100; K. Raphael, «A Thousand Arrowheads from The Crusader Fortress in Vadum Jacob», in Collection of Essays in Honor of Professor Adam Zartal, University of Haifa (forthcoming).

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Genoa: the Genoese, the Crusades and the Latin East, 1187-1220s, investigated the Italian quarters of Frankish Tyre98. One may therefore conclude that the input of Israeli scholars to the research of the crusades during the past fifty years surpasses demographic and statistical parameters. Two factors may apparently account for this situation: On the one hand, the considerable increase in research on the crusades worldwide may have influenced Israeli researchers to become an integral part of a global trend. On the other hand, the very fact that the Holy Land remained for two hundred years the main theater of the crusader movement may have made the crusades an obvious subject of Israeli interest, as another period in the country’s local history. Alongside these two explanations, other ideological and methodological reasons may be reconsidered, as well. The analogy between the crusades and the Zionist movement has become an integral part of Israeli intellectual discourse. While anti-Zionists use the crusade analogy to depict the State of Israel as a colonial project, many Israelis deny such a link and emphasize the inherent differences between the Zionist movement and the crusades that make such an analogy intellectually spurious, and a futile exercise. The crusades are nonetheless present in many different ways in Israeli intellectual discourse: they serve as a source of inspiration for novels, poetry, and literature at large. The crusades have also been perceived as foreshadowing the traumatic persecution of Jews in Europe – which began in 1096, in parallel with the First Crusade – and the tormented Jewish history of the twentieth century. The bibliographical survey of Israeli research of the crusades during the past fifty years, however, reflects a gap, and even a detachment, between ideological or political discourse and historical research. This separation should perhaps be regarded as a reproduction of the well-known convergence/divergence phenomenon between collective memory and historical research. The crusades discourse played a role in constructing the Israeli collective memory; at the same time, however, the academic historiography of the crusades was an important element in the scholarly attempt to overcome the shadows of collective memory and to guarantee the autonomy of historical research. Intellectual discourse was less interested in the history of the crusades ‘as they were’ and more in their ideological and moral ramifications. The politicization of the crusades thus turned them into a sort of ‘usable past’ that, like other forms of usable past exploited by national movements, was adapted to serve ideological and political needs. The Israeli intellectual discourse, as a result, has isolated the crusades from their medieval framework and analyzed them in the framework of the modern IsraeliArab conflict. Israeli historians, in contrast, analyze the crusades as an integral part of medieval history, thus underlining the struggle between collective memory and historical research. Research of the crusader period was not therefore a continuation of the political debate, but its very opposite. Employing scrupulous research, Israeli scholars liberated crusader images, terms, and history from their 98

M. Mack, «The Italian Quarters of Frankish Tyre: Mapping a Medieval Town», Journal of Medieval History, 33 (2007): 147-165.

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modern ideological and political categories in which they were encapsulated. In order to counterbalance the influence of the crusader heritage in the Israeli collective memory, there was need for meticulous historical research that would suggest not only an additional but also an authoritative narrative. In this way, research of the crusades did not differ from other themes in Israeli historiography – such as Jewish history – that evolved over a long process of emancipation from collective memory. The interest of Israeli historians in the crusades was influenced, then, by Israeli collective memory; no less, however, it was an attempt to rebel against this memory and to liberate historical research from its sway. APPENDIX 1: ARCHEOLOGICAL RESEARCH OF THE CRUSADES99 RESEARCHER

YEARS

EXCAVATION LOCATION OR SITE

Avraham Negev

1960s

Church and houses in Caesarea

Meir Ben-Dov

1968

Tanners’ gate in Jerusalem

Dan Bahat

Since 1970s Medieval walls and crusader structures in Jerusalem 1992-1999 Fortress and church at Bet Govrin (Bethgibelin)

Amos Kloner

Alexander Onn – Yehudah 1992 Rapuano (IAA) Yitzhak Magen – Michael Dadon John Seligman (IAA)

Michael Eisenberg Eliezer Stern

Since 1990

Danny Syon (IAA) Edna Stern Martin Peilstoecker – Amit Re’em Israel Roll Haim Hervé Barbe Ronnie Ellenblum Ruth Gertwagen Raz Kelter – Natalie May Adrian Boas

Frankish village in Ramot, Jerusalem Fortifications and quarry at Nebi Samwil (Montjoie) Beit She’an fortress, medieval fortifications in Jerusalem, including what may have been the Beaucayre gate tower A section of the Frankish wall of Acre Acre Acre

Since 1990

1999

Acre and the northern areas; the sugar mill at Khirbat Manot Frankish Jaffa Arsuf - Apollonia Habonim (Kafr Lamm) and Saphet Castle The farmhouse at Khirbat Lowza (near Jerusalem); Vadum Jacob Tell Hanaton and Beit She’an castle Frankish farmhouse at Har Hotzevim, Jerusalem Castles of Beit She’an and Vadum Jacob, the eastern part of Acre, and part of a Frankish village at Ramot. Blanchegarde and Montfort Castle.

99

I would like to thank my colleague, Adrian Boas of the University of Haifa, for bringing this information to my attention.

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SOPHIA MENACHE APPENDIX 2: NUMISMATICS OF THE CRUSADER PERIOD – PUBLICATIONS (Main contributions, with a short abstract of articles published in Hebrew) R. Kool and G. Glucksmann, «Crusader Period Finds from the Temple Mount Excavations in Jerusalem», Atiqot, 26 (1995): 87-104 [Hebrew]. Circulation of European money in the second half of the twelfth century in Jerusalem; a hoard of seventy-five silver deniers minted at Chartres, France, was excavated from the remains of crusader period buildings belonging to the Templars, located south of the ElAqsa mosque; the hoard was possibly related to the money-lending activities of the Templar Order. R. Kool, «The Khirbet Shatta Hoard: European and Latin Coins and Islamic Jewellery from the Late Thirteenth Century», in The Gros Tournois: Proceedings of the Fourteenth Oxford Symposium on Coinage and Monetary History, ed. N. Mayhew (Oxford 1997), pp. 257-278. R. Kool, D. M. Metcalf, and A. Berman, «Coins from the Excavations of ‘Atlit (Pilgrims’ Castle and Its Faubourg)», Atiqot, 37 (1999): 89-164 [Hebrew]. More than 220 provenance Crusader coins and contemporary Muslim coins were excavated from the Faubourg of Atlit Castle (1218-1291) by C. Johns more than 70 years ago. Their first-time, detailed publication and interpretation make Atlit one of the major sites for the study of the monetary history of mainland Crusader States in the thirteenth century. R. Kool, «Coins and Currencies in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem: 1099-1291», in Knights of the Holy Land, ed. S. Rozenberg (Jerusalem, 1999). General overview of the monetary history of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, based upon many new and unpublished numismatic finds from excavations in Israel in recent years. R. Kool, «A Fatimid Amulet-Box with European Coins from the Eleventh Century», American Journal of Numismatics, 11 (1999): pp. 47-68. R. Kool and H. Gitler, «Coins in the Frankish East (1099-1291)», in Terra Santa: Dalla Crociata alla Custodia dei Luoghi Santi Catalogo e mostra, eds. M. Picherillo, S. Folda, and M. Arslan (Milan, 2000), 231-235; 241-243. R. Kool, «The Crusader Mint of Vadum Jacob: New Implications for the Minting of Coins in the Latin Kingdom during the Second Half of the Twelfth Century», in I Luoghi della Moneta (Milano, 2001), 329-333. R. Kool, «Coins at Vadum Jacob: New Evidence on the Circulation of Money in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem during the Second Half of the 12th Century», Crusades, 1 (2002): 73-88. R. Kool, «From the Horse’s Mouth: Re-Dating the Anonymous Turris Davit Issue», Israel Numismatic Research, 1 (2006): 151-156. R. Kool, «A Hoard of Thirteenth-Century Gold Florins from the Medieval Harbor of Acre», Numismatic Chronicle, 166 (2006): 301-320. R. Kool, «Coin Circulation in the Villeneuves of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem: The Cases of Parva Mahumeria and Bethgibelin», in Archaeology and the Crusades, eds. P. Edbury and S. Kalopissi-Verti (Athens, 2007), 91-112. University of Haifa

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PAROLES ÉDIFIANTES: LES ÉLOGES D’ANTOINE-LÉONARD THOMAS

Olivier Ferret

En dehors de quelques poésies de circonstances, Thomas n’est guère connu que pour ses triomphes académiques: avant d’être élu à l’Académie française en 1767, il remporte en effet sans interruption le prix d’éloquence dans les concours organisés entre 1759 et 1765, ce qui lui vaut une (éphémère) notoriété dans le genre de l’éloge, qu’il passe pour avoir renouvelé et à propos duquel il a développé, avec son Essai sur les éloges de 1773, une ébauche de théorisation1. Depuis les travaux de Jean-Claude Bonnet, on sait ainsi que, quoique «complètement tombé dans l’oubli aujourd’hui», le «petit genre de l’éloge» a pu passionner «toute une époque», notamment lorsqu’il est «mis à la mode dans sa forme nouvelle par la transformation du concours de l’Académie française»: «petite révolution académique», dans la mesure où le sujet du prix d’éloquence décerné après le panégyrique du roi, lors des séances du 25 août, ne vise plus à débattre de questions de dévotion ou de morale, mais à faire l’éloge des hommes célèbres de la nation; «grands effets» toutefois, puisque l’Académie se transforme ainsi «en conservatoire de la gloire» et que «les hommes de lettres, se désignant eux-mêmes comme les seuls guides capables de former l’esprit de la nation, viendront occuper cette nouvelle chaire laïque parfaitement appropriée au messianisme des Lumières»2. L’identité des hommes dont l’éloge est mis au concours illustre ces nouvelles ambitions: pour s’en tenir aux seuls prix remportés par Thomas, il s’agit en effet de célébrer un maréchal de France, héros de la bataille de Fontenoy (Maurice, comte de Saxe, en 1759), un magistrat devenu chancelier de France (d’Aguesseau, en 1760), un lieutenant général des armées navales (Duguay-Trouin, en 1761), le «principal ministre» de Henri IV (le surintendant des finances Sully, en 1763), enfin le philosophe Descartes, en 1765. Deux autres éloges de Thomas retiennent l’attention, tout en bénéficiant d’un statut différent des précédents en raison notamment des circonstances de leur publication. Le premier, ouvrage de commande du comte d’Angiviller, attaché à l’éducation des enfants du roi, est l’éloge, publié en 1766, du dauphin de France qui meurt le 1

Ébauche seulement, car Thomas se refuse à élaborer «la poétique de ce genre» et à «tracer des règles»: «On sait que la première règle est le génie, et celui qui l’a, trouve aisément les autres» (Essai sur les éloges, dans Œuvres complètes [désormais, OC], Paris, Desessarts, 1802, t. III, 9). De fait, l’essai propose plutôt un vaste panorama chronologique des formes qui ont successivement été prises par les éloges depuis l’Antiquité. 2 J.-C. Bonnet, Naissance du Panthéon. Essai sur le culte des grands hommes (Paris, Fayard, 1998), 66-67. Les chapitres IV et V sont essentiellement consacrés aux éloges de Thomas.

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OLIVIER FERRET

20 décembre 1765. Le second est l’Éloge de Marc Aurèle que Thomas prononce pour la Saint-Louis de 1770 et qui remporte un succès quelque peu tapageur: interdiction lui est faite de le publier3. Thomas est donc un auteur d’éloges dont le talent, quoique régulièrement couronné des lauriers académiques, paraît s’affirmer au gré de ses participations successives. À en croire Grimm, principal rédacteur de la Correspondance littéraire, ce n’est qu’en 1763, avec son Éloge de Sully, que «l’orateur a fait un grand pas»: «C’était, dans les discours précédents, un rhéteur rempli de déclamations et de phrases ampoulées, et dérobant la disette des idées sous des amplifications de l’école». C’est à présent «un philosophe qui parle» et qui, même s’il «tient encore un peu à cette parure puérile et mesquine dont il s’est affublé au collège», a accompli de significatifs «progrès dans le goût et dans la véritable éloquence» qui lui ont valu «les suffrages du public éclairé, et même ceux du peuple»: «C’est peut-être le premier discours académique qui ait fait un effet si grand et si général. Il est plein de vérités utiles et hardies»4. Thomas serait-il devenu philosophe? Il est vrai que sa carrière s’était inaugurée par un malentendu: celui qui, en 1756, s’était fait connaître en prétendant réfuter Voltaire par ses Réflexions philosophiques et littéraires sur le poème de la Religion naturelle s’affirme de plus en plus comme un soutien efficace des philosophes, notamment à cette tribune que constitue indéniablement l’Académie dès lors que le texte des éloges est lu dans des séances publiques dont l’assistance se réduit pas au seul cercle étroit des Quarante5. «Je n’entrerai point dans le détail de ses actions et de ses paroles», écrit Thomas à propos de Sully (Éloge de Sully, p. 53): cette déclaration reflète bien le fait que les paroles des grands hommes dont il fait l’éloge sont citées avec une parcimonie certaine – extrême, même, si l’on considère que la plupart des paroles rapportées se trouvent dans les notes que Thomas a ajoutées6 au corps du texte et 3

Par la suite, les extraits de ces éloges sont donnés dans les éditions suivantes: l’Éloge de Maurice, comte de Saxe, duc de Semigalle et de Curlande, maréchal général des armées de Sa Majesté très chrétienne, l’Éloge de Henri-François Daguesseau, chancelier de France, commandeur des ordres du roi et l’Éloge de René Duguay-Trouin, lieutenant général des armées navales, commandeur de l’ordre royal et militaire de Saint Louis sont rassemblés dans un volume d’Œuvres diverses de M. Thomas (Lyon, les frères Périsse, 1763); les textes ultérieurs sont cités dans une édition séparée – Éloge de Maximilien de Béthune, duc de Sully, surintendant des finances, etc., principal ministre sous Henri IV (Paris, Regnard, 1763), Éloge de René Descartes (Lyon, c. 1765), Éloge de Louis, Dauphin de France (Lyon, c. 1766), Éloge de Marc Aurèle (Amsterdam et Paris, Moutard, 1775). Dans les citations, l’orthographe a été modernisée mais la ponctuation originale a été respectée. 4 Correspondance littéraire, philosophique et critique, éd. M. Tourneux (Paris, Garnier, 1877-1882), t. V, 389-390. Les comptes rendus des éloges précédents ne retiennent de l’auteur de l’Éloge du comte de Saxe qu’un «faiseur de phrases, ramasseur de lieux communs, entortilleur, etc.» (t. IV, 139) et dénoncent, dans l’Éloge de Duguay-Trouin, une «éloquence déclamatoire du collège qui peut plaire aux enfants, à la bonne heure, mais qui me déplaît souverainement» (ibid., 505). 5 Voir J. Lough, «Did the philosophes take over the Académie française?», SVEC, 336 (1996): 191193. 6 À propos de cet Éloge de Sully, Grimm fait mention des «notes historiques» que Thomas «a ajoutées à son discours», et qui «ont plus réussi que le discours même» (Correspondance littéraire, t. V, 391).

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qui ne pouvaient, par conséquent, qu’être lues dans la version imprimée7. Partant de ce constat, on examinera l’hypothèse selon laquelle les éloges de Thomas mettent en œuvre, au sens propre comme au sens figuré, une authentique «économie» de la parole dont il s’agira d’envisager les fonctions et les enjeux. On verra ainsi que la parole rapportée constitue un élément du protocole commémoratif qui est au fondement de l’éloge. L’examen du mode de fonctionnement des textes fera ensuite apparaître de quelle manière la parole rapportée acquiert un statut exemplaire. Il sera alors possible d’apprécier les enjeux pragmatiques de la parole au sein de textes qui se signalent par le recours à une certaine forme d’éloquence.

I. PAROLE RAPPORTÉE ET COMMÉMORATION L’entreprise de rédaction des éloges prend sens au sein d’un cérémonial qui caractérise la situation d’énonciation: le discours est écrit pour être prononcé le 25 août, lors d’une séance publique de l’Académie, devant une assemblée en général nombreuse. Ces circonstances confèrent à la prise de parole une dimension solennelle, à supposer que des conditions matérielles imprévues n’en viennent pas parasiter la réception, comme ce fut semble-t-il le cas lors du premier triomphe académique de Thomas: son Éloge du comte de Saxe, «déjà prôné dans Paris», «eut le désavantage d’être fort mal lu par Duclos», alors secrétaire perpétuel de l’Académie; «D’Alembert et Marmontel […] juraient entre leurs dents d’une pareille lecture; et moi, de mon côté, mon sang bouillait dans mes veines», écrit Thomas8. D’autres circonstances comme celles qui, à la mort du fils de Louis XV, président à la rédaction de l’Éloge du Dauphin, confèrent au texte une solennité de rigueur. Dans les deux cas ce cérémonial, quoique sous-tendu par des enjeux très différents, entoure un rite de commémoration: il s’agit de faire revivre, par 7

La distinction que l’on peut être tenté d’effectuer entre le discours prononcé dans la séance et le texte imprimé n’est peut-être pas essentielle si l’on prête attention aux circonstances de la publication de certains des éloges de Thomas. Comme dans tout concours, le texte n’est d’abord connu que des seuls membres du jury. Grimm note ainsi, en août 1765, au sujet du prix d’éloquence partagé, cette année-là, entre Thomas et Gaillard, que «les deux discours paraîtront le 25 de ce mois, jour de la fête du roi et de la séance publique de l’Académie» et il ajoute: «nous verrons si le public confirmera le jugement de messieurs les Quarante» (ibid., t. VI, 342). Le mois suivant, Grimm signale que seuls «des extraits des deux discours couronnés faits par les auteurs eux-mêmes» ont été lus «à la séance publique», «parce que le temps n’aurait pas permis de lire ces discours en entier». Et, après avoir souligné que l’ouvrage de Gaillard («une des plus tristes welcheries qu’on puisse lire») a été «réellement déprimé» lorsqu’on l’a comparé au «chef-d’œuvre» de Thomas, Grimm précise que le «succès» de l’Éloge de Descartes par Thomas a été tellement «prodigieux» que «l’imprimeur de l’Académie n’a pu fournir assez d’exemplaires dans les premiers jours» (ibid., 351-353). Dans ce cas au moins, c’est donc par l’imprimé que le public a pu prendre connaissance de l’ensemble du texte. 8 Lettre à Barthe du 15 septembre 1759, citée par J.-C. Bonnet, Naissance du Panthéon, 73. Thomas peut se consoler à l’idée – confirmant l’importance de la diffusion imprimée des éloges – que «le discours se débite beaucoup», qu’«il fait grand bruit» et que «son succès surpasse [s]es espérances»: «Il y en a déjà huit cents exemplaires de débités».

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OLIVIER FERRET

l’évocation du grand homme disparu, le souvenir qui s’attache à ce personnage, voire de construire ce souvenir dans et par le texte. Ainsi s’explique le recours à des procédés rhétoriques qui visent à rendre présent, dans le discours, celui dont on fait l’éloge. Thomas multiplie les apostrophes aux lieux, mais aussi au personnage même: «Partez, illustre vainqueur, remportez dans votre patrie les dépouilles de l’Amérique» (Éloge de Duguay-Trouin, p. 188). Le lecteur est également pris à partie: Qu’on se représente Duguay-Trouin, au sortir d’une glorieuse campagne, impatient de voir ce roi pour qui il a tant de fois prodigué sa vie, sans l’avoir jamais vu. Il arrive à Versailles. Ce n’est ni le faste de l’opulence, ni le nom de ses ancêtres, ni ses titres qui l’annoncent: il est annoncé par ses exploits. (Ibid., pp. 158-159.)

Hypotypose, mention de la voix de la renommée au moment où s’opère le passage au présent de narration: tout participe du processus d’actualisation auquel concourt aussi la récurrence, pour introduire les évocations, des expressions «Je crois voir…»9, «Je le vois (qui)…»10 traduisant la forte présence du locuteur à son discours. Autant de tics stylistiques révélateurs d’une ambition: celle de donner à voir, de rendre présent, par le texte, celui qui est absent. La vision est aussi relayée par l’ouie, avec le tour «Je crois l’entendre» qui annonce, dans l’exemple suivant11, tiré de l’Éloge du Dauphin, les paroles prêtées à Louis XV, au sein d’un développement qui est une adresse au futur Louis XVI: «Je crois entendre votre auguste père qui vous dit encore: Mon fils, vous êtes né pour régner, mais votre naissance n’est qu’un hasard dangereux, votre enfance n’est qu’un état de faiblesse. […]» (p. 76). Si les paroles rapportées jouent un rôle déterminant dans le processus d’actualisation à l’œuvre dans les éloges, la place qui leur est réservée évolue dans les textes de Thomas. Dans les éloges primés à l’Académie, les paroles se trouvent presque exclusivement dans les notes, qu’elles soient placées en bas de page ou à la suite du texte: même si elles ne devaient pas être entendues à la lecture, elles font malgré tout partie intégrante du dispositif textuel, tout en demeurant dans une position ancillaire par rapport au texte de l’éloge. Dans l’Éloge du Dauphin, c’est en revanche dans le texte même, dépourvu de notes, que les paroles sont rapportées. Mais c’est dans l’Éloge de Marc Aurèle que l’orchestration des voix est la plus concertée, contribuant à la mise en place de ce que J.-C. Bonnet désigne comme une «sombre dramaturgie»12. Une rapide entrée en matière narrative prépare l’arrivée d’un «vieillard»: «c’était Apollonius, philosophe stoïcien, estimé dans Rome, et plus respecté encore par son caractère que pour son grand âge» (pp. 5-6). Toute la suite de l’éloge est placée dans la bouche du vieil Apollonius qui, «élevant sa voix», s’adresse aux Romains rassemblés aux obsèques, et en particulier au terrible Commode, fils du défunt: «Ô 9

Éloge du comte de Saxe, 38; Éloge de Descartes, 57. Éloge de d’Aguesseau, 93; Éloge de Duguay-Trouin, 139, 165; Éloge de Sully, 16; Éloge de Descartes, 44; Éloge du Dauphin, 58. 11 Voir aussi l’Éloge de Descartes, 57-58. 12 J.-C. Bonnet, Naissance du Panthéon, 98. 10

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fils de Marc Aurèle! pardonne; je te parle au nom des dieux, au nom de l’univers qui t’est confié; je te parle pour le bonheur des hommes et pour le tien» (ibid., p. 71). Au cœur de ce dispositif énonciatif, lorsqu’il s’agit d’«offrir» aux Romains «tout le développement» de son «âme», «l’enchaînement de ses idées», «les principes sur lesquels il appuya sa vie morale», la parole est donnée à «Marc Aurèle lui-même». L’«Entretien de Marc Aurèle avec lui-même» est ainsi livré au terme d’un relais préparé en amont par un premier effet de discours rapporté: Ce n’est pas moi qui vous offrirai ce tableau, c’est Marc Aurèle lui-même. Je vais vous lire un écrit qu’il a tracé de ses mains, il y a plus de trente ans. Il n’était point encore empereur. Tiens, me dit-il, Apollonius, prends cet écrit, et si jamais je m’écarte des sentiments que ma main a tracés, fais-moi rougir aux yeux de l’univers. Romains, et toi son successeur et son fils, vous allez juger si Marc Aurèle a conformé sa conduite à ces grandes idées, et s’il s’est écarté une seule fois du plan qu’il a cru lire dans la nature. (Ibid., pp. 17-18.)

Il résulte de cette mise en scène l’illusion d’une éphémère résurrection13 programmée par le texte lui-même: «À ces mots, les Romains qui écoutaient dans un profond silence, parurent effrayés comme s’ils étaient menacés de perdre leur empereur; ils oubliaient que ce grand homme n’était plus. Bientôt cette illusion se dissipa» (ibid., p. 28). Dans les éloges antérieurs, certains phénomènes semblent annoncer une telle évolution. L’Éloge de Sully amorçait déjà, sur le mode de la virtualité, la mise en scène d’un locuteur fictif: avec son «éloquence simple et grossière» (p. 3), explique Thomas, Henri IV aurait pu prononcer l’éloge de son ministre. Surtout, dès l’Éloge de Duguay-Trouin, Thomas recourt à la prosopopée, qui intervient au moment stratégique de la clôture du texte: «Ah! s’il revivait aujourd’hui, s’il errait parmi nos ports et nos arsenaux, quelle serait sa douleur! Français, s’écrierait-il, que sont devenus ces vaisseaux que j’ai commandés, ces flottes victorieuses qui dominaient sur l’océan? […]» (p. 204). La même figure intervient, à la même place, dans l’Éloge de Descartes: c’est alors «la postérité qui s’avance» (p. 172) et qui s’adresse aux hommes. L’effet de théâtralisation apparaît encore à travers un ensemble de métaphores. Les lieux évoqués sont ainsi fréquemment désignés comme «théâtre», en même temps que le personnage est présenté comme l’objet d’un «spectacle». Thomas apostrophe les «plaines d’Ivry, théâtre de gloire et de carnage» (Éloge de Sully, p. 9) et ajoute, en note: «Ce fut un spectacle assez singulier de voir Sully couché sur un brancard fait à la hâte de branches d’arbres, environné de ses domestiques» (ibid., n. 11, p. 63). Plus loin, Sully donne encore «un plus grand spectacle au monde» (p. 52). Il est aussi question du «théâtre» des «victoires» de Duguay-Trouin: Le théâtre de ses victoires va donc devenir son tombeau! Enfin, après deux jours de tempête, la mer se calme; et ce héros est rendu à la France. Son nom est dans toutes les bouches; partout où il paraît, les regards se fixent sur lui. Le peuple […] s’assemble en foule autour de lui, le regarde, l’environne. Il est devenu un spectacle pour la France. (Éloge de Duguay-Trouin, pp. 189-190.) 13 J.-C. Bonnet (Naissance du Panthéon, 98) rapproche cette mise en scène de la «curieuse scénographie funèbre» à l’œuvre dans Le Fils naturel de Diderot.

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OLIVIER FERRET

Les mentions d’une circulation de la parole, d’une convergence des regards, d’un mouvement de foule tendent à placer au centre le personnage «devenu un spectacle». Objet d’«admiration», il peut être érigé en «héros». Une note en bas de page rapporte les propos d’une «dame de distinction» qui fend la foule «pour mieux voir Duguay-Trouin»: «je suis bien aise de voir un héros en vie». C’est encore le cas de Sully qui, recevant de Henri IV «le titre de brave et de franc chevalier», reçoit par là même «le titre des héros» (Éloge de Sully, p. 9): le détail des paroles du roi, rapportées en note, authentifie et étoffe ce que la narration ne faisait qu’esquisser. Ces effets de théâtralisation illustrent la complexité de la définition générique de l’éloge, en ce qu’il emprunte des procédés à trois modes d’écriture en concurrence: le théâtre, mais aussi l’éloquence et l’histoire. Les exemples précédents présentent un traitement, sous la forme d’une «scène» développée en note, de ce que le corps de l’éloge résume en un «sommaire»14. Une autre note de l’Éloge de Sully15 développe de même le tableau attendu de la nuit de la SaintBarthélemy. Dans cette évocation, la mention des «cris confus de la populace» ainsi que les notations visuelles données comme «spectacle» s’organisent en tableau historique dans lequel les «cris» rapportés créent un effet de réel. Ailleurs, l’opposition entre le corps du texte et la note correspond à celle du discours éloquent et du récit historique. «On se croit obligé d’avertir, que dans tout ce détail, on parle moins en orateur, qu’en historien» (n. l, p. 21), précise Thomas dans une note de l’Éloge du comte de Saxe, avant de mettre en évidence le rôle essentiel des «faits», au fondement des «éloges des grands hommes». On lit une déclaration semblable dans l’Éloge de Duguay-Trouin: «L’orateur n’est ici qu’historien: exposer les faits, c’est louer le héros» (n. l, p. 182). Le phénomène est parfois poussé jusqu’à la dénégation, avec l’affirmation d’un refus de l’éloquence: «Je ne suis ni courtisan ni orateur; je ne suis qu’interprète de la vérité, et simple historien des pensées de ce prince» (p. 58), écrit Thomas dans l’Éloge du Dauphin; «Je n’ai pas les mêmes talents» que les orateurs athéniens qui célébraient les vainqueurs16, avoue-t-il dans l’Éloge de Duguay-Trouin, mais «la vérité sera presque toujours étonnante par elle-même» (p. 121). Le locuteur-historien prétend encore, dans l’Éloge de d’Aguesseau, faire entendre «la voix de la vérité» (p. 100). Cependant, en d’autres endroits, le rôle de l’orateur n’en est pas moins revendiqué: «C’est au physicien plutôt qu’à l’orateur à donner l’idée de ce système» (p. 87), déclare Thomas dans l’Éloge de Descartes, pour signaler qu’il n’en fera rien. C’est dire que le refus de l’éloquence relève d’une posture de dénégation. Le recours aux figures de rhétorique évoquées plus haut suffirait d’ailleurs à convaincre que, derrière l’historien, l’orateur n’est pas loin. On en trouvera confirmation dans l’opposition nettement établie, dans l’Essai sur les éloges, entre le «simple éloge historique, mêlé de réflexions» rédigé par un «écrivain borné au rôle d’historien-philosophe» 14

Ces termes sont ici employés selon la terminologie de G. Genette: voir Figures, III (Paris, Le Seuil, 1972). 15 Éloge de Sully, n. 3, 59-60. 16 Voir, sur ce point, le chapitre 5 de l’Essai sur les éloges.

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(que Thomas qualifie plus loin d’«éloge froidement historique») et «ces sortes d’ouvrages» qui sont «moins des monuments historiques que des tableaux faits pour réveiller de grandes idées ou de grands sentiments», qui nécessitent que l’on ne se contente pas de «raconter à l’esprit», mais que l’on tâche de «parler à l’âme» pour «l’intéresser fortement». Ainsi se justifierait une éloquence faite de «traits énergiques et mâles» et de «traits touchants» (OC, t. IV, pp. 173-174). Éloquence, soit, mais pas n’importe laquelle: «celui qui veut embellir, exagère», rétorquent les défenseurs de l’«éloge historique»; «on perd du côté de l’exacte vérité tout ce qu’on gagne du côté de la chaleur», bref «toute éloquence est une espèce d’art dont on se défie» (ibid., p. 173). Il faudra donc recourir à une forme d’éloquence qui ne trahisse pas la vérité et veiller à ce que «l’illusion» soit maintenue: «Il en est des ouvrages d’éloquence comme d’une pièce de théâtre; si l’illusion ne gagne, le ridicule perce, et l’on rit» (ibid., p. 185) – où l’on retrouve la référence au théâtre. La nécessité de recourir à une éloquence mesurée explique sans doute que Thomas, délaissant l’hyperbole, privilégie une forme d’amplification rhétorique qui ne se réduit pas à l’exagération. L’une de ses composantes tient aux rapprochements effectués entre le personnage célébré et d’autres personnages historiques que viennent régulièrement étayer des effets de discours rapportés: «C’est l’âme de Socrate jointe au génie de Platon», déclare Thomas à propos de d’Aguesseau17; Duguay-Trouin est rapproché de Marius et, une page plus loin, en note, de Pyrrhus18. Le couple Sully-Henri IV est aussi comparé au couple ParménionAlexandre (Éloge de Sully, p. 6), et si le rapprochement n’est pas ici lesté par des propos rapportés, on peut lire, dans une note ultérieure, la citation de «cette lettre si connue» de Mornay à Henri IV: «Sire, vous avez fait l’Alexandre; il est temps que vous soyez Auguste» (ibid., n. 14, p. 10). Les paroles rapportées ont alors vocation à accréditer l’illusion de vérité du propos. De nombreux témoignages remplissent ainsi une fonction authentifiante au sein d’une stratégie de l’éloge indirect: c’est par la bouche d’autres personnages que le héros reçoit son tribut de louanges, en particulier des louanges qui, prises en charge directement par l’auteur, pourraient être perçues comme hyperboliques, donc sentir leur artifice et détruire l’illusion. C’est la fonction de la citation – dûment référencée – du chevalier Follard, «qui a passé sa vie à étudier la guerre et à en donner des leçons», à propos de la «méthode» du comte de Saxe: Voici comment il s’exprime lui-même dans ses Commentaires sur Polybe, tom. 3, liv. 2, ch. 14 § 4. Après avoir parlé de l’utilité de plusieurs exercices, il ajoute: Ce que je viens de dire est excellent; mais il faut encore exercer les troupes à tirer selon la nouvelle méthode que le comte de Saxe a introduite dans son régiment: méthode dont je fais grand cas, ainsi que de son inventeur, qui est un des plus beaux génies pour la guerre que j’aie connu. L’on verra à la première guerre que je ne me trompe point dans ce que je pense. (Éloge du comte de Saxe, n. l, pp. 22-23.) 17

Du reste, «on disait de lui qu’il pensait en philosophe, et parlait en orateur» (Éloge de d’Aguesseau, 98 et n. b). 18 «Duguay-Trouin pouvait leur dire ce que Marius disait aux grands de Rome…»; «Pyrrhus disait aux ambassadeurs de Rome […]. Le même sentiment animait Duguay-Trouin» (Éloge de DuguayTrouin, 194 et n. r, 195).

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Il en va de même des propos hyperboliques du maréchal de Berwick qui, «sur le point d’attaquer les ennemis à Etlinghen, voit arriver le comte de Saxe dans son camp»: «Comte, lui dit-il aussitôt, j’allais faire venir trois mille hommes, mais vous me valez seul ce renfort» (ibid., n. s, p. 30). Ce sont encore les paroles du «célèbre Denis Talon» qui permettent de souligner l’«éclat» avec lequel d’Aguesseau paraît au Parlement, quoiqu’il ait obtenu la charge d’avocat général avec une extrême précocité: «le président à mortier dit qu’il voudrait finir comme ce jeune homme commençait» (Éloge de d’Aguesseau, n. e, p. 64). La matière historique, ainsi que les procédés de l’éloquence et du théâtre, sont ainsi conjointement convoqués alors même que les paroles rapportées participent de l’élaboration rhétorique du discours de l’éloge, assurant une certaine présence du héros dans le texte qui le célèbre. Faut-il en conclure que, lorsque les discours rapportés sont ceux du personnage lui-même, ils ont pour fonction de parachever l’évocation du héros en apportant une touche de nature à le singulariser? Peut-on les considérer comme des éléments susceptibles d’accréditer une forme d’illusion réaliste? Rien n’est moins sûr. La diversité des personnages célébrés – en partie due au choix des sujets de concours qui échappe à Thomas – ne se reflète pas nécessairement dans la manière dont chacun est dépeint. On est même surpris par la relative uniformité des paroles rapportées de ces «héros», qui ne présentent aucune marque véritablement singularisante. Il est vrai qu’il arrive à Thomas d’écrire, au sujet des propos de Sully, en note: «Voilà qui peint mieux un caractère que tous les discours du monde» (Éloge de Sully, p. 89). Reste que ce phénomène relève de l’exception. «On fait ici parler Marc Aurèle d’après le système des stoïciens», écrit-il dans une autre note (Éloge de Marc Aurèle, n. 1, p. 20). C’est certes fonder la vraisemblance du discours, mais c’est aussi laisser entendre que, loin d’être authentique et singulier, un tel discours est le fruit d’une reconstitution. Dans l’Éloge du Dauphin, le locuteur se présente aussi comme «simple historien», mais des «pensées de ce prince» (p. 58), et des pensées n’ont pas exactement le même statut que des paroles, même si elles sont rapportées selon des procédés identiques. En fait de paroles, certaines interviennent dans un contexte qui, loin d’entretenir l’illusion qu’il pourrait s’agir de paroles historiques, produirait plutôt un effet déréalisant: ainsi de cette longue tirade, introduite par «Quel spectacle que celui d’un prince, qui du haut du trône donne le signal à la vertu, lui crie […]» (ibid., p. 38). Plusieurs observateurs ont du reste souligné l’absence de caractère typique du personnage évoqué: selon Grimm, Thomas a peint «un être chimérique qui n’exista jamais nulle part»19; jugement qui, une fois n’est pas coutume, rejoint celui de l’abbé Coger qui déclare, dans l’Examen publié dans les Mémoires de Trévoux en juillet 1766, que le dauphin de Thomas est un personnage abstrait, un «prince déguisé» dont «la vie est un roman»20. Par delà la diversité des personnages célébrés par Thomas, il ne s’agit pas tant de brosser le portrait au naturel d’un individu singulier que de promouvoir un système de valeurs dont le personnage, au terme d’un travail de sélection et de construction, devient 19 20

Correspondance littéraire, t. VII, 7. Cité par J.C. Bonnet, Naissance du Panthéon, 77.

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symboliquement porteur. Les paroles rapportées auraient dès lors vocation à être le véhicule privilégié de la composante «exemplaire» du «héros».

II. LA PAROLE EXEMPLAIRE «L’éloge des grands hommes est la leçon du monde», écrit Thomas dans l’Éloge de d’Aguesseau (p. 59). «Ceci n’est point ici l’éloge d’un homme», répètet-il dans l’Éloge de Sully, «c’est une leçon pour les États et pour l’humanité entière» (p. 2). C’est ainsi que le personnage est donné en «exemple» pour les valeurs mêmes qui font l’objet de l’éloge et que les paroles rapportées ont alors pour fonction de mettre en évidence. Thomas célèbre par exemple le courage, notamment militaire, de ses «héros». Les paroles de Henri IV soulignent ainsi l’intrépidité de Sully: Devant Nérac, ce prince repoussa presque seul un gros de cavalerie, qui s’était avancé pour le surprendre. Rosni, à son exemple, alla le même jour avec douze ou quinze hommes, faire le coup de pistolet jusqu’à la portée de l’armée catholique. Le roi, qui le remarqua, dit à Bethune: «Allez à votre cousin le baron de Rosni, il est étourdi comme un hanneton; retirez-le de là et les autres aussi, car ils seront pris ou tués.» Rosni obéit, et le roi qui vit son cheval blessé à l’épaule, lui reprocha sa témérité avec la colère de l’amitié. (Ibid., n. 7, p. 61.)

L’effet de miroir déjà signalé entre les deux personnages, et ici rappelé («à son exemple»), se manifeste encore dans l’évocation de l’intrépidité de Henri IV, cette fois-ci soulignée par les paroles de Sully: Ce prince, impatient de se trouver partout où il y avait des périls et des combats, accourt aussitôt dans la ville, suivi de quarante hommes. Rosni l’apprend, court au-devant de lui, et d’un air fort ému: «Pardieu, sire, lui dit-il, vous avez fait là une belle levée de bouclier, qui infailliblement empêchera le service que nous voulions vous rendre. Hé quoi! n’avez-vous pas acquis assez de gloire et d’honneur en tant de combats et de batailles, où vous vous êtes trouvé plus que mille autres de ce royaume, sans vouloir faire ainsi le carabin?» La colère de Rosni était assez bien fondée. En effet, on sut l’arrivée du roi, et les ennemis se retirèrent. (Ibid., n. 12, p. 64.)

Loin d’être l’apanage d’une tête brûlée, l’intrépidité est en effet signe de la bravoure. Ainsi de Henri IV au siège de Cahors, alors que «les principaux officiers […] le conjurent de se retirer»: Ce prince, quoique blessé en plusieurs endroits, se tourne vers eux avec un visage riant, et leur dit d’un ton d’assurance: «Il est écrit là-haut ce qui doit être fait de moi en cette occasion. Souvenez-vous que ma retraite hors cette ville, sans l’avoir assurée au parti, sera la retraite de ma vie hors de ce corps; il y va trop de mon honneur: ainsi, qu’on ne me parle plus que de combattre, de vaincre ou de mourir.» (Ibid., n. 8, pp. 61-62.)

Outre ses qualités de bravoure, Sully se signale aussi par son dévouement au roi, qui lui vaut l’amitié de Henri IV. Thomas fait état des «inquiétudes» que témoigne Henri IV lorsque, à la bataille d’Ivry, Sully reçoit «sept blessures». Il lui 33

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parle «plus en ami qu’en roi», et ce terme d’«ami», sous la plume de Thomas, se trouve légitimé par les paroles rapportées qui suivent: Rosni le remercia, et lui dit qu’il s’estimait d’avoir souffert pour un si bon maître. Alors Henri lui répondit: Brave soldat et vaillant chevalier, j’avais toujours eu très bonne opinion de votre courage, et conçu de bonnes espérances de votre vertu: mais vos actions signalées, et votre réponse modeste, ont surpassé mon attente... et partant, en présence de ces princes, capitaines et grands chevaliers qui sont ici près de moi, vous veux-je embrasser des deux bras. Alors il se jeta à son cou, et le serra tendrement. Il lui dit encore beaucoup de choses pleines d’une sensibilité touchante; et en se séparant de lui, adieu mon ami, lui dit-il, portez-vous bien, et soyez sûr que vous avez un bon maître. (Ibid., n. 11, p. 63)

Le dévouement au roi est aussi, plus généralement, dévouement à la «patrie» qu’illustrent les paroles de Marius, appliquées à Duguay-Trouin, dont la «gloire» fait des envieux: «Vous m’enviez ma gloire; enviez-moi donc aussi mes travaux, mes dangers, mes combats; enviez-moi le sang que j’ai versé pour la patrie» (Éloge de Duguay-Trouin, p. 194). La valeur n’est pas uniquement militaire: devenant avocat, d’Aguesseau «devient l’organe des lois, et l’orateur de la patrie». Ses propos illustrent son dévouement «au bien public»: «Ô ma patrie, dit-il, je n’ai à t’offrir que ce que m’a donné la nature, une vie courte et passagère; mais j’en déposerai dans ton sein tous les instants. Reçois le serment que je fais de ne vivre que pour toi.» Ce que commente Thomas: «Ainsi d’Aguesseau se consacre solennellement à l’État» (Éloge de d’Aguesseau, pp. 64-65). C’est aussi un idéal de justice qui anime les «héros» que peint Thomas: si «comme guerrier», Sully «brave les menaces», «comme ministre, il écrase l’injustice» (Éloge de Sully, p. 32). Son souci de ne pas pressurer les «marchands, artisans, laboureurs et pasteurs» (ibid., n. 36, p. 78) en fait le protecteur des faibles et des malheureux. À l’instar de Caton, Brutus, Thraséas, Épictète, Marc Aurèle déclare aussi ne vouloir «faire que ce qui est juste» (Éloge de Marc Aurèle, p. 16). Il en résulte une nécessaire soumission aux lois: si quelqu’un s’avisait d’«avancer que le prince n’était pas soumis aux lois», Marc Aurèle lui aurait rétorqué: «Apprends que cette soumission m’honore; apprends que le pouvoir de faire ce qui est injuste, est une faiblesse» (ibid., p. 41). L’«Entretien de Marc Aurèle avec lui-même» livre encore certains de ses principes, au nombre desquels: «Il faut protéger la faiblesse; il faut enchaîner la force. Marc Aurèle, ne parle pas de délassements; il n’y en a plus pour toi, que lorsqu’il n’y aura plus sur la terre de malheureux ni de coupables» (ibid., p. 25). Une telle application au travail21 est aussi le fait de d’Aguesseau: «Puis-je me reposer», répond-il à celui qui lui conseillait de «prendre du repos», «tandis que je sais qu’il y a des hommes qui souffrent?» (Éloge de d’Aguesseau, n. h, p. 70). Cette qualité va de pair avec l’intégrité: d’Aguesseau «qui était si saintement avare du temps» n’en a pas à perdre en intrigues: «À Dieu ne plaise, dit-il, que j’occupe jamais la place d’un homme vivant». Le commentaire de Thomas souligne alors la 21

Chez Sully, «occupé à travailler devant une table toute couverte de lettres et de papiers», qui déclare se rendre à l’Arsenal «dès les trois heures du matin» (Éloge de Sully, n. 45, 85), l’ardeur au travail frise l’acharnement.

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«simplicité» d’une parole «sublime» en ce qu’elle révèle «un sentiment vertueux» (ibid., p. 102 et n. f). «Vertu […] rare» encore que ce «désintéressement» dont fait preuve Duguay-Trouin, animé du «même sentiment» qu’expriment les paroles de Pyrrhus «aux ambassadeurs de Rome qui lui offraient des richesses: Je ne suis pas un marchand, je suis un roi: je ne viens pas chercher de l’or, mais combattre avec le fer» (Éloge de Duguay-Trouin, n. r, p. 195). Désintéressement prolongé par l’idée de prodigalité: «on le vit prodiguer ses propres richesses pour récompenser la valeur de ses troupes», un «trait», rapporté en note venant illustrer la générosité du personnage (ibid., n. t, p. 197). Du reste, c’est aussi à sa simplicité que l’on reconnaît le héros. En témoignent ce que d’Aguesseau appelle «les beaux jours de sa vie» lorsque, pendant sa retraite, il se livre à des occupations livresques et champêtres (Éloge de d’Aguesseau, n. i, p. 108), de même que la frugalité de la table de Sully qui, lorsqu’on lui en faisait «des reproches», «répondait toujours par ces paroles d’un Ancien: Si les convives sont sages, il y en a suffisamment pour eux; s’ils ne le sont pas, je me passe sans peine de leur compagnie» (Éloge de Sully, n. 45, p. 85). C’est encore la modestie du personnage qu’apprécie Henri IV22, modestie que révèlent aussi les paroles de Maurice qui, à sa mort, veut que son corps disparaisse «afin qu’il ne reste rien de moi dans le monde, que ma mémoire parmi mes amis» (Éloge du comte de Saxe, n. p, p. 52). «Il est de grands hommes qui ne le sont que par les vertus: d’Aguesseau était destiné à l’être encore par les talents» (Éloge de d’Aguesseau, p. 63-64). L’accord des «vertus» et des «talents», qui apparaît encore chez Sully (Éloge de Sully, p. 50), résume cet ensemble de valeurs qui signent la «gloire» des personnages23. Or la célébration de ces valeurs correspond précisément à ce qui, selon l’Essai sur les éloges, doit être recherché dans le «genre actuel des éloges parmi nous»: Depuis un demi-siècle, il s’est fait parmi nous une espèce de révolution; on apprécie mieux la gloire; on juge mieux les hommes; on distingue les talents des succès; on sépare ce qui est utile de ce qui est éclatant et dangereux; on ne pardonne pas le génie sans la vertu; on respecte quelquefois la vertu sans la grandeur; on perce enfin à travers les dignités pour aller jusqu’à l’homme. (OC, t. IV, pp. 169170.)

De là ces «panégyriques des grands hommes» qui «offrent de grandes vertus à nos mœurs, ou de grands talents à notre faiblesse» que, dans sa sagesse, l’Académie française a substitués à ses «sujets anciens»: «Elle crut qu’il valait mieux présenter la vertu en action, que des lieux communs de morale, souvent usés» (ibid., p. 171). C’est du reste sous l’effet de l’enthousiasme que suscite en lui les «vertus» qu’il célèbre que le locuteur atteint une certaine éloquence: «Malheur à vous, si les intérêts des États, si les maux des hommes, si les remèdes à ces maux, si la vertu, si le génie, si tout ce qu’il y a de grand et de noble, vous laisse sans 22

Dans la bouche du roi, la «réponse modeste» de Sully est à la mesure de ses «actions signalées» (n. 11, 63). 23 Le terme est omniprésent: Éloge du comte de Saxe, n. p, 52; Éloge de Duguay-Trouin, 140, 158, 194, 205; Éloge de Sully, 6, 9, 10 et n. 12 et 13, 64, etc.

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émotion, et si en traitant tous ces objets vous pouvez vous défendre à vous-même d’être éloquent» (ibid., p. 176). Et c’est en rapportant les actes et les pensées des grands hommes que le locuteur trouve son inspiration: Faites agir ou penser les grands hommes; vous verrez naître vos idées en foule; vous les verrez s’arranger, se combiner, se réfléchir les unes sur les autres; vous verrez les principes marcher devant les actions, les actions éclairer les principes, les idées se fondre avec les faits, les réflexions générales sortir ou des succès, ou des obstacles, ou des moyens; vous verrez l’histoire, la politique, la morale, les arts et les sciences, tout ce système de connaissances liées dans votre tête, féconder à chaque pas votre imagination, et joindre partout, aux idées principales, une foule d’idées accessoires. (Ibid., pp. 180-181.)

Mais cette éloquence a vocation à être «utile»: «Qu’importe vos vains éloges pour les morts? C’est aux vivants qu’il faut parler; c’est dans leur âme qu’il faut aller remuer le germe de l’honneur et de la gloire […] présentez-leur sans cesse l’image des héros et des hommes utiles; que cette idée les réveille» (ibid, p. 186). Se pose toutefois la question de la modernité de ce système de valeurs, de cet ensemble de «vertus» prônées à travers les éloges qu’effectue Thomas. Justice, courage, tempérance, magnificence, libéralité, mansuétude, bon sens, sagesse: telles sont les qualités que Thomas reconnaît aux grands hommes qu’il célèbre; mais telles étaient aussi déjà les «vertus» que, selon Aristote, le discours démonstratif de l’éloge se devait de mettre en valeur24. On retrouve encore, dans la Rhétorique, le même rapport entre le «précepte» et l’éloge25, la même perspective orientée vers le présent, la même manière d’envisager ce que sont les «belles» choses qu’il s’agit de recueillir dans l’éloge: les choses «qui sont les signes de ce qu’on loue dans chaque classe d’individus». À ce titre, les paroles rapportées pourraient être considérées comme de tels «signes» étayant la valeur qu’il s’agit de célébrer. La parole serait ainsi à la fois indice servant à désigner les valeurs dont on veut assurer la promotion et composante esthétique du discours de l’éloge. Doit-on alors considérer les éloges de Thomas – notamment ceux destinés à concourir pour un prix de l’Académie – comme des exercices rhétoriques d’école26 dont la vocation première serait de se conformer aux règles codifiées du discours de l’éloge? Thomas met en scène une circulation de la parole qui rend le dispositif d’ensemble plus complexe. Certes, la parole rapportée peut occasionnellement prendre la forme d’un précepte, d’un «principe» ou d’une maxime qui véhicule un ensemble de valeurs; ainsi de cette formule exprimant le sens politique de Sully: «La multiplicité des offices, dit Sully, est la marque assurée de la décadence prochaine d’un État» (Éloge de Sully, n. 39, p. 80). Mais la parole se trouve alors relayée par le locuteur lui-même qui développe, à la suite de cette citation, une sorte de dissertation qui en illustre le bien-fondé. Le phénomène était d’ailleurs 24

Rhétorique, 1366b. «Lorsque tu veux louer, vois d’abord ce que tu poserais comme précepte, et lorsque tu veux énoncer un précepte, vois sur quoi porterait ton éloge» (ibid., 1368a). 26 On se souvient des critiques adressées par Grimm aux premiers éloges primés de Thomas. 25

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amorcé, dans la note précédente, avec les indices répétés d’une présence du locuteur («Je sais que… mais je sais bien aussi que… Je sais que… Je sais que…», ibid., n. 38, p. 80). Si le grand homme célébré est un «modèle»27, il appartient alors à l’auteur de l’éloge d’en transmettre la valeur à l’intention d’un destinataire dont l’identité est parfois explicitée. Au début de l’Éloge du Dauphin, Thomas affirme vouloir livrer «quelques vérités utiles à ceux qui comme lui sont destinés à gouverner» (p. 3), et il en vient, par la suite, à les apostropher: «Ô vous […] qui êtes destinés à régner», «apprenez par l’exemple de ce prince à vous instruire» (ibid., p. 25). C’est d’abord à Commode que s’adressent certains des propos tenus par Apollonius dans l’Éloge de Marc Aurèle: il suffit, pour en prendre conscience, de suivre le regard du locuteur («ici Apollonius fixa un moment les yeux sur le nouvel empereur», p. 27), mais aussi celui de la foule des auditeurs présents auquel le locuteur donne sens: «Fils de Marc Aurèle, s’écria Apollonius, ces regards tournés sur toi, te demandent si tu seras semblable à ton père28; n’oublie pas les larmes que tu vois couler» (p. 38). Apollonius ne tarde cependant pas à se tourner «vers le peuple», qui constitue l’autre destinataire du discours. Dans l’Éloge de d’Aguesseau, c’est aussi «à des citoyens et à des hommes» que Thomas «parle» (p. 60). C’est enfin «à la patrie» qu’il entend «rendre compte» des travaux du Dauphin, de ses pensées, mais aussi de «tout ce qu’il eût voulu faire pour la rendre heureuse» (Éloge du Dauphin, p. 3-4). Inversement, si le locuteur joue le rôle d’intermédiaire, de relais, c’est de la «renommée» ou de la «patrie» dont il se fait le porte-parole: «pour louer ce grand homme, je n’aurai besoin que d’écouter la renommée», déclare-t-il dans l’Éloge de Sully; «la voix des siècles et des nations me dictera ce que je dois écrire» (p. 2). Même dans l’Éloge du Dauphin, qui bénéficie d’un statut particulier en raison des circonstances de sa rédaction, Thomas fera entendre «la voix de la patrie et de la vérité» (p. 6) et, par opposition aux «éloges sacrés» des ministres de la religion, il ne se veut que «l’orateur de la patrie» (p. 64). On retrouve là l’idée, exprimée par J.-C. Bonnet, d’une concurrence entre l’éloge et l’éloquence de la chaire, Thomas se fixant pour horizon «l’âge d’or antérieur de la première éloquence civique»29: «Il serait à souhaiter que l’on continue ainsi les éloges de nos grands hommes», écrit Thomas dans son Essai sur les éloges. «Là, tous les états et tous les rangs trouveraient des modèles. Les vrais citoyens désireraient d’y obtenir une place. Cet honneur parmi nous suppléerait aux statues de l’ancienne Rome, aux arcs de triomphe de la Chine, aux mausolées de Westminster» (OC, t. IV, p. 171). En ce sens, la conformité éventuelle des éloges 27

D’Aguesseau est le «modèle des savants et des sages comme celui des magistrats» (Éloge de d’Aguesseau, 87); Sully «mérita de servir de modèle à la postérité» (Éloge de Sully, 24), ce qui explique la présence d’expressions comme «il ne faut pas que la postérité ignore que…» (ibid., 31). 28 À la fin de l’éloge, Apollonius s’adresse à nouveau au «fils de Marc Aurèle»: «je te parle au nom des dieux, au nom de l’univers qui t’est confié; je te parle pour le bonheur des hommes et pour le tien. Non, tu ne seras point insensible à une gloire si pure». La réponse tient en un geste: «Commode, qui était en habit de guerrier, agita sa lance d’une manière terrible» (Éloge de Marc Aurèle, 71-72). Chacun sait alors ce qu’il doit attendre du nouvel empereur. 29 J.-C. Bonnet, Naissance du Panthéon, 85.

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de Thomas avec des règles codifiées n’inviterait pas tant à réduire ces textes à des exercices de concours – ce qu’ils sont malgré tout, d’une certaine façon –, mais à en envisager les enjeux idéologiques qui s’affirment avec netteté lorsque les éloges ne s’inscrivent plus dans la perspective d’un prix littéraire.

III. DU BON USAGE DE LA RHÉTORIQUE L’importance de la fonction médiatrice du locuteur invite à envisager les rapports qui s’établissent entre parole rapportée et discours englobant. Apparaît alors un phénomène de redoublement du discours: le discours du locuteur invite le lecteur à suivre l’exemple du héros, tout en mettant en scène l’efficacité de sa parole. Dans l’Éloge de Marc Aurèle, la lecture, par Apollonius, de l’«Entretien de Marc Aurèle avec lui-même» donne lieu à plusieurs interruptions, notamment après que le vieil homme a lu le portrait, brossé par l’empereur, des «mauvais princes»: Ici le peuple se mit à crier, jamais, jamais. Mille voix s’élevèrent ensemble. L’un disait: tu as été notre père; un autre, tu ne souffris jamais d’oppresseurs; d’autres, tu as soulagé tous nos maux; et des milliers d’hommes à la fois, nous t’avons béni, nous te bénissons. Ô sage, ô clément, ô juste empereur, que ta mémoire soit sainte, qu’elle soit adorée à jamais. Elle le sera, reprit Apollonius, et le sera dans tous les siècles: mais c’est en s’effrayant lui-même des maux qu’il aurait pu vous causer, qu’il est parvenu à vous rendre heureux, et à mériter ces acclamations qui retentissent sur sa tombe. Écoutez ce qu’il ajoute. (p. 24.)

L’épisode met ainsi en scène l’efficacité pragmatique d’une parole – c’est au défunt Marc Aurèle que s’adresse le peuple – parole dont le locuteur se fait le relais. Les éloges de Thomas proposent encore d’autres mises en scènes, notamment celle qui sous-tend le passage de l’«admiration» à l’«imitation». Le personnage devient héros en imitant les grands hommes qui l’ont précédé, ou en se formant à leur contact. C’est ainsi que d’Aguesseau fréquente les écrits des grands hommes de l’Antiquité et, «en les admirant, apprend à les imiter» (Éloge de d’Aguesseau, p. 95). Régulus, Fabrice, Scipion, Épictète, Sénèque et Thraséas apparaissent en songe à Marc Aurèle et, par la suite, c’est Caton qui s’adresse à lui: «ne nous plains pas, mais imite-nous» (Éloge de Marc Aurèle, p. 31). Henri IV fait encore figure de Mentor lorsqu’il invite Sully à le suivre afin, explique-t-il, «que vous puissiez apprendre votre métier» (Éloge de Sully, n. 11, p. 63). À son tour, le lecteur, dont l’admiration a été suscitée, est enjoint à imiter l’exemple du héros: «Imitez Maurice dans ses études» (Éloge du comte de Saxe, p. 21), déclare le locuteur qui souhaite également, à propos de Duguay-Trouin, «que son exemple puisse enfanter des héros» (Éloge de Duguay-Trouin, p. 204). Ailleurs, Thomas insiste sur la dynamique de l’émulation, par exemple lorsqu’il évoque l’effet que produit sur Duguay-Trouin le souvenir de Rhuiter: Le pavillon de Flessingue a frappé ses regards; Flessingue, patrie de Rhuiter! Il croit voir ce grand homme, il se le représente, non point chargé d’honneur, non point décoré par l’Espagne de tous les titres de la grandeur: il le voit montant par sa valeur des derniers rangs aux premiers, dispersant ses triomphes

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PAROLES ÉDIFIANTES: LES ÉLOGES D’ANTOINE-LÉONARD THOMAS sur toutes les mers; il le voit mourant pour son pays. Cette image l’enflamme. Il combat: trois vaisseaux fuient, le plus redoutable succombe et reconnaît son vainqueur. (Ibid., pp. 140-141)

D’abord illusion («Il croit voir») puis représentation mentale consciemment élaborée («il se le représente») devenant vision («il le voit»), l’«image» du grand homme est ce qui «enflamme», ce qui invite au dépassement de soi, alors même que le locuteur, qui construit cette représentation exemplaire, en vient, en note, à prôner son efficacité: «Puisse un pareil exemple exciter l’émulation chez tous les peuples où le nom de Rhuiter sera connu» (ibid., n. o). L’efficacité de la voix est, quant à elle, thématisée dans un épisode où Sully, blessé, n’est plus en mesure de prendre part au combat: sa «tête» peut néanmoins continuer de «servir son prince» et «sa voix peut enflammer les troupes» (Éloge de Sully, p. 10). Thomas évoque encore «l’image redoutable de la postérité» qui «crie» au jeune prince: «C’est ici que tu auras toi-même place, c’est ici qu’un jour tu dois être jugé» (Éloge du Dauphin, p. 16). Le contexte a son importance: il vient d’être question de «l’histoire», présentée comme «un vaste et immense mausolée» dans lequel le jeune prince peut «voir écrit sur chacune des urnes royales le jugement des nations et de la renommée», c’est-à-dire ce dont l’auteur du texte s’affirme être le porteparole et sans doute aussi ce que transmet l’éloge. Par différentes mises en scènes Thomas livre une défense et une illustration du pouvoir de la parole éloquente de l’éloge sur celui auquel elle s’adresse. C’est dire l’efficacité escomptée d’un discours conçu comme support de valeurs, de valeurs porteuses d’une charge idéologique, mais aussi de valeurs s’inscrivant contre de fausses valeurs qui deviennent alors objets de satire. La célébration des vertus du grand homme tourne ainsi à la satire de la cour, occasionnellement élargie à la censure du siècle. C’est ainsi, par exemple, que l’intégrité signalée de d’Aguesseau vaut aussi comme dénonciation de l’arrivisme des courtisans tenaillés par l’ambition: «Que ceux que cette passion dévore briguent à force de bassesse l’honneur de s’élever; qu’ils jouent le rôle d’esclaves, pour parvenir un jour à être tyrans; qu’ils prostituent leur dignité, pour obtenir le droit de déshonorer l’État dans une grande place: ces moyens ne sont pas faits pour d’Aguesseau» (Éloge de d’Aguesseau, p. 102). «La fierté noble et la franchise guerrière d’un héros intéresse plus, sans doute, l’âme d’un grand roi, que des hommages de courtisans», écrit aussi Thomas dans l’Éloge de Duguay-Trouin (n. a, p. 158), qui présente aussi la cour comme un «pays où l’ambition étouffe l’amitié même»: dans un tel contexte, commente l’auteur, la générosité dont fait preuve Duguay-Trouin, quoiqu’elle ne soit que «juste», doit «paraître grande» en raison de «la corruption de nos mœurs» (ibid., pp. 196-197). Des propos de Henri IV apportent une touche finale à la dérision d’une noblesse qui vient «étaler à la cour des habits magnifiques»: «Il riait de ceux […] qui portaient, disait-il, leurs moulins et leurs bois de haute futaie sur le dos» (Éloge de Sully, n. 38, pp. 79-80)30. C’est encore parce qu’«on l’arracha de Rome et de la cour» que Marc Aurèle s’est 30

On a vu aussi que la frugalité de Sully contraste avec le luxe de la cour.

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formé, loin des «vices» et d’un «faste» et d’un «luxe» corrupteurs, «une âme qui devait être austère et pure»: «Loin de Rome, il apprit à faire un jour le bonheur de Rome. Loin de la cour, il mérita d’y revenir pour commander» (Éloge de Marc Aurèle, pp. 10-11). La cour est aussi l’endroit où un héros comme Duguay-Trouin est en butte à l’envie des «hommes lâches et vains» qui osent «se vanter des actions de leurs ancêtres» sans lui pardonner «d’avoir fait les siennes» (Éloge de Duguay-Trouin, pp. 193-194). Le discours se charge ainsi occasionnellement d’une portée politique lorsque se trouve, par exemple, mis en avant le mérite individuel contre la noblesse du sang. Si Duguay-Trouin est «annoncé» à Versailles, ce n’est ni par «le faste de l’opulence», ni par «les noms de ses ancêtres», ni par «ses titres», mais bien par «ses exploits» (ibid., p. 159). «La véritable noblesse est de servir l’État», signalait Thomas plus haut: «le sang qui coule pour la patrie est toujours noble» (ibid., p. 128). C’est du reste afin d’«honorer son mérite» que le roi du Danemark a donné à Rhuiter «une pension, et des lettres de noblesse» (ibid., n. o, p. 140). À la mort de Maurice, Louis XV donne aussi «à ses sujets l’exemple d’honorer ce grand homme»: «On prodigua à sa cendre tous ces honneurs funèbres, si vains lorsqu’ils ne sont accordés qu’aux titres et à la naissance, si respectables lorsque c’est un hommage que la reconnaissance rend au mérite» (Éloge du comte de Saxe, n. p, p. 52). Un semblable prestige ressort des propos d’Apollonius: «Gardons-nous, Romains, d’outrager la vertu jusqu’à croire qu’elle ait besoin de la naissance» (Éloge de Marc Aurèle, p. 7). C’est cette même «vertu» à laquelle aspire le Dauphin, soucieux de «montrer à la terre» la «ligue de tous les hommes vertueux pour faire le bonheur d’une nation». Au terme de la longue tirade prêtée à son personnage, Thomas reprend: «Croit-on qu’avec de tels sentiments, il regardât les honneurs, le rang ou la naissance comme un droit qui dispense d’être vertueux?» (Éloge du Dauphin, p. 39.) Au cours de cet éloge, explicitement adressé au futur Louis XVI, le destinataire est invité à «apprendre à s’instruire par l’exemple» du Dauphin (ibid., p. 25). Il lui faudra ainsi chercher «partout la vérité», à l’instar de celui qui conjurait «ses amis de ne pas le traiter comme prince: offrez-moi, leur dit-il, la vérité sans détour, si vous m’en croyez digne» (ibid., p. 42). Ses propos explicitent encore certaines des «leçons» que le Dauphin «voulait qu’on donnât» à ses enfants: «Conduisez mes enfants, disait-il, dans la chaumière du paysan; montrez-leur tout ce qui peut les attendrir; qu’ils voient le pain noir dont se nourrit le pauvre; qu’ils touchent de leurs mains la paille qui leur sert de lit. Je veux qu’ils apprennent à pleurer. Un prince qui n’a jamais versé de larmes ne peut être bon» (ibid., p. 59). Un tel souci du peuple animait encore Henri IV, à en juger par les dernières paroles qui sont rapportées au moment de sa mort: «je ne nierai pas que je n’aie regret de sortir de la vie sans avoir témoigné à mes peuples que je les aime comme s’ils étaient mes enfants […] en les gouvernant avec douceur» (Éloge de Sully, n. 50, p. 89). Certains discours ne sont pas exempts de partis pris polémiques. La qualité de Marc Aurèle permet à Thomas d’effectuer, à travers les paroles d’Apollonius qui se désigne lui-même comme «un vieillard qui depuis quatre-vingts ans étudie la vertu, et cherche à la pratiquer», un éloge de la «philosophie»: 40

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PAROLES ÉDIFIANTES: LES ÉLOGES D’ANTOINE-LÉONARD THOMAS Quel est ce nom sacré dans certains siècles, et abhorré dans d’autres; objet tour à tour et du respect et de la haine; que quelques princes ont persécuté avec fureur, que d’autres ont placé à côté d’eux sur le trône? Romains, oserai-je louer la philosophie dans Rome, où tant de fois les philosophes ont été calomniés, d’où ils ont été bannis tant de fois? […] C’est ici que nos livres ont été consumés par les flammes. C’est ici que notre sang a coulé sous les poignards. […] Quoi donc! la philosophie serait-elle l’ennemie des hommes et le fléau des États? […] La philosophie est l’art d’éclairer les hommes et de les rendre meilleurs. C’est la morale universelle des peuples et des rois, fondée sur la nature et sur l’ordre éternel. Regardez ce tombeau: celui que vous pleurez était un sage: la philosophie sur le trône a fait vingt ans le bonheur du monde. (Éloge de Marc Aurèle, pp. 13-15.)

Même si Thomas prend soin de rappeler sans cesse le contexte romain, ce plaidoyer en faveur d’une philosophie calomniée et persécutée n’est pas sans rapports avec la situation qui est encore en partie celle de ceux qui se désignent volontiers comme des «philosophes» des Lumières. Plus loin, Marc Aurèle est encore présenté comme celui qui «veut placer avec lui sur le trône la morale et les lumières» (ibid., pp. 57-58). Thomas entendrait-il «se monter au ton de quelquesuns de nos philosophes modernes pour en obtenir les suffrages»? Le propos émane de l’abbé Coger, à propos de l’Éloge du Dauphin qui donne aussi lieu à une réception contrastée. Dans l’Examen qu’il fait paraître en juillet 1766 dans les Mémoires de Trévoux, Coger regrette ainsi que seule une portion congrue soit accordée par Thomas à la religiosité du Dauphin qui n’est guère évoquée qu’au milieu d’«une description pompeuse de la religion naturelle»31. Si les avis sont parfois très virulents dans le camp des philosophes32, on ne s’étonnera pas que ce soit la question religieuse qui ait intéressé Voltaire, et tout particulièrement une parole prêtée au Dauphin: «Ah! dit-il plus d’une fois, ne persécutons point» (Éloge du Dauphin, p. 67). Voltaire écrit ainsi à Gabriel Cramer, vers le 5 avril 1766 (D 13239): «J’ai lu le panégyrique delphinois, ce qui m’a fait le plus plaisir, c’est que le Dauphin disait: ‘Ne persécutons personne’». On trouve un écho de ces «paroles remarquables» dans le Petit commentaire sur l’éloge du Dauphin composé par M. Thomas que Voltaire fait paraître en 1766: Ces mots ont pénétré dans mon cœur; je me suis écrié: Quel sera le malheureux qui osera être persécuteur, quand l’héritier d’un grand royaume a déclaré qu’il ne faut pas l’être? Ce prince savait que la persécution n’a jamais produit que du mal; il avait lu beaucoup: la philosophie avait percé jusqu’à lui. Le plus grand bonheur d’un État monarchique est que le prince soit éclairé. […] Le descendant et l’héritier de trente rois a dit: Ne persécutons point; et un bourgeois d’une ville ignorée, un habitué de paroisse, un moine dirait: Persécutons! Ravir aux hommes la liberté de penser! juste ciel! Tyrans fanatiques, commencez donc par nous couper les mains, qui peuvent écrire; arrachez-nous la langue, qui parle contre vous; arrachez-nous l’âme, qui n’a pour vous que des sentiments d’horreur. […]

31

Cité par J.-C. Bonnet, Naissance du Panthéon, 77. Voir, en particulier, dans la Correspondance littéraire, le jugement de Diderot qui déclare que «jamais l’art de la parole n’a été si indignement prostitué» (t. VII, 17). Également cité par J.-C. Bonnet, Naissance du Panthéon, 78.

32

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OLIVIER FERRET Répétons donc mille fois avec un Dauphin tant regretté: «Ne persécutons personne»33.

On mesure le chemin parcouru depuis la mise au concours de l’éloge de d’Aguesseau. Les 7/8 mai [1761], Voltaire écrit ainsi à D’Alembert (D 9771): «Notre foutue Académie a donné pour sujet de son prix, les louanges d’un chancelier janséniste, persécuteur de toute vérité, mauvais cartésien, ennemi de Neuton, faux savant et faux honnête homme. Passe pour le maréchal de Saxe qui aimait les filles et qui ne persécutait personne. Je suis indigné de tout ce qui m’est revenu de Paris. Je ne connais que vous qui puissiez venger la raison». On mesure aussi l’enjeu du renouvellement du genre de l’éloge: «on lit beaucoup moins d’oraisons funèbres», déclare Thomas dans l’Essai sur les éloges: «les dédicaces deviennent rares; elles ne s’ennoblissent que lorsque la philosophie sait parler avec dignité à la grandeur, ou lorsque la reconnaissance s’entretient avec l’amitié» (OC, t. IV, p. 170). C’est ce que perçoit Voltaire dans l’Éloge du Dauphin: «Il y a de l’éloquence et de la philosophie», écrit-il à Damilaville le 4 avril 1766 (D 13234). Mais il remarquait déjà que l’Éloge de Sully comportait «de bien belles choses» (au cardinal de Bernis, 6 janvier 1764, D 11623). Insérées dans un énoncé qui, en raison des circonstances qui en justifient la production, s’inscrit au cœur d’un protocole commémoratif, les paroles rapportées ont pour but premier de rendre présent – et d’abord audible – le personnage dont Thomas fait l’éloge. Il en résulte un effet de théâtralisation qui complexifie encore la définition générique d’un type de texte qui recourt aux procédés de la narration historique et de l’art oratoire. Toutefois, à envisager l’ensemble des éloges de Thomas, ces paroles visent peut-être moins à conférer une dimension singularisante à la représentation d’un individu qu’à mettre l’accent sur la dimension exemplaire d’un personnage qui incarne «la vertu en action». Mais si les valeurs mises en avant, tout comme, plus généralement, la vocation du texte à l’utilité, entretiennent d’évidentes accointances avec les objectifs que la tradition rhétorique, depuis Aristote, a assignés au genre de l’éloge, le dispositif mis en œuvre par Thomas organise un discours adressé qui présente occasionnellement une forte orientation idéologique. De l’exercice académique au texte militant, l’évolution de la portée de tels éloges n’a pas échappé aux contemporains et reflète l’accomplissement des transformations des discours académiques analysées par J.-C. Bonnet. Les paroles édifiantes que fait entendre Thomas deviennent alors conjointement célébration du passé, satire du présent mais aussi, et peut-être d’abord, ouverture sur l’avenir.

33

Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, éd. L. Moland (Paris, Garnier, 1877-1885), t. 25, 471-475.

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CULTURAL SITES OF HISTORICAL WRITING. PERSPECTIVES ON RHETORIC, PRACTICE AND POLITICS INTRODUCTION Henning Trüper, Niklas Olsen

This collection of papers was conceived of at the European University Institute. The various contributions were presented and discussed over the course of an academic term, in the framework of a research project and seminar on ‘The Production of Historical Writing’, led by Professor Bo Stråth and EUI researchers Niklas Olsen and Henning Trüper. The seminar aimed at examining the practices and politics of doing history, usually in academic settings, from a wide variety of viewpoints. Organised around thematic clusters, the discussion concentrated on various European countries, in particular Denmark and Belgium, Germany and Italy, covering the period from the late nineteenth century until the aftermath of the Second World War. This relative temporal breadth was chosen consciously in order to gain some degree of independence from established periodisations. The common aim of the participants was to open up new perspectives on the complex cultural settings in which historical knowledge was produced, during a key period in the history of the discipline. The study of historical cultures, a field that has rapidly expanded over the course of recent years, has focused predominantly on the political uses of discourses and images, commemorations and memories, emotions and experiences with respect to the past. In comparison, the history of the scholarly discipline of history has been neglected. A prime ambition of the present collection is to contribute to overcoming this relative isolation of historiography. The papers presented here seek for crossover and transfer between different areas involved in historical writing. They try to explain aspects of historiography by means of establishing connections, rather than from a firmly grounded standpoint. Hence, as an ensemble they question the idea of a clearly definable, unvarying and everpresent epistemological centre of the production of historical knowledge, from which an irrelevant periphery can simply be excluded. Moreover, they share the premise that transgressions of the existing research boundaries may best be achieved by addressing historiographical matters in terms of case studies not taking their vantage points from established large-scale narratives. This is, then, the point of departure from which the texts attempt a cultural broadening of historiography, placing it firmly in the study of historical cultures. Historical writing is textual work, that is to say, it is intellectual in some way or other, and based on the mastery, not only of language, but of specific vocabularies and modes of rhetoric. Such patterns of discourse are always based on ideas about 43


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HENNING TRÜPER, NIKLAS OLSEN

epistemology and method that provide resources of reasoning and structuring text. Beyond what is made explicit, there is always implicit, practical knowledge involved, concerning the practice of scholarly work as well as the ethics thereof. Indeed, historical writing goes hand in hand with a wide variety of intuitions and emotions, images and norms. These do not pertain to the historical past alone, but also to the present of the discipline. To a considerable extent, scholars of history depend on an unsystematic, exemplary and anecdotal knowledge of the work of colleagues and predecessors. Two papers in the collection directly address matters of writing. Jeppe Nevers studies how the notion of source criticism became, and has remained, a ‘key concept’ among Danish historians. He finds remarkably rigid linguistic patterns, renewing themselves through almost ritualised revisionist critique, with application to only a very minuscule portion of historical work, and text. Thus, it seems as if the Danish case suggests that the core of methodological debate among historians can itself be regarded as a cultural matter, a symbolic discourse, determining historical writing. Henning Trüper explores a more narrowly conceived case, that of the practical knowledge on which the Belgian mediaevalist François Louis Ganshof drew in his writings. The focus here is on different notions of representing time in textual form, as apparent in the use of anachronisms and narrative orders. These notions pertain directly to the very conception of history in Ganshof’s œuvre. The paper makes a case for their contingency, changeability, and dependency on local, culturally informed situations. Individual working processes take place in a twisted and intricate framework of tacit knowledge, of practices, standards and rules. Many of these derive directly from the social world of academics, a world apart, but far from being entirely selfenclosed. Two papers in the collection examine this general area, if in divergent ways. Thomas Etzemüller brings the social frame directly into the centre of historical thought, in the case of the German historian Werner Conze. Relying on Ludwik Fleck’s variant of social constructivism in the theory of science, Etzemüller elucidates the social dynamics in which Conze’s scholarly persona, consisting of a ‘style of thought’, a social habitus and a position of power within the discipline were crafted and maintained. The social ‘making’ of the historian emerges as an indispensable notion for understanding the history of historical writing. Jo Tollebeek approaches matters very differently. In his study of Paul Fredericq, a key protagonist of philological editing and professional teamwork in Belgium, he analyses how ethical and affective notions dominated the scholar’s collaboration with his co-workers. The meticulous reconstruction, based upon Fredericq’s diaries, allows for rare insights into the ‘laboratory’ of a historian, full of ‘micropolitical’ power arrangements, where personal emotions, politics, family matters, pre-shaped plot lines of conflict and, optionally, reconciliation, shaped scientific practice. In the settings of historical writing, one enjoys particular prominence: historical cultures in modern European societies have always been connected intimately with political cultures. This is hardly surprising. Representations of history have been, and are still, instrumental, for various kinds of political purposes or modes of 44


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CULTURAL SITES OF HISTORICAL WRITING. INTRODUCTION

communication, and much historical writing has been produced, be it with affirmative, be it with critical intentions towards broader societal uses of the past. Accordingly, the political aspects of historical writing, as well as historical cultures more generally, have dominated debates. Yet, the status of these aspects remains unclear. The segmentation of the field has led to a somewhat impoverished notion of the political significance of history. Historiographers are often content with the detection of mere ideology, whereas scholars focusing on the political uses of the past in collective memory predominantly stress various ways of constructing national identities, but often do not relate these to the more elaborate ideas of scholarly history. This incongruence is a clear symptom of the difficulties that beset the insertion of historical writing into the study of historical cultures. We suggest that there are in fact many different things in writing history that are ‘political’ in some sense or other. Simultaneously, similar varieties exist in historical cultures more broadly conceived. The political in these fields is protean; it is shaped by distance and proximity to concrete political conflicts, or arrangements; it is shaped by efforts of community formation at various levels; and it takes different forms on different occasions. In some varieties, it seems present in the personal experiences and working habits of historians; at the same time, in a different sense, it seems strangely absent in the midst of ideological debate. Everywhere, the political in historical writing is spun into webs of practices, ‘scientific’ and other notions and beliefs, ethical dispositions, and so on. Hence, in our eyes, ‘the political’ in doing history is a promising, perhaps even a privileged area, where historiography and the examination of historical cultures converge. In light of these considerations, the two remaining papers of the collection address the political dimensions of historical writing. Marnix Beyen explores the reactions with which professional historians in the Netherlands and Belgium greeted the advent of an unprecedented, ‘hyperbolic’ historical culture during the Second World War. A soaring public interest in publications about national history, as well as pressure from the side of the German occupiers to redefine national identities, was met with favourable responses by some historians. The mainstream of academic scholars, however, remained dismissive; the professionalism of the disciplines was forced to react, if negatively, by accommodating as well as rejecting the pressures of the situation. Finally, Patricia Chiantera-Stutte follows the intellectual trajectory of the Italian philosopher and historian Delio Cantimori, by presenting another case of the ‘making’ of a historian, entirely determined by political decisions. An ardent admirer of Gentile’s Fascist philosophy, Cantimori ‘converted’ from Fascism to Communism in the 1930s, and relinquished Communism for an a-political attitude in the 1950s. These ‘conversions’ coincided with a transition from philosophical to historical thought, and work, yet some ideas remained resiliently continuous, ensuring the presence of ‘the political’, in some abstract form, in his work as a historian. Cantimori’s case is perhaps emblematic for how political culture and historical writing interact: as areas of transit, back and forth, inseparable, in spite of frequent attempts to fence them off from each other. 45

046-057 T. Etzemüller (n. 53)

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HOW TO MAKE A HISTORIAN. PROBLEMS IN WRITING BIOGRAPHIES OF HISTORIANS

Thomas Etzemüller

In the 1960s, the Institute for Scientific Film in Göttingen started to produce a series of films about German historians such as Hans Rothfels, Percy Ernst Schramm, Hermann Heimpel or Theodor Schieder. The scholars were filmed lecturing at the university, presenting their private homes or talking about their work. In 1965, the institute also asked Gerhard Ritter, one of the most influential historians in Germany at the time, to participate in the project. Ritter was reluctant. He discussed the issue stating: «But for me it is somehow unpleasant to see my expression and my way of speaking to be fixed at such occasions [i.e. on film]. A professor should be effective by his texts, which must speak for themselves. But he should not, so to speak, enter the scene and show off in front of unknown and invisible spectators. The personal is unimportant, the scientific work only is important»1. This position is still predictable for many historians, especially for those writing biographies of historians. Most of these can be classified as intellectual biographies. First of all, they concentrate on historians who have been important for the historical field in one way or another. Secondly, they focus on the scientific and intellectual work, i.e. on texts and thoughts. It is only in recent years that the politics of science have also been taken into account. For a long time these politics were regarded as a contaminant of ‘pure science’. Thirdly, the private life of historians rarely receives any attention and is usually considered as being relatively unimportant. Usually, a biographer will at least mention the fact that the relevant historian has been married and will provide the name of the spouse. But, in most standard biographies, the private life does not amount to much more than that. It is silently assumed that personal lifestyles do not have any influence on the scientific work. In the prevailing scheme, becoming a historian follows a successive pattern of being born, living through a rather sketchily documented childhood and adolescence, going to school, studying at a university, receiving a doctorate, writing a Habilitation-thesis, and, finally, obtaining a professorship. This can be a difficult path, but it is in the first instance a purely intellectual process; a kind of ‘standard transition’ from being a talented child to working as a fully educated professional. Last, but not least, many ordinary biographies are based on a specific model of individuality. For most historians an individual is a physical and 1

Institut für den wissenschaftlichen Film, Göttingen, Filmdokumente zur Zeitgeschichte. G 106/1967: Gerhard Ritter, Freiburg i. Br. 1966. Beiheft (Göttingen, 1967), 113 (my translation).

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psychological entity, existing between birth and death. This entity is unequivocally marked by a proper name; it differs clearly from other individuals; and it is conceived as the opposite to ‘the mass’ or ‘social structures’, respectively. It experiences the world, assimilates it, and then acts in order to attain a goal. In principle the individual acts in an autonomous, self-determined, reflecting and intentional fashion, though ‘structures’ or the Zeitgeist may have some impact on its intellectual being, even if it is not a determining factor. In short, an individual is a real subject (not an object of any kind), and so too are historians2. This may seem rather short and unfair a summary of biographical work in general, and needless to say, there are many biographers who strive to overcome such a straightforward and outdated model of subjectivity – but usually not in the field of the history of historiography3. In this field most biographers present their heroes as individuals who exist, it seems, only for science, and the production of texts. These biographers draw a clear distinction between ‘subject’ and ‘object’, or between ‘private life’ and ‘intellectual work’. Usually, they do not reflect on the problems such tempting constructions pose – tempting, because in everyday life these distinctions are convincing, as we all know. So, why not write biographies in the same way in which we experience life and the world in general?4 I. In the following pages, I will outline an alternative model of writing the biographies of historians. This framework focuses on the problem of becoming a historian. I will argue, similarly to Ludwik Fleck, Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu5, that the social life of historians is inextricably intertwined with being a 2

Cf. some of the latest biographies, following this model: C. Cornelißen, Gerhard Ritter. Geschichtswissenschaft und Politik im 20. Jahrhundert (Düsseldorf, 2001); E. Mühle, Für Volk und deutschen Osten. Der Historiker Hermann Aubin und die deutsche Ostforschung (Düsseldorf, 2005). These, along with some other biographies, are counted as important works in their field and clearly, at least for the immediate future, will be seen as the conclusive biographies on these historians. They represent the methodological mainstream: resting on excellent research, and moderately adjusted to new trends in historiography, but not very innovative. 3 I ignore exceptions such as those of Jan Eckel, Ulrich Raulff or Lutz Raphael. See J. Eckel, Hans Rothfels. Eine intellektuelle Biographie im 20. Jahrhundert (Göttingen, 2005); L. Raphael, Die Erben von Bloch und Febvre. Annales-Geschichtsschreibung und nouvelle histoire in Frankreich 1945-1980 (Stuttgart, 1994); U. Raulff, Ein Historiker im 20. Jahrhundert: Marc Bloch (Frankfurt am Main, 1995). 4 Its not only German historians that are affected by this model: cf. G. Eriksson, «Att inte skilja på sak och person. Ett utkast till ett utkast till en biografisk metod», in Att skriva människan. Essäer om biografin som livshistoria och vetenskaplig genre, eds. R. Ambjörnsson, P. Ringby, S. Åkerman (Stockholm, 1997), 103-120; D. Ellis, Literary Lives. Biography and the Search for Understanding (Edinburgh, 2000); P. R. Backscheider, Reflections on Biography (Oxford, 1999); G. Bernler, A. Bjerkman, Den sociala biografin (Göteborg, 1990). 5 Cf. T. Etzemüller, «‘Ich sehe das, was Du nicht siehst’. Zu den theoretischen Grundlagen geschichtswissenschaftlicher Arbeit», in Neue Ansätze der Geschichte der Geschichtswissenschaft, eds. J. Eckel, T. Etzemüller (Göttingen, 2007), 27-68, for a combination and application of these theorists to the theory (and historiography) of history.

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historian, i.e. behaving, thinking and speaking as a specific subject, as a historian, and not, for example, as a politician or an architect. Firstly, however, I want to briefly mention some of the fundamental problems connected to the biographical genre6. The theoretical debate about writing biographies (which is known as Biographieforschung in German) rests on four main points: 1. A coherent life-story of an individual does not simply depict a coherent real life. In reality, biography is a particular kind of literary genre, a narrative structure, giving a specific form to the life of an individual. 2. There is no correspondence between one life, one person and one biography. Instead the story of an individual’s life consists of several biographical drafts, or fragments, depending on the context in which different kinds of biographies are drafted. The biographical needs of administrations are different to those of publishers, or to those of Internet homepages in the field of science. A welfare office systematically investigates people’s personal difficulties by writing a Problembiographie (a biography consisting only of social problems): whereas a publisher or a homepage sometimes transforms a complex life into a clear and concise success story, downplaying or even omitting inconsistencies, such as phases of unemployment. One and the same person produces biographies which, in the most extreme case, can hardly fit into a single coherent form. So, which biography represents the true one? And, is it sufficient for a biographer to combine all possible biographies in order to attain the most authoritative work? 3. If people’s lives are really fragmented, and divided into phases of different roles, then individuals can appear to be totally different, depending on which context they are entering. Then, is it legitimate to write one biography? And, what if a biographer does not know that two persons in fact are one; like, for example, the case of the National Socialist Hans Schneider and the liberal German philologist Hans Schwerte? Only recently both have been identified as the biographical entity ‘Schneider/Schwerte’7. Of course it is the biographer’s role to combine the various fragments of information in order to arrive at an understanding of the entirety of the life of an individual. This is constitutive of the genre. On the other hand, this construction tends to neglect very important aspects of an individual’s life – for example, the everyday fragmentation of life. It seems difficult to make this kind of fragmentation understandable by means of a classical biography. And, it is problematic to streamline a fragmented life into the personal life-story of one entity. 6

For more detailed discussion on this see, T. Etzemüller, «Die Form ‘Biographie’ als Modus der Geschichtsschreibung. Überlegungen zum Thema Biographie und Nationalsozialismus», in Regionen im Nationalsozialismus, eds. M. Ruck, K. H. Pohl, (Bielefeld, 2003), 71-90. 7 C. Leggewie, Von Schneider zu Schwerte. Das ungewöhnliche Leben eines Mannes, der aus der Geschichte lernen wollte (München, 1998). Hans Schneider was a National Socialist hardliner who, after 1945, changed his identity and reappeared as Hans Schwerte. He eventually became a professor at the University of Aachen, and was known as a very liberal teacher. In 1995 his fake identity was uncovered. He now counts as an extreme example for the transformation of many Germans who first supported the dictatorship and then turned into more or less convincing (and convinced) democrats.

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THOMAS ETZEMÜLLER

4. There is no single trajectory between life and biography. On the contrary, biographical narratives also affect ‘real life’. We all know that success stories provide plotlines that have extraordinary power in the production, on the part of individuals as well as their social environments, of successful lives. Similarly, the plotlines of administrative problem-biographies heavily affect the personal chances of given individuals, whose lives are transformed into mere cases of particular social deficiencies, calling for administrative intervention. Thus, biography seems to exist as a narrative genre and as its product. Not one biography fits one life; instead several biographical fragments are combined in a very complex manner. To write someone’s life-story in the format of a classical biography therefore cannot be seen as a self-evident approach any longer. In this analysis, I will not deal with several other problems, for example the shifting and unclear meaning of terms as ‘subject’, ‘individual’ or ‘person’8, or the differences between biography, collective biography, autobiography, or life-story. Instead, I will presuppose the ‘person’ as representing a biological entity in the same way in which we experience ourselves, and each other. I will also assume that the social entity, the ‘subject’, has to be formed by social processes. This is a somewhat problematic distinction, but it allows me to concentrate on social processes and their observation in the biographical mode. The question is: how did a child by the name of Werner become the important historian Werner Conze? How did the somewhat disoriented student of art history, Werner Conze, become a professional historian? And how did the student of history, by undergoing a process of professionalisation, become a professor of history, i. e. a fully fledged member of the Zunft, the ‘historian’s brotherhood’? I base my argument on three very useful theories which I will briefly outline here. Ludwik Fleck developed a theory that related modes of scientific observation to social relations between scientists. From his viewpoint scientists do not simply observe facts. Instead, in a complex social process they are socialised by so-called ‘thought collectives’. With social interaction, the members of a collective learn to see ‘facts’ in the same way, as a specific Gestalt. At the same time, they loose the ability to observe things in a different way. So there is no observing of things ‘as they are’, because no one knows how things are. Everyone in this collective sees the world through the filter of a particular ‘thought-style’9. Michel Foucault10 and Pierre Bourdieu11 have analysed how subjects are 8

Cf. N. Luhmann, «Individuum, Individualität, Individualismus», in N. Luhmann, Gesellschaftsstruktur und Semantik. Studien zur Wissenssoziologie der modernen Gesellschaft, vol. 3, (Frankfurt am Main, 1989), 149-258; N. Luhmann, «Die Form ‘Person’», in N. Luhmann, Soziologische Aufklärung 6. Die Soziologie und der Mensch, (Opladen, 1995), 142-154. 9 L. Fleck, The Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact (Chicago, 1979). 10 M. Foucault, Madness and Civilisation. A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason (London, 2001); M. Foucault, Discipline and Punish. The Birth of the Prison ((New York 1995); L. H. Martin, H. Gutman, P. H. Hutton (eds.), Technologies of the Self. A Seminar with Michel Foucault (London, 1988). 11 P. Bourdieu, Distinction. A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (Cambridge/MA, 1984); P. Bourdieu, Homo academicus (Cambridge, 1990); P. Bourdieu, Meditationen. Zur Kritik der scholastischen Vernunft (Frankfurt am Main, 1997), 165-209.

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constituted in the fields of knowledge, power, moral, and taste. Psychiatry constructs individuals as being rational or insane, medicine as healthy or ill, economics as profitable or unproductive, education as intelligent or stupid, and so on. Some unspecific form of human life undergoes the process of becoming a subject, assuming the form of a human individual. Thereby, it is provided with specific abilities to affect others – for example, the authority of scientific speech as an academic, or the moral power as a priest, or the command as a military officer. At the same time, an individual is shaped by the so-called ‘technologies of the self’: special diets, bodybuilding, ways of behaving reasonably, tastes, ways of moving, and so on. In short, a combination of external and internal dispositions transforms anybody (irgendjemand) into someone (jemand). There are no subjects ‘as they are’, only subjects built up from within by social practices and discourses – with the active collaboration of these subjects themselves. It is this collaboration that reproduces the social and institutional structures that (trans)form the subjects. The ability to observe, to speak and to behave is not learned intentionally but is established by practice. Yet, this process of learning by practice also implies, paradoxically, a growing inability to observe, to speak, and to behave. If there are well-established and specific ways of observing etc., then automatically the impossibility to observe, to speak and to behave free from these conditioning practices has been established too. Dispositions are both constructive and restricting simultaneously.

II. Learning to observe, becoming visible, attracting attention and ‘becoming a man’ are the four stages that exemplify the transition from a boy, named Werner, to a subject, known as Professor Conze12. 1. Learning to observe: Werner Conze was born in 1910 into a respectable academic family. His grandfather was the famous archaeologist Alexander Conze, and it is said that Werner Conze was convinced, even in his youth, that he would one day become a professor. The sketchy information preserved about his youth indicates a deep-rooted academic habitus, which from the beginning suggested some possible future curricula vitae and which excluded other career paths. His career was not entirely streamlined, however. He started out with the study of art history, but was unsatisfied and changed to political history. This seems to reflect more than just a change of subjects. It indicates a decision between two rather different professional lives and attitudes towards the world. We do not know the reason for this discontinuity in his life. It is the next interruption that offers a somewhat indirect explanation as Conze almost quit his historical studies also. He could not, as he later wrote, reconcile the need for political abstinence, as required 12

Cf. in detail T. Etzemüller, Sozialgeschichte als politische Geschichte. Werner Conze und die Neuorientierung der westdeutschen Geschichtswissenschaft nach 1945 (München, 2001).

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by science, and the need for political engagement, provoked by the chaotic Weimar years. His worries were alleviated when he met Hans Rothfels, a baptised Jew, a right-wing nationalist historian and charismatic professor at Königsberg University. Rothfels taught him, as well as other students, how to fuse politics and science13. Königsberg was the capital of East Prussia. In the interwar period it was a major centre of the Volkstumskampf, the struggle against a supposed ‘slavonification’ of Germany. Rothfels, his students, and other members of the university (such as the sociologist Gunther Ipsen) tried through their scientific work, to defend German territory from Polish claims. By painstaking empirical investigation, they tried to prove that from the Middle Ages onwards, German culture had extended deep into Russia. Under the pretext of an ineffective Slavic social order, one could allegedly trace a productive German agricultural system. Language, dress, customs, and agrarian techniques – for the Königsberg scholars – were some of the many hints that the extension of German cultural soil (Kulturboden) justified the defence of German national soil (Volksboden). Of course ‘defence’ in that particular case had to imply aggression against the ‘occupiers’ of German soil, i.e. Poland and Russia; and after 1933 Conze and his colleagues became involved with the Lebensraumpolitik of National Socialism (Rothfels had been unwillingly forced to emigrate in 1939)14. It was at this time in Königsberg that a thought collective arose, and that a thought-style emerged that became highly important for Conze’s future works15. All his texts express a very specific way of observing the world and of writing history. From his doctoral thesis onwards he depicted a world structured by the dualism of social disintegration and reintegration. It could be ethnic tensions in the eastern parts of Germany or social disorder, caused by the paupers of industrialisation: there was always the ideal of a homogeneous entity, the Reich, threatened from outside and within. The task of a historian in a world of chaos was to trace elements of stability. It had to be shown in history that the western middle classes (the Bürgertum) always had been able to solve all those social and ethnic problems that threatened to destroy this order. It was, for example, not industrialisation that had caused pauperism. Instead the dissolving system of estates had removed natural demographic boundaries, people had too many children, and the social order disintegrated16. It was philanthropic employers who gave work to the masses, whose material situation was better than had been documented. And, it had been the aim of Bismarck’s politics to create some kind of 13 Cf. W. Conze, Akademische Antrittsrede, in Jahrbuch der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften 1962/63 (Heidelberg, 1963), 54-60, esp. 55. 14 W. Oberkrome, Volksgeschichte. Methodische Innovation und völkische Ideologisierung in der deutschen Geschichtswissenschaft 1918 bis 1945 (Göttingen, 1993); Eckel, Rothfels. 15 The concept of the thought-style is exemplified in Etzemüller, Sozialgeschichte, 268-295. 16 W. Conze, «Vom Pöbel zum Proletariat. Sozialgeschichtliche Voraussetzungen für den Sozialismus in Deutschland», Vierteljahrsschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, vol. 41 (1954): 333-364.

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multiethnic state that integrated ethnic minorities. By ambitious historical research it could be shown that socialist agitation had always lacked reason17. Clearly, Conze noticed that things had changed during his lifetime. The Federal Republic was not Weimar Germany. Yet still, he and other contemporary historians, such as Otto Brunner or Theodor Schieder, were never able to accept social movements (like the Peasant Wars or the student protests in 1968) as being any more than uncontrolled turmoil18. It was the experience of continual chaos and the destruction of three political systems (in two of which they had been involved) that influenced their writings until their death. Conzes final book (published in 1986), was an unfinished history of Eastern Europe, and it follows the same narrative structure as had his Habilitation thesis in 1940. It described Germans as cultivators of a Slavonic East which was threatening German soil19. His argument was not clandestine National Socialist propaganda. Instead the book expressed a continuing fear of instability, and it looked for historical solutions with the aim of defending the social order. In the early 1940s, Conze advocated a German Lebensraum-policy, and from the late 1950s he pleaded for a policy of coexistence with the Soviet Union20. He was always a sensitive observer of changing realities (different, in this respect, from Hermann Aubin, for instance) and he accepted the changes and adapted his historiography to them. His main task was less to write history and more to provide the present with historical arguments to preserve a status quo. Yet in spite of all shifts, Conze’s mode of observing the world remained consistent. His texts reflect, through their narrative structure, the thought-style that was imprinted on his thinking from the early 1930s onwards. 2. Becoming visible: As a student, Conze was a trainee historian. In 1934 he submitted his doctoral thesis, and in 1940 his Habilitation-thesis. That made him a Privatdozent or ‘journeyman’21. But, even when he had been offered a professorship at the University of Posen in 1944 it did not yet make him a real master. Due to his military service during most of the war he never lectured at Posen, and after the war he had to start again almost from the beginning. Before 1945 he had proved his scientific quality, he had conducted some minor projects on Eastern European history and he was, as some correspondence shows, part of the scientific community by means of his habitus. After the war Conze wrote many letters in trying to obtain at least some minor academic post. His senior colleagues

17

It should be noticed that this is Conze’s position in particular after 1945. Prior he concentrated on agrarian societies, especially in East Prussia, the Baltic States and Poland, and his intentions were, due to the nazification of historiography, more offensive. The aim was to homogenise the East by pushing back the Slavs. 18 O. Brunner, Land und Herrschaft. Grundfragen der territorialen Verfassungsgeschichte Österreichs im Mittelalter (Wien, 51965), 347-348; T. Schieder, «Hat Heinemann recht? Zu einer Rede über unser mangelhaftes Geschichtsbewusstsein», Christ und Welt, 27.2.1970: 11. 19 W. Conze, Ostmitteleuropa. Von der Spätantike bis zum 18. Jahrhundert (München, 1992). 20 Cf. W. Conze, Der 17. Juni. Tag der deutschen Freiheit und Einheit (Frankfurt/Main-Bonn, 1960); Werner Conze, Das deutsch-russische Verhältnis im Wandel der modernen Welt (Göttingen, 1967). 21 German historians have a peculiar predilection for metaphors related to artisans.

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were willing to help him, but they did not know much about him. They only could see some sketchy outlines of what seemed to be a potentially promising historian. That he was ‘competent’ and ‘respectable’, were some of the few remarks made about him in correspondence between academics, and sometimes they referred to him as ‘Konze’. But still, he was only one of far too many applicants for far too few jobs. Industriously, Conze made himself known. He emerged in conference reports as a participant of discussions; he wrote to the leaders of the German Historical Association, he published reviews and a few articles outlining his research programme. His idea was to introduce social history as a new method of historical research, and restlessly he propagated his opinion, that only social history was an adequate method of coming to terms with the threatening complexity of the modern industrial world. Little by little fragments of information were put together and a coherent picture of Conze became visible. In their correspondence, historians stopped misspelling his name and made him a subject of their discussions. He stopped being a person in need and he became a colleague whose texts were being read and quoted. He was appointed to national and international historical commissions, and when he finally, in 1957, became a professor at Heidelberg University everyone knew exactly who he was and what he wrote about22. 3. Getting attention: There are various reasons as to why Conze got attention for his program of social history. We must keep in mind that a concept of social history – encompassing the entire past and not only the history of the working class movement – was quite innovative at that time. Not even the social historian Hermann Aubin, the editor of the leading German journal for social and economic history, understood Conze’s idea at the time. In Thomas S. Kuhn’s terms, one might call this a paradigm shift. Conze was careful. He never attacked conservative historians, such as Gerhard Ritter. Instead he began a kind of serialised repetition. And, wherever there was a possibility to mention his project, he made use of it. Even short reviews, of no more than five lines, contained at least one sentence propagating social history. Two programmatic articles explained the concept and assured readers simultaneously that no revolutionary changes were to be feared23. His first students had already started to engage in doing research in social history in the late 1940s. When he became a professor he founded his own Institut für moderne Sozialgeschichte and the Arbeitskreis für moderne Sozialgeschichte. He had a vast research fund at his disposal, and during the 1960s he became a real manufacturer of social history. More and more, students came in contact with social history and then became social historians. Using this strategy, his concept slowly infiltrated German historiography24. 22

Cf. Etzemüller, Sozialgeschichte, 90-160. Cf. W. Conze, «Die Stellung der Sozialgeschichte in Forschung und Unterricht», Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, vol. 3 (1952): 648-657; W. Conze, Die Strukturgeschichte des technischindustriellen Zeitalters als Aufgabe für Forschung und Unterricht (Köln-Opladen, 1957). 24 Of course, one has to take the context into consideration. Social history had a stronghold in France, 23

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Correspondence followed a hierarchical pattern. Conze had to first seek the attention of senior colleagues and his early letters to them were answered politely. His name was stored in the imaginary archive of the historian’s guild, but his ideas had been met with indifference. He became known, but not really recognised. After 1957 he was one of the most powerful historians and his colleagues carefully considered how to integrate him into their own projects, without being dominated by him. When he wrote, he was taken seriously. When he was contacted by written correspondence, he could take his time in answering. This inversion of the hierarchy of correspondence mirrored the process of him becoming a master. 4. Becoming a Man: German historians used to joke that only after having passed the doctorate one could really be considered human. In fact, one can observe a process of a Menschwerdung in science. Not only did the manner to dress, to move, and to speak of a prospective historian change while climbing the career ladder but one also became less spontaneous and more sober and careful. Furthermore, a standard career in the 1950s and 60s was expected to lead to a full professorship, an Ordinariat. No one who was regarded as a future talent remained an associate professor (Extraordinarius) for long. Sooner or later they all expected, and were expected, to obtain a full professorship. Recognition and Ordinariat were mutually dependent. Every statement by a prospective professor was taken on board with trust. As an Ordinarius, he had proved that he was able to complete his education in conformity with the scientific and social standards of the field, and that he was able to deliver acceptable scientific quality. Trust proved to be justified, and statements were accepted unconditionally. It was such a rare «position of a speaker»25 that gave Conze’s statements on social history an authority that they did not possess by themselves. The one who spoke as an Ordinarius became the addressee of arguments – and at the very least he was no longer simply being politely ignored. Again in this regard, Conze’s correspondences are interesting. In his early letters, he incorporated polite questions about the well-being of his senior correspondents. As a full professor, he communicated announcements. He no longer answered every letter himself; he had his secretary answer his correspondence. He decided to whom he would write personally. Even his older colleagues wrote to him as they addressed other academics like themselves, and not as a prospective young scholar who could still disappoint them. It was Gunther Ipsen, Conze’s second teacher and a very authoritarian person, who had declared the initiation rite as being fulfilled. «The moment that sees you becoming an Ordinarius is even remarkable to me: […] it is finishing my position as godfather». Henceforth he addressed him as ‘Dear Mr. Conze’ instead of ‘Dear Conze’ or ‘Dear Conzman’. Earlier Conze had obediently asked Ipsen what his teacher’s and the conferences of the International Historical Association put noticeable pressure on German historians. That was one reason why German historians started listening to Conze: they could use him as a shield, as some kind of alibi; cf. Etzemüller, Sozialgeschichte, 91-92, 98-101. 25 M. Foucault, Archäologie des Wissens (Frankfurt am Main, 51992), 75-82.

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THOMAS ETZEMÜLLER

wishes were, and Ipsen had made the decisions. Now Ipsen asked Conze for his opinion on things, and Conze proclaimed them26. From the angle of the Zunft, Conze had become ‘mature’ or ‘grown-up’. From someone he had transformed into a specific subject that could be attributed a number of characteristics, making him a reliable partner in science. He was qualified, but no genius. He was original, but no rebel. He was powerful, but willing to cooperate. He shared the nationalistic attitude of most German historians, without being dogmatically right-wing. He was, in one phrase, competent and reliable in all respects. This well-balanced mixture of conformity and competence was a very important condition for the introduction of social history and for Conze’s success.

III. With this rough outline I have tried to demonstrate that the concept of role model, as suggested by Gerhard Ritter, is inaccurate or at the very least very much incomplete. A historian does not simply write texts. He/she has to shift them ‘into the truth’. A statement has to be accepted as being ‘true’ by its readers, and this truth is not only guaranteed by the text but so too mainly by its author27. He/she has to solve a paradox. First of all, he/she ought to secure the quality and originality of the scientific work by competence and individuality. Then he/she ought to implement it into scientific debate by means of intellectual and personal conformity. Last but not least, he/she ought to keep his/her personality in the background – as well as preferences, fears, and private life – in order to prevent the texts from contamination by subjectivity. A subject is needed to lend statements the authority of an undisputed expert – but at the same time this subject has to be unseen. It has to stand out and to fit in. Nobody is naturally a tightrope-walker by birth, one has to learn to walk the very thin line between an egocentric ‘I’ and an unknown ‘author’. The ideal is to become a Vf.28, which is the scientific mark for a subject that transformed himself/herself successfully into an individual impersonalised author. It is precisely this purified notion of an author that appears as the subject of most biographies of historians. Therefore, the historian-subject is the product of two constructing practices: the social practice of doing science, (self)creating a specific subject, and the social practice of writing biographies, confirming an ideal of scientific subjects and offering a role model for aspiring young scholars. It seems attractive to deconstruct the subject and its biography in this manner. But, there is an important practical problem: a serious lack of sources. Take as one example from a different field the papers of the Swedish sociologists Alva and Gunnar Myrdal, a very exceptional archive, indeed. Even at the beginning of their 26 27 28

Etzemüller, Sozialgeschichte, 169. Foucault, Archäologie, 24. Verfasser = author.

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careers, in the 1930s, they explicitly stylised themselves as an intellectual couple, to an unequalled extent. As a consequence of their habits of self-fashioning, their archive contains 1,600 volumes: among which is 46 boxes of correspondence between the two, containing about 8,000 letters or 20,000 pages, dated from the late 1910s to the 1980s and containing for instance their first love letters, a lot of most intimate details, a continuing, painful discussion of their marriage or the expression of a deep religious crisis of Alva Myrdal. Then there are some 300 volumes of letters to friends and colleagues, more than 200 volumes of newspaper cuttings, 53 boxes of private photography and hundreds of boxes filled with manuscripts, interviews, books, speeches, notices, floor plans of their houses and apartments, inventories, and so on. The material covers a private and public life in extreme detail, because, as Gunnar Myrdal told the archivist, young scholars should learn how a really great couple thought and lived29. Yet, the more material one reads, the more the gaps become evident. Despite their vast archive, there is so much we will never come to know about Alva and Gunnar Myrdal. What about the papers of average historians? Some simply do not exist. Some only contain manuscripts and off-prints, with no correspondence. The most extensive archives include approximately 200 boxes of correspondence — but nearly never do they contain evidence pertaining to the historians’ wives. Their wives conducted a ‘no record existence’ that was nearly complete: except for some greetings to a colleague’s wife, or a few lines written by a wife to a husband’s colleague. But, even the male historians themselves led largely undocumented lives. There is hardly any private information contained in their papers. And, papers pertaining to their younger years rarely survive. Some historians had quite good reasons to destroy their early papers, as some lost them in bomb raids, and sometimes their heirs considered them as being unimportant. That is the reason why it is difficult, or nearly impossible, to analyse the inner social processes that led to the emergence of a thought collective. The outcome, a completed thoughtstyle is quite easy to make out. But how did Werner Conze learn to view the world? How had his mode of observation been shaped by the Königsberg environment? If his student essays had been preserved, and if we had seminar papers, diaries or letters, we would be able to reconstruct this process of becoming a subject, but only on an unsystematic basis. The manner in which Conze observed, and perhaps copied, the intellectual and habitual style of his teachers; or the way in which the many excursions in the impressive East Prussian countryside; or Conze’s membership of the German Youth Movement, all this slowly changed and shaped his view. But, how he began to see his own scientific approach (which in 1940 destroyed his chances in Vienna30 and later made him famous) cannot be

29

This is a favourite story of Stellan Andersson, the mentioned archivist at the Arbetarrörelsens arkiv och bibliotek (Stockholm). 30 Ipsen had been pushing Conze’s Habilitation at the University of Vienna, but Conze was denied a venia legendi for history there, because the Viennese historians saw his thesis as being too sociological: Etzemüller, Sozialgeschichte, 27.

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accurately reconstructed. We are able to plot the intellectual output chronologically – doctoral thesis, Habilitation, his first articles, his final book – but not the very practice of learning. This seems impossible a task. Even sociological studies, based on interviews with living scholars, can only describe the state of the art, and not its making31. This is an amazing deduction to make, and it is perhaps a sign of just how implicitly these practices work. At least we can, with systematic and detailed research, catch a glimpse of these processes of intellectual development. And, this should be the ultimate aspiration of biographies of historians.

31

S. Beaufaÿs, Wie werden Wissenschaftler gemacht? Beobachtungen zur wechselseitigen Konstitution von Geschlecht und Wissenschaft (Bielefeld, 2003); S. Engler, «In Einsamkeit und Freiheit»? Zur Konstruktion der wissenschaftlichen Persönlichkeit auf dem Weg zur Professur (Konstanz, 2001).

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A STORMY FAMILY. PAUL FREDERICQ AND THE FORMATION OF AN ACADEMIC HISTORICAL COMMUNITY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY*

Jo Tollebeek

The transformation into a science of historiography in the (late) nineteenth century and the associated ‘academicization’ and ‘professionalization’ are often described in historiography as the result of the success of a ‘disciplinary creed’. Historical writing, as it became clear, then acquired a standardised ‘method’ which united all historians and distinguished the new science both from other sciences and from amateur historiography. This method was codified in treatises such as the Introduction aux études historiques (1898) by ‘Langlois and Seignobos’1. Much less attention has been devoted to the daily practices in which the new historical science took shape and which made it so different from the former, ‘spectacular’ historiography. These daily practices – reading, taking notes, corresponding, maintaining academic friendships, exchanging material, correcting proofs – not only involved all kinds of epistemological notions and procedures, but were also interwoven with ethical values and standards which were just as rarely made explicit. This complex praxis needs to be mapped out more extensively. In this essay, the focus will be on the staff of the new historical science and the way in which an academic historical community was formed. This staff consisted not only of professors («either bureaucrats or satraps in an academic empire», said Jacob Burckhardt)2. There were also the librarians, the archivists and – in the archives – the copyists, the professional ‘writers’ who produced correct copies of archival documents, for payment, on behalf of visitors, some of whom were foreign (in 1829 Leopold von Ranke was accompanied every morning by his permanent Schreiber to the Palazzo Barberini in Rome)3. Then there were the assistants, the (scholarly) staff, often also referred to as ‘secretaries’. These are the people who will be the central focus here. After all, their adventures reveal how the * This is the text of a lecture for the workshop ‘Historians at work: how does historical writing emerge in working practices?’, Florence, European University Institute, 23 October 2006. My thanks to Henning Trüper for his thoughtful explanations on the subject of the workshop, to Sofie Cloet and Martine de Reu for their help in the Fredericq Archive. 1 See, for example, (for France) G. Lingelbach, Klio macht Karriere. Die Institutionalisierung der Geschichtswissenschaft in Frankreich und den USA in der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts (Veröffentlichungen des Max-Planck-Instituts für Geschichte 181) (Göttingen, 2003), 382-404. 2 L. Gossman, Basel in the age of Burckhardt. A study in unseasonable ideas (Chicago-London, 2000), 440-441. 3 A. Grafton, The footnote. A curious history (London, 1997), 36 and 50. Cf. more generally about the status of the copy, H. Schwartz, The culture of the copy. Striking likeness, unreasonable facsimiles (New York, 1996), 211-257.

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PAUL FREDERICQ AND THE FORMATION OF AN ACADEMIC HISTORICAL COMMUNITY

new scholarly and professional practices were learned and passed on in a hierarchical context. In this context, developments will be illustrated using one specific case study: that of the secretaries to the Belgian historian Paul Fredericq (1850-1920)4. Fredericq became involved at an early stage in both liberal and anti-clerical politics and in the Flemish movement. Following a career as a teacher in Mechelen, Arlon and Ghent (in that order), Fredericq – with the usual political help – became a professor at the University of Liège in 1879. Four years later, he accepted a chair in Ghent, where Henri Pirenne was to become his collega proximus. His main scholarly work concerned the mediaeval and sixteenth-century Inquisition. Between 1889 and 1906 Fredericq published five volumes of a Corpus documentorum Inquisitionis haereticae pravitatis neerlandicae, a source edition, the findings of which were summarised into two volumes of a Geschiedenis der Inquisitie in de Nederlanden in 1892 and 1897. This work never served as a purely scientific study: writing about the despotism of the past was also always a means of propaganda in the struggle against the – Catholic – rulers of the present. Historiography belonged fully in the public domain5. Various reasons justify the choice of Fredericq and his secretaries in this context. Firstly, the fact that his work does not illustrate the final condition of history being transformed into a science, but shows this process in its early dynamics. In addition, Fredericq actually portrayed himself as the apostle of the new historiographical practices, including by presenting these in detail in a series of well-read and translated reports of visits to various European universities6. Finally, there is the exceptional source material. Fredericq not only kept a diary for many years and not only collected ample material for his memoirs, but also made detailed notes in separate notebooks of the work and adventures of his secretaries7. That material enables an exploration of the scholarly sub-culture of the academic historical community and its professional codes in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 4

Biographical data in: H. van Werveke, Paul Fredericq in de spiegel van zijn dagboek (Mededelingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België, Klasse der Letteren 41, no. 1) (Brussels, 1979), and E.C. Coppens, Paul Fredericq (Ghent, 1990). For a brief summary: Idem, «Fredericq, Paul», in Nationaal Biografisch Woordenboek, 6 (1974), 296-305. 5 See in detail in J. Tollebeek, Writing the Inquisition in Europe and America. The correspondence between Henry Charles Lea and Paul Fredericq (Brussels, 2004), IX-CXXVI. 6 P. Fredericq, L’enseignement supérieur de l’histoire. Notes et impressions de voyage. Allemagne France - Ecosse - Angleterre - Hollande - Belgique (Ghent-Paris, 1899), a collection to be complemented with Idem, «Notes de voyage sur l’enseignement supérieur en Suède et en Finlande», in Revue de l’Instruction publique en Belgique, 20 (1877): 421-426. 7 Ghent, Ghent University Library, Department of Manuscripts and Rare Books (abbreviated below as BUG): Paul Fredericq Archive, Ms. 3704: «Aanteekeningen over mijn leven» (diary); Ms. 3705: «Algemeen overzicht van mijn leven»; Ms. 3706: preparatory notes for «Mijne gedenkschriften»; Ms. 3707: «Reisindrukken» / «Reisaanteekeningen»; Ms. 3708: diary from the war period and Ms. III 77 (23): «Mijne Secretarissen» (14 notebooks). The extensive preserved correspondence (Ms. III 77) also allows the voices of his secretaries to be heard.

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Laboratories of history In the literature, two institutions are regarded as iconic for modern historiography: archival research and training in seminars8. The preference for archival research was based on the idea that the records or archivalia, compared for example with chronicles, were ‘passionless’ witnesses to the past (as it was already said in the eighteenth century)9, which allowed for a more objective historical picture. Just as a pilot would later derive his status from his number of flying hours, so the status of the historian increased with the number of days and months he spent in the archives. As many recognised, this ‘endless’ archival work was not adventurous. However, the physical contact with the authentic documents and the effet de réel that they could have could also lead to different kinds of emotions and phantasms, each of which fuelled the Archival Romance of the historian10. The seminars in turn formed an alternative to the traditional ex cathedra lectures and were aimed at training students to be independent researchers. To many, this originally German form of education served as indisputable academic progress. It was therefore with pride that, in 1898, Fredericq presented a tableau of the cours pratiques that had been offered in Belgium since 187411. This also included his own seminars in Liège and Ghent12. However, despite the fact that these seminars were also described as a rite de passage13, they seemed to evoke far fewer powerful emotions than the archives. On the contrary, the seminars were conceived by their propagandists according to the model of laboratories in the sciences and in medicine. These still relatively new phenomena in the universities at the end of the nineteenth century were not locations of passion. But they did elicit enthusiasm, an enthusiasm that was transferred by historians at the seminars. The American Herbert Baxter Adams referred to the seminars as laboratories in which books changed hands like mineralogical specimens and were examined and tested14. Fredericq also spoke of the cours pratiques as laboratories; his own Ghent seminar became «a small historical laboratory». Perhaps he had heard the comparison from his teacher

8 A.o. B.G. Smith, The gender of history. Men, women, and historical practice (Cambridge, MALondon, 1998), 103. 9 T. Verschaffel, De hoed en de hond. Geschiedschrijving in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden 1715-1794 (Hilversum, 1998), 160. 10 A. Farge, Le goût de l’archive (La librairie du XXe siècle) (Paris, 1989); C. Steedman, Dust. The archive and cultural history (New Brunswick, 2002), and J. Tollebeek, «‘Turn’d to dust and tears’. Revisiting the Archive», in History and Theory. Studies in the Philosophy of History, 43 (2004): 237248. 11 P. Fredericq, «L’origine et les développements des cours pratiques d’histoire dans l’enseignement supérieur en Belgique», in A Godefroid Kurth, professeur à l’Université de Liège, à l’occasion du XXVme anniversaire de la fondation de son cours pratique d’histoire (Liège, [1898]), 3-149. 12 See the reports in BUG, Fredericq Archive, Ms. 2991 and Ms. 2991/I. 13 J.D. Popkin, History, historians, & autobiography (Chicago-London, 2005), 122. 14 Quoted in Smith, The gender of history, 105-106.

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Godefroid Kurth, the Liège mediaevalist, who also described his seminars as laboratories15. However, the historians even went one step further. Given the established analogy, they asked the government to grant their ‘laboratories’ what the scientific and medical faculties’ laboratories had previously been granted: a reliable infrastructure and in particular the necessary staff. If the scientists and the medics had assistants available and the teaching of history was also becoming increasingly ‘more practical’, Kurth then wondered why the historians had no assistants16. Fredericq in turn went repeatedly to the competent minister, but equally without success17. For this reason, he continued to do what he had done beforehand: paying for an assistant out of his own pocket. Between 1889 and 1907, eight secretaries worked for Fredericq in almost continuous succession – some for a few months, some for a few years. They were all recruited from among Fredericq’s own students or former students at Ghent. They were, in order, Julius Frederichs, Daniel Jacobs, Maurits Basse, Arthur van Renterghem, Albert Blyau, René Verdeyen, Jan Eggen and Emiel Vuylsteker18. The notion that historical science – at least in the metaphorical sense – was a laboratory science, where an essential role was reserved for assistants, made the new historiography into a collective praxis. History became teamwork in the eyes of the innovators. This was also translated at emotional level: a feeling of community could emerge in the ‘laboratory’ – centred on the professor. From the notes that Fredericq kept about his secretaries, it appears that this cooperation could take many forms. For example, when working on the source edition, the Corpus: «He comes in the afternoon and we work on without a break […]. I decipher and dictate the piece, Blyau writes it up beautifully and works with passion and dedication»19. However, the desire to form a ‘group’ was even more explicit in the fact that Fredericq presented some of his publications as copublications. Every volume of the Corpus was published explicitly under the name of «Paul Fredericq and his students». Moreover, in both Liège and Ghent, Fredericq brought together the fruits of the work of his students (in his seminar) in a series of publications of his own. From that perspective, historical science no longer had room for distinct and vain individuals. Even the professor had to be self-effacing in order to be able to fulfil his role within the group. Transforming history into a science implied democratization, including undermining the former concept of the author. At the same time, the new historiographical praxis followed an economic 15

Fredericq, «L’origine et les développements», 26 and 66-67, and G. Kurth in A Godefroid Kurth,

195. 16

Kurth in A Godefroid Kurth, 196-197. Fredericq, «L’origine et les développements», 26, 66 and 75, and the correspondence since 1898 with ministers Frans Schollaert and Jules de Trooz in BUG, Fredericq Archive, Ms. 2921/II A, Ms. 2919/IV B and Ms. 2919/V B. 18 For the exact dates and biographical data on the secretaries: Tollebeek, Writing the Inquisition, 2728, n. 53. 19 BUG, Fredericq Archive, Ms. III 77 (23): note 13 September 1899. 17

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model: that of the modern workshop. This model was associated initially in historiography with developments in the United States. Reference was made in particular to Hubert Howe Bancroft, the famous Californian historian, whose work assumed monumental proportions because its author not only made use of an army of collaborators (copyists, stenographers, reporters) to collect material, but also led a literary workshop in which indexers, note-takers and assistants systematically processed this material20. Bancroft was of course an impossible act to follow: the required financial means were not available to any historian in Europe. However, the principle of the division of labour nicely matched the desire for a historiographical praxis with a cooperative character.

Professionalism, honour and loyalty More generally, the new historical science required a management culture. At the level of the secretaries, the most formal expression of this was the employment contract. Fredericq drew up a contract with each of his secretaries when they were recruited, which included two provisions in its standard format21. Firstly, the salary and method of payment were established. For example, in Frederichs’ case, it read: «50 fr. per month and 2 months of holiday without monthly pay (i.e., 500 fr. per year)». In addition, the tasks were described, such as these for Frederichs, «1° Every day at 9 o’clock he will come to me to hear whether I need him to take books from the Library, etc. 2° He will follow my practical course as assistant. 3° He will read and annotate books for me, etc., etc.». This contract was formalised in due course; it was given written expression. The conclusion of the agreement also took on an increasingly professional character for both parties. The salary was established by negotiation, where the employer was forced to make allowances22. The job description became increasingly detailed so that discussion about the obligations of the employee was limited. What did the secretaries’ task involve in practice? In the case of Fredericq’s secretaries, it involved first and foremost scholarly research. It could involve making articles and separate studies ready for printing or, as expressed by the professor, all kinds of «small jobs»: individual assignments implying research in the university library or in an archival repository. However, the main task was cooperation on the Corpus. The secretaries received a stack of Inquisition papers from Fredericq (authentic documents or copies), which they had to arrange and analyse. Their work bore witness to a ‘return to the text’, following the romantic 20

J. Tollebeek, «The Archive. The panoptic utopia of the historian», in Eco in fabula. Umberto Eco in the humanities - Umberto Eco dans les sciences humaines - Umberto Eco nelle scienze umane, eds. F. Musarra et al. (Leuven-Florence, 2002), 339-355. 21 BUG, Fredericq Archive, Ms. III 77 (23): notes 14 October 1889, 3 October 1891, 7 October 1891, 5 November 1891, 24 October 1893, 27 October 1895, 6 September 1899, 21 May 1903, 28 October 1904 and October 1907. 22 See, for example, BUG, Fredericq Archive, Ms. 3704: note 7 October 1891.

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rhetoric23, but also to the importance that was attached to what Langlois and Seignobos referred to as élaboration critique24. In addition, many other tasks were required for the Corpus: correcting proofs, compiling the index, maintaining relations with the printer. Much of this work had a repetitive, routine nature. As a result, it also lost its ideological tension: even with a subject as loaded as the Inquisition, the controversy disappeared (at least) from the routine work. The secretaries dated papers or pointed out corrupt passages in the documents, they did not place the guns in position. In addition to this research work, other assignments were also involved, such as assistance with teaching. Fredericq expected his secretaries at every session of his cours pratique, the «small laboratory» in which students were taught how to deal with the traces of the past in the form of documents. Then there was the administrative work: selecting and forwarding correspondence, help with the «writing» that Fredericq had assumed as secretary of many different committees and, sometimes, taking shorthand notes at a lecture25. In a scholarly existence that was becoming increasingly hectic, the secretary’s job was to ‘save’ the professor’s ‘time’. But that was not all. It is evident from Fredericq’s notes that the secretaries were also involved in their employer’s political activities. They performed administrative work and attended the editorial meetings of Het Volksbelang, the liberal Flemish movement journal headed by Fredericq (a task which was also included in the contract in due course), but they did occasionally write articles too26. When elections were pending, they also had to «carry out political work now and then»27. They were recruited to the campaigns which the Ghent professor was continually waging against the educational policy of the «clerical ministry»28. However, this political involvement also led to differences of opinion and could undermine the relationship between Fredericq and his secretary. Fredericq discovered, to his great dismay, that Blyau had left the liberal nest and become a socialist (although the person in question denied ever having set foot inside the Brussels Maison du Peuple). Verdeyen proved to have very different ideas when it came to the politically extremely important dutchifying of the university in Ghent. In the former case, the question was resolved: Fredericq and Blyau were reconciled – except in their shared historical interest – as liberal and socialist within a broad network of free-thinkers in which anti-clericalism set the trend. In the latter case, it led to a break29. However, the conflict with former secretary Eggen during the 23

Cf. Fr. Hartog, Le XIXe siècle et l’histoire. Le cas Fustel de Coulanges (Paris, 1988), 148-155. Ch.-V. Langlois and Ch. Seignobos, Introduction aux études historiques (Paris, 1992), 49. 25 For the latter: BUG, Fredericq Archive, Ms. 3704: note 29 January 1896. 26 BUG, Fredericq Archive, Ms. III 77 (23): notes 16 January 1890, 22 April 1890 and 15 December 1890. 27 BUG, Fredericq Archive, Ms. III 77 (23): note 27 May 1898. 28 BUG, Fredericq Archive, Ms. 3704: note 17 December 1898. 29 For Blyau: for example BUG, Fredericq Archive, Ms. III 77/20: A. Blyau to P. Fredericq, 16 October 1896; Ms. III 77/21: A. Blyau to P. Fredericq, 20 August 1897, and Ms. 3704: note 17 24

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Great War was much more serious. During the war, the latter chose activism, the radical Flemish movement’s rejection of the Belgian state and, to this end, also collaborated with the German occupier. Fredericq, who was to be imprisoned in 1916 for his resistance to the Germans, together with Pirenne, subsequently denied the «traitor» all access to his house30. Both Fredericq’s tendency to involve his staff in his political activities and the disputes to which that could lead when it appeared that these assistants did not share his opinions made it clear that the new desire to form a historiographical community was also a desire for a homogeneous community. Assistants were expected to convert to the ‘party’ of the professors. The term ‘party’ should be understood here not exclusively in its modern, party-political sense. The ‘party’ of the professor seldom had a firm organisational structure or clear ideology; it was not united around a programme, but around a person. In addition, values were at work which did not originate in the same register as the references to the laboratory or the workshop or the introduction of the division of labour and management. At the same time as the professionalization of historiography, a process of what could almost be called ‘increasingly chivalry’ took place; in addition to the salary and employment contracts, the code of honour and loyalty also emerged. This was evident purely from the fact that Fredericq opened up the employment contracts he reached with his secretaries into ‘ethicalsocial’ contracts: anyone who fulfilled his obligations, he decided, would not only receive the agreed financial remuneration but would also be treated ‘as a friend’31. Secretaries were also expected to be ‘men of honour’, scholars who would fulfil their task ‘conscientiously’ and who would command ‘trust’. Consequently, the relationship between the professor and his staff had to be one of mutual loyalty: the professor promised his staff support and protection, but also had to be able to rely on them not leaving him in the lurch when it came to implementing his scholarly enterprises. This type of contract had to be sealed in a solemn way. After setting forth the arrangements with one of his secretaries, Fredericq noted, «The sun is shining brightly in my large and light study. We shake each other warmly by the hand as we say goodbye»32.

The professorial house The fact that transforming history into a science was not purely a process of professionalization is also evident from other things that took place in the study. In the literature, the transformation into a science of historiography is often associated December 1899. For Verdeyen: BUG, Fredericq Archive, Ms. III 77 (23): notes 28 October 1904, end November 1904, 26 November 1904 and 4 March 1905. 30 BUG, Fredericq Archive, Ms. 3704: notes 1915. For Fredericq during the war: Van Werveke, Fredericq in de spiegel, 56-62: «Van ‘ontreddering’ naar ‘optimisme’». 31 BUG, Fredericq Archive, Ms. III 77 (23): note 6 September 1899. 32 BUG, Fredericq Archive, Ms. III 77 (23): note 27 October 1895.

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with ‘academicization’: in the nineteenth century, the universities became the hauts lieux of historiography. This picture is accurate, witness for instance the dominant role of the professors in the new historical trade. But it also requires some adjustment. For Fredericq, his secretaries and his students, it was after all not the university lecture theatre but the professor’s own – private – study that formed the stage where scientific innovations took place. This was where the secretaries were expected every morning and where the students took the cours pratiques. Nonetheless, the latter had not always been the case. In Liège, Fredericq had set up his seminar in a university building and, in Ghent, he initially convened his students in a small room in the university library. However, from 1890 onwards, the cours pratiques were transferred to his own study. This was nothing new. Fredericq knew that this was also customary in Germany. In France, his friend and contemporary Gabriel Monod was no exception: his seminar, sometimes referred to as ‘a branch’ of the successful seminar of Georg Waitz in Göttingen (where Monod had studied for a year)33, started in his Paris apartment. The respectable Robert Fruin did the same in Leiden: he received his students in a plain, specially equipped room beside the living room of his own house34. So it continued – until after the First World War – in the spacious house in Winkelstraat, Ghent. This house was fully occupied. The still unmarried Fredericq, who sometimes regretted his bachelor status35, lived there with two of his sisters, who were also unmarried. One of them had set up a private school in the house for well-off young ladies36. In 1896, they were joined by the two young daughters – still children – of Fredericq’s third sister who had died young («It will cheer and warm our house, our life, our spirits», he wrote in his diary)37. Three years later, an aunt also came to live with them38. Finally, there was also the maids. It was therefore an overwhelmingly female world with an overwhelmingly private character. Nonetheless, this was where Fredericq installed the engine for the innovations he advocated, at a time when the private space was being feminized, while the public forums were being monopolized by men, and in a discipline – historiography – where the transformation into a science also implied a gender segregation and women were often relegated to the sidelines of the academic trade39. As a result of this paradoxical location, Fredericq’s cours pratiques acquired a family atmosphere. This was also felt and made explicit by Fredericq himself. The communal work in these seminars, it was said in 1898, is 33

Hartog, Le XIXe siècle et l’histoire, 98. For a portrait of Monod (as patron): P. den Boer, History as a profession. The study of history in France, 1818-1914 (Princeton, 1998), 286-290. 34 See Fredericq’s own descriptions in Fredericq, L’enseignement supérieur de l’histoire, passim. 35 See for example BUG, Fredericq Archive, Ms. 3707/38: note 12 August 1893. 36 H. van Werveke, Herinneringen uit kinderjaren en jeugd (Ghent, 2000), 42. 37 BUG, Fredericq Archive, Ms. 3704: note 28 September 1896. Cf. also BUG, Fredericq Archive, Ms. 3707/44. 38 BUG, Fredericq Archive, Ms. 3704: note 24 September 1899. 39 For a detailed example of the latter: M. Grever, Strijd tegen de stilte. Johanna Naber (1859-1941) en de vrouwenstem in geschiedenis (Hilversum, 1994), 94-152. More recently, in a European context: History women, special issue Storia della Storiografia, eds. M. O’Dowd and I. Porciani, 46 (2004).

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carried out «as if it is being done within the family». In the same year, Pirenne recalled the ‘family’ nature of the cours pratiques which he had taken as a student at Kurth’s house40. In the cours pratiques, however, this family atmosphere took on a well-defined form: it was the atmosphere of an institution which bore a clearly male stamp: the club41. Moreover, the seminar shared an intimacy with the club which also implied a certain ceremony. Seated around a long table in the quiet professorial study – with its bookshelves, desk covered in papers, the compulsory in-folio’s of the Monumenta Germaniae historica – the small group of students (and the assistants) felt both elected and faithful followers. It was a closed gathering (in a sealed room) whose members were introduced to the secrets of the trade during weekly sessions (séances). Both the location and the event exerted an almost magical power of attraction over the participants, who felt united as if in a brotherhood42. After every meeting, a pre-designated member wrote down the details of what had taken place; Fredericq talked of the histoire intime of the seminar43. Moreover, this seminar acquired its own heroes. Upon returning from a trip to Germany, Fredericq showed his students photographs of Ranke, Waitz, Gustav Droysen and other «princes of historiography», after which he hung them on the walls of his study. In 1896, when he received a portrait of Henry Charles Lea, the American Inquisition historian much admired by him, he added that to his collection44. A pantheon thus emerged, again bearing witness to a trend towards heroism and individualization in a science that wanted to present itself as a democratic, collective enterprise. This intimate but solemn atmosphere did not rule out informal dealings between members of the club, including the professor. On the contrary, Fredericq and many others emphasized that discussions about the documents on the table or the historical questions covered during the meetings could be particularly animated. The problems that arose had no preset solutions, no conclusions extracted by the professor. When these conclusions were ultimately reached, «a feeling of intimate completion, felt by everyone» arose. In the mean time, people smoked or made plans for joint outings to historical monuments or museums. At the end of every cycle of the cours pratiques the café beckoned, à la manière d’Outre-Rhin45. Fredericq explicitly noted all of this in his overview of the Belgian seminars. Somewhat provocatively, he wanted to make it known that the traditional academic boundaries had been crossed in these seminars. This also applied – in this same domestic and intimate atmosphere – to the 40

Fredericq, «L’origine et les développements», 66-67, and H. Pirenne in A Godefroid Kurth, 162. Cf. the excellent characterization in Smith, The gender of history, 105-116. 42 See, for example, the impressions of J. Pée, «Herinneringen aan Paul Fredericq. Bij de honderdste verjaardag van zijn geboorte», in De Vlaamse Gids, 34 (1950): 489-510. 43 Fredericq, «L’origine et les développements», 48-49. 44 B. Lyon, Henri Pirenne. A biographical and intellectual study (Ghent, 1974), 43-44, and Tollebeek, Writing the Inquisition, 35. 45 Fredericq, «L’origine et les développements», 28-30 and 66-67. Cf. Pirenne in A Godefroid Kurth, 162-163. 41

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relationship with the secretaries. The relationship between Fredericq and his secretaries, it appeared, was not only determined by business arrangements and feelings of honour and loyalty. Their relationship could acquire an intense emotional charge. In 1903, when he and Blyau eventually reached breaking point – following persistent problems – but the breach was quickly repaired, Fredericq wrote: «The next day reconciliation by letter. Like two lovers. – Sublime». When an unexpected departure then intervened a few weeks later: «Tableau. That boy brought some emotions into my life»46. By contrast, Fredericq was sorry that Blyau’s successor was so withdrawn at personal level; he missed the contact47. These emotional relationships – or the sadness at their absence – point to the fact that in the professors’ eyes, the assistants had become what Don Kelley, talking about the relationship between the German professors and their promoti, referred to as an extended family48. Fredericq therefore felt like a ‘family father’, responsible for his secretaries. He gave financial support when one needed money as a result of the death of his (natural) father and tried to console when another lapsed into depression49. He was not afraid of going to call on his secretaries at home – in their ‘quarters’. But the ties stretched even further: Fredericq also felt obliged to care for his secretaries’ relatives. He recommended the brother and sister of Jacobs, after the death of their father, for ‘a position’, supported the widow and orphan of his former secretary Frederichs, who died at a young age, helped Blyau resolve the dispute with his grandmother and ensured that his brother also found employment50. All of them found shelter in the large professorial house.

In the twilight zone This extended support and protection was important because the professional position of the secretaries was unstable. They lived in a twilight zone: they were no longer students but nor did they yet have a fully-fledged professional existence. They were still young. In order to be able to become Fredericq’s secretary, two candidates first had to ask their father’s permission51. Once a secretary, they continued to live – like their predecessors and successors – as if they were students. They still lived in student housing, with a landlord or landlady or with a family member. They were still unmarried and had no family, nor did they have the 46

BUG, Fredericq Archive, Ms. III 77 (23): notes [6 March 1903] and 23 April 1903. BUG, Fredericq Archive, Ms. III 77 (23): notes end November 1904 and 26 November 1904. 48 D.R. Kelley, Fortunes of history. Historical inquiry from Herder to Huizinga (New Haven-London, 2003), 174-175. 49 BUG, Fredericq Archive, Ms. III 77 (23): notes 7 February 1893 and 2 May 1901. 50 BUG, Fredericq Archive, Ms. III 77 (23): a.o. notes 7 February 1893, 2 July 1900, 16 July 1900, 6 August 1900 and 28 April 1901; Ms. III 77/23: J. Frederichs’ widow to P. Fredericq, 2 January 1900; Ms. III 77/27: P. Fredericq to G. Blyau, 24 May 1901 and Ms. III 77/28: J. Frederichs’ widow to P. Fredericq, 1 January 1903. See also the necrology P.F. [= P. Fredericq], «[Untitled]», in Revue de l’Instruction publique en Belgique, 43 (1900): 79-80. 51 BUG, Fredericq Archive, Ms. III 77 (23): notes 3 October 1891, 7 October 1891 and October 1904. 47

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income to care for a family. They could barely make ends meet on the wages they received as a secretary and had to earn additional money in other ways, for example by giving private lessons to the children of rich citizens. Few alternatives were available. What was on offer was regarded as inferior. Jacobs was happy to be able to be Fredericq’s secretary: «Otherwise, he would have had to be a housemaster at a boarding school in Brussels or somewhere else»52. But all of them longed for a ‘real’ job, permanent and well-paid, and therefore spent a substantial amount of their time and energy looking for that kind of employment53. They therefore regarded working for Fredericq as a half-way house, on the way to something better. This also applied to those working elsewhere in comparable positions: the gelehrte Gehilfe of the Monumenta Germaniae historica for example, who also complained about being forced to live like students, also regarded their work as a temporary job that would quickly have to be swapped for something better54. But what? Some of Fredericq’s secretaries toyed with the idea of trying their luck abroad – in England, Germany or Africa – and did actually emigrate55. But this was also temporary. Ultimately, all had their sights fixed on the merry-goround of the teaching profession. Every shift that took place in secondary education could release a much sought-after place. At that point, the professor served as a patron, who wrote letters of recommendation, just as he did in order to increase the chances of his staff finding additional work – private lessons, archival assignments, other additional academic income. This was also explicitly understood and described in terms of loyalty, not only on the part of the professor. When Blyau asked Fredericq for a recommendation for a vacancy in 1901, he opened his request with the words, «Have you remained loyal to me?»56. A regular academic career with fixed stages, in which being an assistant could be the first step, did not yet exist57. Three of Fredericq’s secretaries nonetheless continued along the path of an academic career. In 1916 Eggen became a professor at the ‘Von Bissing University’ in Ghent (which had been dutchified by the Germans during the war), Verdeyen was appointed to Liège in 1919 and Basse followed four years later as a lecturer in Ghent. However, none of these appointments followed immediately after their assistantship: Eggen had been a lawyer before his appointment, Verdeyen and Basse teachers in various places, just as Fredericq himself had been before his appointment in Liège. But that does not mean that they continued their university careers unprepared. 52

BUG, Fredericq Archive, Ms. III 77 (23): note 3 October 1891. Cf. the comments regarding more recent examples in Popkin, History, historians, & autobiography, 120-183, passim. 54 H. Fuhrmann, ‘Sind eben alles Menschen gewesen‘. Gelehrtenleben im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, dargestellt am Beispiel der Monumenta Germaniae historica und ihrer Mitarbeiter (Munich, 1996), 7790. 55 See for example BUG, Fredericq Archive, Ms. III 77 (23): note 2 May 1901. 56 BUG, Fredericq Archive, Ms. III 77/25: A. Blyau to P. Fredericq, 10 July 1901. 57 Cf. for the development of this type of academic career in France: Lingelbach, Klio macht Karriere, 300-323. 53

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The scientific training which Fredericq gave his secretaries was first and foremost a way of gaining experience. Anyone who worked for him became ‘an apprentice’58, who was supposed to acquire professional training. From that perspective, historiography was a métier, a craft that had to be taught in a workshop by a master to a mate. The latter had to make the ‘method’ of the historian his own, had to be practised in auxiliary sciences, such as palaeography, and had to be imbued with the care and accuracy required by the craft. This did not imply a transfer of theoretical knowledge, but an introduction or an initiation (as in the seminars) to the ‘esoteric’ rules of the craft59. The way in which these had to be mastered was in turn not purely theoretical: the rules had to become tacit skills. That meant that the apprentices had to acquire the ‘competence’ of experts, they gradually had to acquire the experience that they would need in their work. Those who already had this experience warned that this was a long and difficult process. Kurth urged the young men to hold back when it came to publishing their work: the ‘method’ was not acquired from one day to the next, it required «practice and time». Ars longa, he concluded60. It was an adage that comprised both an epistemological concept and an ethical prescription simultaneously, as well as a picture of the future: the apprentices would one day belong to a peer group. However, the latter also required another form of preparation. Fredericq did indeed try to impart more than experience to his secretaries. He also attempted, as a patron, to ‘launch’ them: to insert them into a network and to make them known in an academic trade that was still surveyable around 1900. He did this by encouraging his secretaries to take part in the professional communication of this trade and supervising them in doing so. Specifically, this meant that he taught them how to evaluate the work of others and how to put that opinion into a review. This review was then offered, through him, to an authoritative, international trade journal such as Monod’s new Revue historique61. However, the ‘launch’ of pupils was also possible in other ways, for example by suggesting these pupils as alternative authors when he himself was prevented from accepting a commission due to lack of time62. Both in acquiring experience and in ‘launching’ in the existing trade, continuity took pride of place. In each case, it was a matter of ensuring transfer from one generation to another of aspects regarded as valuable (the ‘method’, auxiliary scientific skills, routine techniques, communication, etc.). The secretaries had to put this transfer into practice and thus strengthen the academic historical community. But that also meant that they had to match a certain profile, which proved no simple task. 58

Explicitly in BUG, Fredericq Archive, Ms. III 77 (23): note 7 November 1893. For the term ‘esoteric’: L. Raphael, Geschichtswissenschaft im Zeitalter der Extreme. Theorien, Methoden, Tendenzen von 1900 bis zur Gegenwart (Munich, 2003), 68. 60 Quoted in Fredericq, «L’origine et les développements», 23-24. 61 See for example BUG, Fredericq Archive, Ms. III 77 (23): notes 6 January 1891 and 3 February 1891. 62 See for example BUG, Fredericq Archive, Ms. 3704: note October 1897. 59

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Moral (self-)portraits The main aspects of the profile which the secretaries had to satisfy were regularity, promptness and reliability. These were regarded as necessary for the organisation of the ‘laboratory’ and for the success of every scientific campaign, such as an extensive source edition. Discipline, therefore, had to reign. Fredericq translated this requirement into a specific set of rules. He determined exactly how often and at what times his secretaries had to come to Winkelstraat to hear whether there were any new assignments for them and required that, whenever he was not in Ghent, they issue a detailed written report of their progress. Professionalization therefore not only implied acquiring technical knowledge and expertise; it also encompassed character formation: no character, no expert. However, that was an insight that apparently had not reached the secretaries themselves. Repeatedly, year after year, in every secretary, Fredericq noted a lack of discipline: they did not keep their promises, were not on time, wasted time, were wayward in doing what was asked of them. This could lead to heated discussions over continued frustration at the slow progress of the work (which would indeed remain uncompleted) and at the realisation that it was financially impossible to employ more than one secretary at a time63. Fredericq himself was criticised in this respect: in self-defence, one secretary asked whether it would not be quicker to correct proofs if the manuscript itself had not been full of errors and sloppiness64. Much more frequently, however, conflicts escalated to the same intensity as the emotional relationships described above; Fredericq himself talked of these ‘punishments’ as scènes à grand orchestre65. However, every dispute was followed by a reconciliation, in which the secretary promised to abide more closely to the agreements, these agreements were defined in even more detail and a workbook was opened in which what had been agreed was noted precisely. Until the next dispute broke out and only the lies were counted66. It was therefore no easy feat for even a person endowed with professorial authority to get a grip on these assistants, to ‘discipline’ them and to integrate them smoothly into the academic community. As a result, a discours could arise in which the world of the secretaries was presented as essentially different from one’s own world, which itself also took shape in this discours. Its author was the professor who painted a moral portrait of his secretary as soon as he was recruited, which proved to be the result of the detached observation associated with the hierarchic position of the author. These portraits were, given the time when they were compiled, overwhelmingly positive. For example, Fredericq wrote of Basse, «[...] a man of conscience, of will and of healthy intellect, very talented. Just a little 63

See in this context the begging letters to Lea in Tollebeek, Writing the Inquisition, 27-28 and 76. BUG, Fredericq Archive, Ms. III 77/29: A. Blyau to P. Fredericq, 16 September 1903. 65 BUG, Fredericq Archive, Ms. III 77 (23): notes 6 September 1898 and 13 October 1898, and Ms. 3704: note 13 October 1898. 66 BUG, Fredericq Archive, Ms. III 77 (23): note [September 1899] (about Van Renterghem: «23 August to 7 September 1899. Six written lies. Average of one written lie per 3 days»). 64

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proud and easily offended»67. However, as time passed and disputes arose, these portraits expanded into extensive clinical pictures. As appears from Fredericq’s notes, it was no longer exclusively a question of the (in)ability of the secretary to function in the academic community. The stage had become broader: while Fredericq described himself as the offspring of «an ordinary Belgian middle-class family, neither rich nor poor, but intellectually highly developed»68, the secretary appeared as a man who had no part in middle-class virtuousness. Given the nature of the conflicts, criticism was targeted firstly on the poor work ethic of the secretaries: they lacked enthusiasm and diligence, were lazy or in any event «did not happily work themselves to death»69. But the catalogue of vices compiled against them was broader. The secretaries were accused, for instance, of having no stamina, patience or seriousness. These were failings that had manifested themselves in their daily historiographical practices. For example, did they not treat lightly the problems that unexpectedly arose in their document research? But at the same time it was clear that these failings also distinguished them from the virtuous citizens. But there was more: Fredericq was forced to observe that some of his secretaries distanced themselves from the civil order as a result of their conduct (and not as a result of their shortcomings as assistants). The portraits did not lie. Fredericq believed that almost all the secretaries were greedy for money but they also continually got into debt. Most were confirmed carnival-goers. One was discovered to be neglecting his scholarly work in order to read novels and travel stories; Fredericq told him «that whores did that too and were equally unwilling to do honest work». Three assistants (including the novel-reader) were discovered to be going out drinking and womanizing: the first had become «madam’s darling» in a dubious café, the second had used his father’s money to «treat the women of Mozart and Olympia to oysters and champagne» and the third – Eggen – had been struck off at the bar by becoming the lover of one of his rich clients and later, so rumour had it, had left another girl with two bastard children. He had become a man of «indelicacies and coarseness», «a voyou»70. The picture had therefore become pessimistic and confused: the young researchers at the ‘laboratory’, who had been admitted to the intimacy of the club, had become strangers. The professor regarded them with ‘the eye of Lombroso’: to him, they were individuals who threatened the existing order71. Fredericq seemed to regard his secretaries, almost without exception – following the conceptual

67

BUG, Fredericq Archive, Ms. III 77 (23): note 24 October 1893. BUG, Fredericq Archive, Ms. 3705. 69 A.o. BUG, Fredericq Archive, Ms. III 77 (23): notes 1 December 1897 and 27 January 1898. 70 A.o. BUG, Fredericq Archive, Ms. III 77 (23): notes 17 February 1890, 17 December 1892, 4 May 1893, 20 January 1899, 13 February 1899, 6 September 1899, 8 September 1899 and 11 December 1899, and Ms. 3704: notes 24 April 1915, 7 May 1915 and 14 September 1915. 71 Cf. P. Strasser, «Cesare Lombroso: l’homme délinquant ou la bête sauvage au naturel», in L’âme au corps. Arts et sciences 1793-1993, ed. J. Clair (Paris, 2002), 355. 68

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fashion of the day – as dégénérés72, although they could not all be tarred with the same brush. Some were lazy degenerates: Jacobs, «who had no honour in his body and had truly sunk to the depths», and Van Renterghem, who seemed to have lost all feeling of self-worth and was «broken». Some, however, were morally weak. Blyau was neurotic, an unstable man who would take something into his head and who always over-reacted. Vuylsteker was quickly characterised after his appointment as «sickly and melancholy»73. Finally, there was yet a third category: the political dégénérés. This group included Verdeyen, who had now become the victim of the «moral corruption among the intellectual youth», spread by the Catholics and, as a free-thinker, went to church out of cowardice. During the war he was accompanied by Eggen: a «Jew», wrote the dreyfusard Fredericq of the collaborator, a «Jew in the foulest sense», because he did everything for money like an unscrupulous man74. This was how six of Fredericq’s eight secretaries were reviewed – as having become contemptible, weak or cowardly and by no means trailblazers of progress or innovation. In 1901, the news arrived that Jacobs, barely past thirty, had sunk into decline. Perhaps Fredericq then remembered what he had noticed eight years earlier about Jacobs’ physiognomy: not very handsome, not very powerful. Perhaps he also thought about Frederichs, who had died one year earlier and of whom he already knew much earlier that tuberculosis had made him an easy target75. What did these portraits, varying on the doctrine of degeneracy, mean? Why did they imply more than anecdotal histories? Once again, they demonstrate that the new labour relations that emerged in the late nineteenth century in the academic historical world encompassed much more than business arrangements. They were also related to identity formation. The portraits of the secretaries were above all self-portraits: by comparing it against what was portrayed as chaos and decline, they represented the historical community inspired by professors as a world full of order, energy and ascetics. Professional and character-related identity overlapped and both were formed in this representation process. Fredericq’s small portraits again made it clear that the academic community grew out of what could still best be described as an emotional, stormy family. 72

For the (success of) degeneration thinking in Belgium: Degeneratie in België 1860-1940. Een geschiedenis van ideeën en praktijken, eds. J. Tollebeek, G. Vanpaemel and K. Wils (Leuven, 2003), and J. Tollebeek, «Degeneration, modernity and cultural change. A Belgian perspective, 1860-1940», in The many faces of evolution in Europe, c. 1860-1914, eds. P. Dassen and M. Kemperink (Leuven-ParisDudley, MA, 2005), 53-70 and 145-149. Cf. also De zieke natie. Over de medicalisering van de samenleving 1860-1914, eds. L. Nys et al. (Groningen, 2000). 73 BUG, Fredericq Archive, Ms. III 77 (23): notes 2 May 1893, 13 October 1898, 20 January 1899, November 1901, 5 March 1903 and October 1907 and Ms. III 77/25: A. Blyau to P. Fredericq, 28 May 1901. 74 BUG, Fredericq Archive, Ms. III 77 (23): note 4 March 1904 and Ms. 3704: notes 24 April 1915 and 22 August 1915. For the liberal dreyfusards in Belgium: J. Stengers, «La Belgique, un foyer de dreyfusisme», in L’affaire Dreyfus et l’opinion publique en France et à l’étranger, eds. M. Denis, M. Lagrée and J.-Y. Veillard (Rennes, 1995), 273-290. 75 BUG, Fredericq Archive, Ms. III 77 (23): notes 7 March 1890, 15 March 1890 and 8 March 1893 and Ms. III 77/25: A. Blyau to P. Fredericq, 19 February 1901.

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HISTORY TAKES TIME AND WRITING TAKES TIME, TOO. A CASE STUDY OF TEMPORAL NOTIONS IN HISTORICAL TEXT*

Henning Trüper

This paper focuses on conceptual arrangements and textual patterns related to ‘historical time’ in the writings of the Belgian mediaevalist François-Louis Ganshof (1895-1980)1. ‘Historical time’ strictly speaking must be regarded as a representation of time in some cultural form of history, in this case, that of historical writing. ‘Representation’ ought to be understood in a general sense, as a sort of reconstruction drawing on some kind of knowledge about the past and making use of some medium, such as, e.g. text2. However, the ‘time’ in question is not plain physical or natural time. It is time as linked up with practices of describing human actions and events3. Hence, some element of representation is already contained in the concept. The decisive point is that the time in question is ‘historical’. This adjective and the derived noun, ‘historicity’, are difficult terms with an uneven philosophical history4. I use them here in a minimal way that insists only on two aspects: firstly, the term ‘historical’ cannot be applied to all things past. It presupposes a surplus, a cultural effort of appropriation that subsumes things past under what is known of the past in the form of history. Secondly, this makes ‘historical’ a concept relative to a given cultural practice of appropriating and representing the past. Such practices presuppose notions of historical time, but these notions come in a variety of forms resisting further classification. The appropriation of the past through scientific reasoning was and is by no means the only (and is perhaps merely a locally privileged) form of historical culture. François

* At various stages of its production, this paper has profited from the critical readings of several people, who I thank for their efforts: Janet Coleman, Poul Kjaer, Carl Marklund, Niklas Olsen, Christa Putz, Michael Vorˇisˇek 1 For Ganshof see A. Verhulst, «François Louis Ganshof», in Nouvelle Biographie Nationale, V (Brussels, 1988), 171-74; R. Van Caenegem, «Ganshof, François Louis», in Nationaal Biografisch Woordenboek, 12 (Brussels, 1987), 263-73. 2 There is, in these considerations, a faint echo of the way in which M. Oakeshott, On History and other Essays (Oxford, 1983) attempted to distinguish a ‘historical past’ from other kinds of past; I share his view that there are multiple ways of organising knowledge about the past, but I do not adhere to his claim that the ‘historical past’ must be understood as scientifically organised, and fully detached from present concerns. 3 For the distinction (and an argument for a pluralist concept of time) see K. Pomian, L’ordre du temps (Paris, 1984), 323-47. See also R. Koselleck, «Einleitung», in Idem, Zeitschichten. Studien zur Historik (Frankfurt a.M., 2000), 9-16. 4 See the survey provided by P. Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting (Chicago-London, 2004), 369-82.

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Hartog speaks of ‘regimes of historicity’, depending on different cultural contexts and governing the way in which social groups handle the past5. This is an attractive formula, even if the level of abstraction attained by Hartog’s ‘regimes’ is very high, making the application to actual cases difficult. In addition, the notion of a ‘regime of historicity’ has somewhat monolithic connotations, suggesting that there is only one such ‘regime’ present in a given culture at a given point in time6. It seems that a more elevated degree of plurality, local distinctions and small-scale changes would allow for a clearer understanding how things are ‘made historical’. Furthermore, Hartog does not pursue at length the question as to how a regime of historicity interacts with other governing powers of thought, and how it is related to social contexts. Thus, more remains to be said about, among other things, the role actual historians, and their academic discipline, can play in such ‘regimes’. In the following pages, I will attempt to substantiate these points on the level of the concrete case of a historian. I will describe different notions of time coexisting in the works of this historian simultaneously. I will, if in a sketchy manner, contextualise them in terms of his scholarly working practices (in particular, writing) and situational conditions, thus gaining a perspective on the more or less local and fleeting characteristics of a particular way of appropriating the past. Ganshof is an apt choice for this kind of venture, because as a prototypical ‘working historian’, he represented many of the dominant norms and practices of the professional historiography of his times. Throughout his life, he followed what one might call a ‘positivist’ tradition of historical writing. His methodological language remained wedded to unequivocally charged concepts like ‘fact’, ‘analysis’ and ‘synthesis’, and he associated himself, above all, with a juridical and in part philological type of institutional history that located itself in a tradition that the emerging types of social history vigorously opposed. He was not prone to engaging in theoretical debates but was instead focused on concrete, detailed, problem-solving work that was aimed at a maximum of certainty and solidity. Of Ganshof’s writings, I will use two comprehensive essays about the era of Charlemagne, which date from the years after the Second World War7. Both were first presented as speeches, delivered to scientific academies, the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in Paris, in March 1947, and the Mediaeval Academy of America in Washington D.C., at the end of December 1948. The first address 5

F. Hartog, Régimes d’historicité (Paris, 2003), for the ‘régimes’ see esp. 19f. G. Lenclud, «Traversées dans le temps», in Annales. Histoires, Sciences Sociales, 61 (2006): 105384, here 1070, has convincingly argued that Hartog’s metaphor of a ‘regime’ of historicity expresses the man-made, composite, unstable and gradual character of the ways in which cultures handle the past. What appears to be underemphasised in Hartog’s presentation is a notion of disunified, plural time, as developed by Koselleck in his Zeitschichten, esp. 19-26. 7 F.L. Ganshof, «The Failure of Charles the Great», in Idem, The Carolingians and the Frankish Monarchy. Studies in Carolingian History, (Ithaca, N. Y., 1971), 256-60; Idem, «Charlemagne», in ibidem, 17-27. The first text was translated from French by J. Sondheimer. I will use this translation, here. The French original was first published in Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres. Comptes Rendus des Séances (1947): 248-54. The second paper was written in English and first published in Speculum, 24 (1949): 520-27. 6

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bears the title: L’échec de Charlemagne [The failure of Charles the Great]; it contained an analysis of why and how Charlemagne’s government constituted, in Ganshof’s eyes, a failure. The second text was simply entitled Charlemagne; it offered a periodisation of the first mediaeval emperor’s reign, and some paragraphs dedicated to portraying his personality. Both texts are, as one might put it, condensed expressions of Ganshof’s way of writing history. Each in its own way was supposed to be particularly meaningful. They were to make lasting contributions to Carolingian history and to demonstrate the abilities of their author to his peers, asserting his authority in the discipline. Moreover, they were transitory texts. On the one hand, they summarised the existing research. On the other, they mapped out a new, intensified research programme for the Carolingian period. The ultimate goal was to write a biography of Charlemagne, a project that Ganshof never achieved8. In 1945, he had turned fifty. In correspondence, he spoke of undergoing a ‘crisis’9, presumably in reaction to the war. He had been back in military service from the liberation of Belgium in September 1944. From December, he had been part of the liaison department of the Belgian army that moved into Germany with the Allied Forces in the spring of 1945, and he was relieved from service only at the end of the year. He had seen many of the upheavals and destructions first hand, and he had also lost a lot of time for research. Apparently, he considered his earlier work insufficient, hence feeling a need to hurry, and work more, and to a higher standard10. As a consequence of his ‘crisis’, he retreated from all activities that were not strictly professional duties, and he developed a writing profile that would dominate the remainder of his career. From that point onwards, he published his research in an almost breathless fashion, through vast numbers of papers, scattered over all the relevant journals in the field. He cared little for larger ‘synthetic’ work, trying instead to promote historical knowledge by a forced, concentrated and somewhat single-minded effort of source analysis. However, the papers were connected implicitly and formed a unified whole in the form of a web of texts. The comparatively few synthetic sketches Ganshof did produce often had a programmatic character. The papers to be examined here belong to this category. They provide a particularly clear perspective on the scope of his historical reasoning and his rhetorical habits. Located in a period of biographical transition, where reorientations and plurality can be expected, these texts ensure a heuristic advantage for the project the present paper pursues. 8

However, he clung to the project for a very long time; Raoul Van Caenegem recalls how Ganshof announced, at a surprisingly late point of his life, that he had finally abandoned his plans, see «F. L. Ganshof: persoonlijke herinneringen», in Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, 119 (2006): 516-19. 9 Ganshof’s diplomat friend Guy de Schoutheete de Tervarent mentions this in a letter to Ganshof 1002-1946, Nalatenschap François Louis Ganshof, Universiteitsbibliotheek Gent, HS III 86, doos 63, envelope «Guy de Schoutheete, Jeannette de Schoutheete». For de Tervarent (1891-1969) see Ganshof’s necrology in Revue belge d’archéologie et d’histoire de l’art, 35 (1968; published 1970): 223-25. 10 For instance Ganshof to C. Sánchez-Albornoz, 10.06.1946, Fundacíon Sánchez-Albornoz, Avila; similarly Ganshof to Schramm 09.07.1950, Nachlaß P.E. Schramm, Staatsarchiv Hamburg, Familie Schramm, 622-1, L 230, vol. 4, file Ganshof.

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LIST MAKING, ANACHRONISM AND THE LIMITS OF HISTORICAL TIME Briefly summarised, the content of the 1947 address L’échec de Charlemagne was the following: Ganshof judged that the Carolingian administration had been deficient in comparison with that of antiquity, mediaeval Byzantium and the Caliphate. In Western Europe, the administrative achievements of the Romans had been eroded in the period of the ‘great invasions’. Charlemagne, who had had the intention of remedying the deficiencies, had failed to develop any coordinated initiatives for improving the situation. After presenting this general argument, Ganshof summed up the evidence that provided reasons for his claim. He pursued the argument on different institutional levels of Charlemagne’s Empire. He then added some concluding remarks: all solutions had been merely partial, and despite great efforts, Charlemagne’s «Frankish state» had ultimately failed to retrieve «an administrative apparatus capable of carrying on its government»11. In a final paragraph, Ganshof then outlined the long-term consequences of his findings for the history of France and Germany, perceived as the struggling successor states of the Frankish Empire. The way in which Ganshof explained his general thesis is worth some attention. Basically, he followed an exegetic procedure, in which the meaning of the general thesis was interpreted in more specific terms. Case examples were drawn upon as supporting reasons. Occasionally, Ganshof used explanatory metaphors to state his point, for instance when he spoke of «a sprinkling of administrative manpower over the surface of the Regnum»12. The case examples were constituted by ‘facts’, either individual or in groups. The underlying structure was that of a list13 of facts, ordered under specific aspects. The ordering principle was not of a temporal kind. Instead, Ganshof went through the different institutions of Charlemagne’s realm one by one. Diachronic descriptions occurred only in relation to specific institutions. The list in question contained elements that could be stated independently of each other but were capable of being categorised and organised in a hierarchy of ordering aspects. Thus, if Ganshof’s text was in general about failing state institutions, the single institutions figured as the subordinate aspects of the list. One by one, their individual deficiencies could be specified. These deficiencies then were the elements of the list. They were subjected to a standard of regular proportion, i.e., they did not differ much in size and reached a similar level of complexity14. The list had to be able to continue effortlessly and without imbalances regarding one institution or another. Facts, with their inherent 11

Ganshof, «The Failure», 259. Ibidem, 257. 13 For an instructive perspective on list structure in general see J. Goody, The Domestication of the Savage Mind (Cambridge etc., 1977), ch. 5. 14 The restrictions of size traditionally placed on ‘facts’ seem to have emerged in the context of early modern administrative list making; see L. Daston, «Perché i fatti sono brevi?», in Quaderni Storici, 108 (2001): 745-70, and M. Poovey, A History of the Modern Fact. Problems of Knowledge in the Sciences of Wealth and Society (Chicago-London, 1998). 12

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simplicity, self-sufficiency and fragmentary character, were ideal for listing. Arguably, positivist epistemology, with its focus on facts, required a specific practical knowledge of textual composition, which Ganshof deployed: both the list structure and the facts were detectable in the paragraph and sentence structure of his writing. The list structure of the Failure paper had what one might call a ‘direction’. Ganshof’s listing of Carolingian institutions set out from the royal palace and the immediate entourage of the ruler, among which were the chancery and the treasury. It continued with various instruments of «local government»15, focusing on counts and several types of subordinate officials. Some more institutional facets of the realm were introduced as deficient and fragmented attempts to mend the shortcomings of local administration. In this way, the text moved down from the top of an imagined pyramid of power to its bottom. This kind of direction of listmaking achieved a sense of coherent sequence that did not allow gaps between single elements of the list. Through sequence, list making could thus create a sense of systematicity and completeness. The list was structurally open-ended – it could have been extended further down the power hierarchy, if not for the lack of sources – but its rhetoric was one that did not allow for lacunae. The procedure of making a list was interwoven intimately with other parts of Ganshof’s working process. His lists had to make use of collections of materials acquired through the reading of sources and literature and noted down on slips of paper. The collection of information by means of text analysis yielding facts was committed to producing suitable elements that could go into lists. The pragmatic openness of the term ‘fact’ was useful precisely because it allowed for great flexibility in the compilation of lists; and it was the conceptually underdeveloped practice of list-making that gave Ganshof’s facts their significance in his reasoning. Although the comprehensive papers under scrutiny here were relatively remote from actual work with sources and the facts presented in them were, for the most part, well known to the scholarly community, the textual structure remained adapted to the practices that went along with the collecting of facts in the actual research, in preparation for writing. The rhetorical arrangements constituting the composition phase of the writing process were dependent on the practice of notetaking, even if the specific texts under scrutiny were not. Moreover, list-making also reached out into the actual writing up of the text. Ganshof did not simply provide lists of issues; they were well-phrased and well-balanced lists, the ordering aspects of which had to be arranged in a rhetorical sequence that made sense to Ganshof and his presumed audiences. Hence, Ganshof’s list-making was an integral part of his writing process as a whole. Everything that was bound to listmaking thus was bound to his working practices in their full particularity, and not merely a matter of conceptual arrangements or discursive structures. The ordering aspects in Ganshof’s lists did not come up arbitrarily. They were part of a particular know-how of explanations with the help of which he formulated 15

Ganshof, «The Failure», 257.

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his texts. He knew exactly what he was looking for and how, in response to other texts, he could set up arguments supported by lists of specifying case examples. A passage from the Failure paper about Charlemagne’s so-called ‘chancery’ may serve as an illustration: [U]nder Charlemagne what scholars have described as the ‘chancery’ – a term not used until the twelfth century – was in reality merely a secretariat where a group of notarii, cancellarii, engrossed the royal diplomas. Charlemagne made standard a practice first found under his father, that of employing for this work ‘clerics’ from the palace chapel, and he placed at their head a single official, recruited from the same circles, who was made responsible for the recognitio. Towards the end of the reign this official acquired a fixed position in the hierarchy: he was the ‘chancellor’ par excellence (cancellarius noster).[…] But the scope of this secretariat was very narrow; it had no hand in the writing of placita, capitularies, or the king’s correspondence and it seems that even diplomas were sometimes drafted by the beneficiaries.[…] The work which fell within its competence was certainly important to a society in which privilege played such an essential role; but we cannot pretend that this was a key institution, vital to realising the fundamental aims of the state16.

Here, the chancery was first explained, then described in its function; finally subsumed into the general thesis of the text: the chancery, too, was a failing institution, as an enumeration of its failures demonstrated. The explanatory concepts used in this passage are basically of three kinds: either, they are Latin expressions taken from the sources of the period, like cancellarius, recognitio (the recognition of the authenticity of a charter by means of a sign added by the head of the chancery) or placitum (in this context the proceedings of a Frankish royal court session in the form of a charter). These are expressions to which historians have attached a technical sense. In Ganshof’s speech they had explanatory value because the audience was made up of other historians familiar with the vocabulary. Then, there were other, similar terms, such as ‘cleric’, ‘chancery’ and ‘chancellor’. They too were concepts that historians had invested with specific meanings. But they were modern adaptations. They carried the burden of mistaken earlier histories. They were, all things considered, illicit anachronisms. Hence, they acquired distancing quotation marks. It is instructive that Ganshof did not regard the expression ‘chancery’ as being appropriate, for example, but retained it nonetheless. Concepts of this type could function as tokens of recognition, referring to complex scholarly debates and lines of confrontation that the author momentarily wanted to bypass. They were a mode of ‘improper’ speech, an indication that the particular text in which they occurred was only a provisional and imperfect utterance, bound to be superseded by better future scholarship17. Finally, there were terms that stemmed from a set of common sense notions about the working of modern state administration. Thus, the ‘chancery’ could be explained through the term ‘secretariat’; the ‘scope’ – or ‘competence’ – of this 16

Ibidem, 257. This adds a facet to the ‘imperfection’ of historical writing that A. Rigney, Imperfect Histories. The Elusive Past and the Legacy of Romantic Historicism (Ithaca, N.Y., 2001) has analysed: the imperfection of the overall research process in which the discipline as a whole was engaged. 17

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secretariat, however, was ‘narrow’. Charlemagne ‘made standard’ some administrative practices; the ‘officials’ stood in a ‘hierarchy’; the chancery, due to its shoddy character, had no claim to being a ‘key institution’; it could not «realise the fundamental aims of the state». These notions did not merely enable explanation but also imposed limitations on discourse. For instance, Ganshof represented the practice that beneficiaries drew up their own diplomas as exceptional and clearly symptomatic of institutional failure, although this custom was widespread throughout the Middle Ages and does not seem to have raised objections among the contemporaries. Yet in the conceptual scheme that Ganshof used for the Failure paper, the practice appeared as outlandish and could not be presented as an ordinary aspect of the way Carolingian and other mediaeval ‘administrations’ were run18. With the help of this explanatory tool-kit, referring to some sort of common sense as well as to established debates among scholars, Ganshof rapidly provided the anatomy of a mediaeval institution at a specific time. This procedure was well established in institutional and legal history. It was a commonly known way of dealing with the topics involved, corresponding to a tradition – or imagined tradition – in the writing of legal and institutional history that had found its origins in French political and institutional history writing and German Verfassungsgeschichte alike19. These traditions had produced similar structuring procedures. Different legal or political institutions were assembled in a list-like manner and rapidly dissected within the scope of a few sentences or paragraphs. The impact of this kind of procedure on Ganshof’s own ideas of structuring institutional history is also apparent in his most famous book, Qu’est-ce que la féodalité?, for which Mitteis’s Lehnrecht und Staatsgewalt, a monumental and exhaustive description of the legal forms of mediaeval feudalism, was one of the primary points of reference20. The rhetorical clarity and precision of Ganshof’s work, the foundation of its international success, owed much to the perfection to which he had driven the mode of composition in question. He departed from the juridical systematicity of Mitteis’s overall structure, but the argument followed a similar pattern: originally isolated and clearly distinct legal and institutional components added up to form a complex phenomenon. Feudalism was a contingent product of a specific history, originating in the slowly emerging fusion of different 18

To be sure, it is not clear what status charters formulated by their recipients held; they were far from unusual, however, and there are no indications that they enjoyed less legitimacy than those produced by the ‘chanceries’. See for instance: W. Koch, «Empfängerausfertigung», in Lexikon des Mittelalters, 3 (Munich, 1980), 1890f. 19 See for the French case C. Delacroix, F. Dosse, P. Garcia, Les courants historiques en France. 19e et 20e siècle (Paris, 2001), ch. 2 and, as a case study with much broader significance, F. Hartog, Le XIXe siècle et l’histoire. Le cas Fustel de Coulanges (Paris, 20012); for the German tradition, see F. Graus, «Verfassungsgeschichte des Mittelalters», in Historische Zeitschrift, 243 (1986): 529-89, and from the perspective of legal studies, E. Grothe, Zwischen Geschichte und Recht. Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichtsschreibung 1900-1970 (Munich, 2005). 20 H. Mitteis, Lehnrecht und Staatsgewalt. Untersuchungen zur mittelalterlichen Verfassungsgeschichte (Weimar, 1933).

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kinds of legal arrangements and institutions, most notoriously benefice and vassalage. If one assembled the components in a kind of list and managed to describe their respective trajectories, including their amalgamations, one would end up rather automatically at a succinct description of this process. This is the constructive principle on which both books are built. Making a list could thus be an argumentative procedure, a matter of giving reasons for specific historical phenomena. This type of rhetorical arrangement of giving reasons tended to explain the confusing and often alien character of mediaeval institutions primarily through their structural features as slowly emerging combinations of originally rather simple elements. As a consequence of this tendency, the categories of ‘alterity’ and ‘complexity’ became conflated as the confusing and alien traits of institutions were identified with their complex structure and genealogy. At the same time, the procedure tended to present the simple components of the complex institutions as being comprehensible by some sort of mere common sense. The basic feature on which Ganshofian feudalism rests, for instance, is a contractual relation between lord and vassal, in which the latter ceded some of his freedoms to the lord in exchange for support of some kind21. This figure of thought evidently stems from a long tradition of interpreting power relations in contractual terms. For historians like Ganshof it was a matter of common sense that the means-ends rationality of this kind of quid pro quo dealing was a universal feature in the construction of legal forms and social hierarchies. At the end of the day, it is questionable as to whether this can be taken for granted. Mediaeval hierarchies may well have emerged, and perpetuated themselves, along different intellectual lines22. Yet while the problem was present in the works of authors like Ganshof, the traditional customs of textual composition were more powerful. These habits tended to minimise the alterity of the past in relation to the simple components that made up the more complex structures. In this way, the direction of the trajectory of historical change in the Middle Ages was represented as a progression from simple components into more complex structures. Historical research, on the other hand, was supposed to recede towards the origins of the historical phenomena to be explained. It became, thus, a movement away from alterity towards the familiarity of common sense. Implicitly, this habit of appealing to common sense can also be observed in the passage about Charlemagne’s ‘chancery’. In the rapid anatomy of a mediaeval institution aimed at by Ganshof’s tradition of institutional history, complexity and alterity were marked with the help of Latin and technical terms which escaped immediate comprehension. They were explained in some common sense semantic 21

Ganshof developed this argument already in the 1930s, in «Note sur les origines de l’union du bénéfice avec la vassalité», in Etudes d’histoire dédiées à la mémoire de Henri Pirenne par ses anciens élèves (Brussels, 1937), 109-88, and in «Benefice and Vassalage in the Age of Charlemagne», in Cambridge Historical Journal, 6 (1939): 147-75. 22 For instance, M. Bloch, La Société féodale, 2 vols. (Paris, 1939-1940) paid more attention to the role that culturally determined notions of freedom and heritable status played in the emergence of ‘feudal’ bonds among mediaeval people, as well as in various other contexts.

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field, in this case the one related to «secretariat». The notion of ‘common sense’ did not become explicit in the way in which Ganshof composed the text, but it was necessary as a figure of thought in order to understand and accept his arguments. When he talked about «the fundamental aims of the state», this was indeed a bold assertion of a variant of common sense regarding the aims in question, the state, and how administration was run in a good way. Common sense, however, was invested with a special meaning by those technical terms, like ‘chancery’, which Ganshof placed in quotation marks. Expressions of this kind referred to earlier stages of scientific knowledge, which had been overcome by subsequent research. The implicit assumption that common sense itself underwent changes cast a shadow on the idea of its universal validity and, simultaneously, linked up Ganshof’s reasoning with the positivist belief in the progress of science. Explanation by reference to common sense was thus, at the end of the day, imperfect; and it was an act of virtue, indirectly enhancing one’s authority, to own up to one’s scientific imperfection. Thus, ethical notions were inscribed into the reasoning with common sense underlying Ganshof’s list-making habits. This ethical rationale was intimately linked with the intricate use of anachronisms, observable in Ganshof’s short paragraph on Charlemagne’s chancery. Some anachronisms – the good ones, admitting implicitly their own imperfection – carried explanatory force, like the semantic field of ‘secretariat’ and the administrative practices around it, while others – the bad ones, irrevocably out of use – like the term ‘chancery’ itself, had lost their significance in the course of developing historical knowledge. By means of the emphatic use of bad anachronisms Ganshof also highlighted his use of good ones. He deliberately contrasted concepts lifted directly from the sources with concepts that belonged to a modern understanding of administration. In every single sentence both kinds of term occurred. There was a movement back and forth between good anachronisms and historical terms. These contrasts gave the passage a specific rhetorical tension. Ganshof used the modern administrative idiom in an ostentatious manner, throughout the text. This was a way of underlining the positive value, the explanatory force and the indispensability of the anachronisms used in his explanations. Indeed, Ganshof believed that historical writing without deploying present-day vocabulary was impossible23. In the passage about the chancery, he clearly assumed the necessity of establishing a minimal, but stable and powerfully justified descriptive and explanatory vocabulary, as firm ground on which one could stand. Implicitly, he asserted that he had succeeded achieving this effect. The stability of the standpoint taken in the text was perhaps only relative and imperfect, as the bad anachronisms suggested. Yet, there was no question of an explanation that made no 23

In Wat waren de Capitularia? (Brussels, 1955), 64, n. 250, he stated this clearly, if indirectly, by quoting affirmatively the Dutch legal historian H.R. Hoetink, who was in turn quoting Mitteis’s critique of Otto Brunner’s insistence that history had to rid itself of all anachronistic concepts.

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use of anachronisms and was not based on a practice of adopting at least some vocabulary presumably immune to historical change and explanation. Implicitly, this was a reference to the traditional topos of the historian’s dependence on a particular standpoint. The ubiquitous, though mostly implicit, presence of this commonplace theme becomes also apparent in the concluding section of the Charlemagne paper from 1948. After a survey of the ups and downs of the first Emperor’s government, Ganshof added two pages with an attempt to provide a short authoritative portrait of the ruler. He asked: «Is it possible to grasp [Charles’s] personality as a statesman? Perhaps». Then, the historian proceeded without hesitation to the characterisation of his sujet: «A primary fact that must be emphasised is that – even compared with others of his time – Charlemagne was not a cultivated man»24. Ganshof’s text here placed a very heavy and conscious burden on the word «perhaps», singled out in an unusual fashion as a highly elliptic fragmentary sentence. «Perhaps» suggests that ultimately the question cannot be answered; that neither an affirmative nor a negative answer can be ruled out. The historian can only attempt to ‘grasp’ the issue in question, with the explanatory vocabulary at hand, or else refrain from doing so. Such an attempt must be guided by something beyond the realm of what the sources could prove in a straightforward manner; something like intuition, vested with authority by the admission of its own imperfection. The first fact noted about Charles underlines Ganshof’s intention to undertake such an attempt, and it also stresses the restriction of imperfection, under which this attempt is placed, through its conscious use, once again, of anachronism. Ganshof characterises Charles as being ‘uncultivated’, even by the standards of the early Middle Ages. That is to say, however, that there is no actual need to adhere to these standards in the first place. In turn, this means that the problem of the dependence of the modern historian’s standards on his modern standpoint can be dismissed as being practically irrelevant. Implicitly, anachronism is accepted as an insurmountable condition. With the help of the elliptic sentence: «Perhaps», Ganshof once and for all admits to the relativity of the list of properties he ascribes to Charlemagne in the paragraphs that follow. The «perhaps» presents an ultimate, insurmountable claim to modesty, an affirmation of the imperfection of the historical knowledge of the author. Due to its ethical significance, it functions as a claim to authority. It enhances the credibility of Ganshof’s further assertions and imbues them with a sense of inevitability, as he, the modest and erudite scholar, insists that, all things considered, he cannot come to any other conclusions. The topos of perspectivity25 – the historian’s dependence on his particular standpoint –, implicitly present in the text, is fully ambiguous, describing an epistemic as well as an ethical condition. It achieves a perfect blurring of notions from these two domains. The topos of perspectivity was far from simply functioning as a device to 24

Ganshof, «Charlemagne», 24. See in particular R. Koselleck, «Standortbindung und Zeitlichkeit. Ein Beitrag zur historiographischen Erschließung der geschichtlichen Welt», in Idem, Vergangene Zukunft. Zur Semantik geschichtlicher Zeiten (Frankfurt a.M., 1979), 176-207.

25

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polish the surface of Ganshof’s texts. On the contrary, it provided an indispensable discursive pattern which enabled historical reasoning. This pattern, expressing itself in the use of anachronisms, had enormous importance for Ganshof’s operative notion of historical time. This notion differed from that of physical time inasmuch as it did not pertain to a great number of entities and qualities. It had limits. For instance, there was a language of ‘interests’ and rationality more generally, pertaining to human action, that transcended historical time, and there was also a language of institutional, legal and political affairs that had to be understood as eluding historical change. The limits in question were not very clear when historical writing came down to a more concrete level, but in principle it was unthinkable that they could be relinquished. Thus, Ganshof was very far from what is often labelled ‘historicism’26. In practice, he had vague but robust reservations against the theoretical claim that everything was historical, relative to its time, subject to change. Whole vocabularies were withdrawn from history but could be used in list-making for the explanation of the historical past; and the limits of historicity were constituted by a pattern of reasoning based on a blurring of ethical and epistemic notions. Hence, these notions were prerequisites of Ganshof’s understanding of historical time.

TWO NARRATIVE ORDERS IN HISTORICAL WRITING One can also approach notions of historical time from a different angle, providing another, broader perspective. The notions in question do not only underpin Ganshof’s use of anachronisms and atemporal patterns of discourse. They can also be found in elements of narrative order in Ganshof’s texts. The concept of ‘narrative’ is a very intricate one and calls for a short digression sketching its use in the present study. For this purpose, it is helpful to take a look at Paul Ricoeur’s discussion of narrative as being intimately connected to the Aristotelian notion of ‘mimesis’. For Ricoeur, the ‘mimetic activity’ is one of representing action through some form of creative imitation, i.e., not just some ‘identical replica’27. This activity organises actions and events into a plot (mythos). The coupling of mimesis and muthos is foundational for the concept of ‘narrative’ in Ricoeur’s interpretation. For, in order to eschew distinguishing between drama and epic, he suggests understanding the concept of narrative in terms of its content, of the ‘what’ of narration, rather than the ‘mode’ of representation28. Ricoeur thus privileges content, and the notion of plot becomes a prime component of the concept of narrative. Under these assumptions, ‘plot’ is roughly identical with the sequential ordering 26

Understood here as the German ‘Historismus’; for a comprehensive account see A. Wittkau, Historismus. Geschichte des Begriffs und des Problems (Göttingen, 19942), and O.G. Oexle, Geschichtswissenschaft im Zeichen des Historismus. Studien zur Problemgeschichte der Moderne, (Göttingen, 1996). 27 P. Ricoeur, Time and Narrative, I (Chicago, 1984), ch. 1-2, here 33f. 28 Ibidem, 36.

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of actions and events in narrative activity and thus ought to be quite broadly conceived. Aristotle’s suggestive insistence, in the Poetics, that narrative text should be understood in terms of beginning, middle and end has provided such a broad conception for many theorists29. Yet, the identification of ‘plot’ with a purportedly mandatory beginning-middle-end structure of narrative text is a rash move. It has gone comparatively unnoticed that Aristotle also admits to the possibility of an episodic narrative structure not describable in terms of a unified and overarching sequence of beginning, middle and end. For Aristotle, clearly, such an episodic structure is inferior from a normative standpoint30. Still, he appears to dismiss the idea that a particular type of overall structure constitutes narrative. Indeed, on second glance it is surprising that the long-standing debates about narrative structure have always tried to identify a type of overall structure as the foundation of narration. Characteristically, Arthur Danto, to name just one, attempted to discover a structural formula of narrative text on the structural level of just a few sentences and then to transfer this into the level of the overall structure of a text31. Quite generally, hybrid texts, containing both narrative and non-narrative types of discourse, have not drawn the attention of theorists. The existence of such texts, however, calls for a distinction between a micro- and a macro-level of narrative text structure. At the end of the day the micro-level might be more decisive whereas the macro-level would mostly coincide with a notion of ‘genre’. If overall structure can be dismissed, and if one wants to salvage the close link between mimesis and muthos, the notion of plot should be broadened to include several levels of text structure. This appears confusing at first sight, but it is actually quite plausible. It is noteworthy that there can be equally acceptable variants of descriptions of the same plot and that these descriptions tend to take the form of narratives about narratives. ‘Plot’ is a concept that refers to text structures, 29

For instance, this is the way in which Hayden White has used ‘plot’ in his Metahistory. The Historical Imagination in 19th Century Europe, (Baltimore, 1974), 5-7. 30 See Aristotle, Poetics, transl. W.H. Fyfe, (Cambridge, Ma., 1973), ch. IX, for ‘episodic’ plots in tragedy (defined as those «in which the episodes do not follow each other probably or inevitably», 39). Chapter XXIII – where Aristotle begins to discuss epic – suggests that the epic muthos «must not be such as we normally find in history, where what is required is an exposition not of a single piece of action but of a single period of time, showing all that within the period befell one or more persons, events that have a merely casual relation to each other», 91. Aristotle then points out that «in any sequence of time one event may follow another and yet they may not issue in any one result. Yet most of the poets do this», 93, i.e., construct plots of the episodic kind usually found in history. Hence, it seems justified to conclude that for Aristotle episodic plots are a common phenomenon in the poetic representation of actions and events and must be included in the concept of narrative. Such plots lack the beginning-middle-end structure, which is described in chapter VII: «A beginning is that which is not a necessary consequent of anything else but after which something else exists or happens as a natural result. An end on the contrary is that which is inevitably or, as a rule, the natural result of something else but from which nothing else follows; a middle follows something else and something follows from it. Well constructed plots must not therefore begin and end at random, but must embody the formulae we have stated», 31. Thus, it seems a precarious venture to base the very concept of narrative on the Aristotelian notion of a ‘well constructed’ plot. 31 Cf. A. Danto, Narration and Knowledge (New York, 1985), 233-56.

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and most of the time to overall structures. But such structures are a type of description; they can be more or less inadequate or convincing, but the descriptions do not correspond with given textual ‘objects’ in a simple way, and they can choose different such ‘objects’ in the same text. The notion of ‘plot’ presupposes the capability of narratives to be represented by meta-narratives, as it were. If ‘plot’ is bound up with the very concept of ‘narrative’ that implies that there cannot be such a concept without the possibility of telling narratives about narratives, or without the knowledge of what is an acceptable plot description and what is not. This suggests that there must be a particular discursive domain, a particular kind of practical knowledge about narration and plot description; indeed, this seems to be the case in many respects. People versed in the handling of narrative – i.e., more or less everyone – have vast knowledge about the structures narratives usually take, and about genres, standards for summaries, appropriate emotional reactions, techniques of identifying with the story told, and so on. If these considerations are acceptable, the notion of ‘plot’ can be very broad and conceptually useful at the same time. Ricoeur points out that narration – as the creation of some sort of organised text – is based on a pre-understanding of actions and events with which the organising mimetic activity interacts. He appears to identify this pre-understanding with the ‘practical wisdom’, the phronesis, of Aristotelian ethics as a particular domain of knowledge concerned with actions and events32. However, there must be something that sets the practical knowledge about narration and plot description apart from phronesis more generally if the concepts are not to coincide. This is achieved if one understands ‘plot’ in the way suggested here. The interpretation of the mimetic representation of actions and events as an activity, drawing on different domains of practical knowledge, opens an instructive perspective. In this way, Ricoeur can link the concept of mimesis to the preunderstanding of actions and events as well as to the reception of narrative by readers or listeners. This manoeuvre makes it possible to attribute a specific dynamic to narrative representation, and it provides a tool for understanding textual structure in terms of underlying mimetic practice. This opening up of textual interpretation into practice raises the question of the cultural settings of texts with a particular resonance. These settings can be conceived of in numerous and complex ways, pertaining both to the practical knowledge of narration and to phronesis more generally. The occurrence of different notions of time, for instance, can be explained in this way: as the outcome of varying cultural settings. Under these premises, the notions in question would relate to both domains of practical knowledge involved: drawing on general knowledge about actions and events as well as knowledge about the mimetic practice of their representation33. 32

The particularity of phronesis is supported in an interesting way by Ricoeur’s interpretation of Georg Hendrik von Wright’s approach to the explanation of action within a pre-defined field of knowledge, see Time and Narrative, I, 132-43. 33 Admittedly, this consideration clearly departs from Ricoeur’s philosophical project. His ultimate interest is directed towards connecting narrative and a universalistic conception of temporal experience

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Along these lines, the Ganshofian texts under examination here are both subject to classification as narrative. In The Failure of Charles the Great, the concept ‘failure’ in the title certainly announces the presence of some kind of overall plot in the beginning-middle-end manner. Although the paper does not live up to these expectations, it makes use of clearly narrative passages in an episodic manner, occasionally, when the development of particular institutions is described. The overall structure is thematic, but this does not prevent the text from displaying elements of narrative order on the micro-level. In contrast, the similarly brief paper Charlemagne is structured by temporal sequence, both on the macro- and on the micro-level: here, various periods in Charles’s reign follow each other, amounting to a rather random series of ups and downs with clear signs of disintegration towards the end. According to Ganshof, Charlemagne’s rule was much less sovereign and successful than most modern historians seemed to assume. It responded to varying situations, was beset by crises, and only secondarily driven by intention or design, let alone agency, on the part of the Emperor. In this way, the paper presented an argument about the epoch of Charlemagne’s reign: it suggested a periodisation; it claimed that the epoch in question was structured in a certain, if random way. Like the Failure paper, the text followed a list structure. Yet here it was temporal sequence that supplied the list with direction and coherence. Ganshof listed events and actions, ordered in different phases, and to some extent the institutional and administrative factors that belonged to the different components of the epoch. In his concluding paragraph, he criticised what he saw as a tendency in the scholarly literature to see [Charles’s] reign as a whole, with more or less the same characteristics prevailing from beginning to end. This is so true that most of the works concerning him, save for the beginning and the end of his reign, use geographical or systematic order rather than a chronological one. The distinctions that I have tried to make between the different phases of his reign may, perhaps, help to explain more exactly the development and effect of Charlemagne’s power […]34.

Hence, Ganshof claimed that his paper was an attempt to restore the importance of the course of events, the trajectory of Charles’s reign. This argument was based upon a specific notion of historical time, as a structure, in which some elements bore greater weight than others and larger units comprising specific elements could be recognised. Moreover, as time was structured in such units, there was also some room for abstraction and generalisation regarding events. This observation suggests that for the notion of historical time employed in Ganshof’s Charlemagne the configuring procedure of list making was as indispensable as it was in the Failure paper. The list of failures became a description of times of failure. But the list structure with mostly agnostic with respect to cultural particularity. It seems possible, however, to remain in turn agnostic towards this phenomenological pursuit and to focus on the cultural practices behind mimetic activity, without causing too much theoretical mayhem. The Ricoeurian project does not appear to be irreconcilable with the reflections presented above. 34 Ganshof, «Charlemagne», 25.

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its hierarchy of ordering aspects, wedded to the notion of ‘fact’ and positivist methodology more generally, remained present. Take for example the following passage from the 1948 address: The years 792 and 793 were conspicuous because of a serious crisis, the second in the life of Charlemagne. A very poor harvest in 792 caused an uncommonly cruel famine in 793; there was a local rising in Saxony in 792 and a more serious one in 793, accompanied by a Frankish military defeat which brought about a general rebellion. In 792, also, there were acts of hostility in Italy by the duke of Benevento; in 793 the expeditionary force sent against him was defeated35.

The list continues like this for several further sentences. The pattern is basically the same as that of the passage about the chancery quoted earlier. Ganshof listed the events that specified and justified the diagnosis of a ‘crisis’ in the years 792-93. Each of the components of the crisis was located in time and described along its respective trajectory of escalation. Thus, Ganshof emphasised the character of the situation as a process. It was clear that historical time was the overarching ordering principle, and that the single periods of Charlemagne’s reign were the subordinate ordering aspects. Time, as it figured in the text, combined neatly with list making. Temporal and list sequence almost coincided, as the back and forth between 792 and 793 in the quoted passage suggests. The sequential character of the list created the impression of closure in the narration of events. Although knowledge about the years 792 and 793 was strictly limited and contained great gaps, these gaps were not evident in Ganshof’s account. Neither did they become a topic of explicit discussion nor were they represented in some implicit way in the text. The rhetorical blending of temporal and textual sequence suggested a smooth, coherent and complete presentation of what had actually happened. Historical time was thus inscribed into a mode of text composition that presupposed a rhetoric of generalisation and specification, of asking for and giving reasons in the description and explanation of past actions and events. Hence, it was contained in the practical knowledge of historical explanation that Ganshof employed. The implicit notion of historical time in his texts, therefore, had a share in the particular characteristics of this practical knowledge. Thus, the notion was set apart from other discursive patterns regarding time, such as the ones connected with astronomical or geological times or everyday temporal experience36. Historical time was limited in certain ways. For instance, Ganshof’s mediaeval past contained local risings, general rebellions, military defeats, acts of hostility, expeditionary forces. Once again, these concepts have a slightly anachronistic leaning in them, if only as an ensemble: as such, they reveal their adhesion to the language of modern state warfare. Mediaeval conceptualisations of these events were not discussed. Neither did Ganshof address the question of how far the ‘serious crisis’ in government reached out beyond the limits of the court and the 35

Ibidem, 21. Ricoeur has argued along similar lines for historical explanation in general; see his Memory, History, Forgetting, 183f. However, for him, the vocabulary of temporal experience retains a fundamental status with respect to other time-related vocabularies, which is not a problem at stake here.

36

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nobility of the Frankish realm. The sources are surely quite barren and uninformative on these questions, but nevertheless, the issues in question existed simply as a blind spot in Ganshof’s texts. The fundamental assumption that the history of the Carolingian period was the history of the Carolingians and their realm was never questioned. It became a history of state action in state terms; selfsufficient, and unified thematically as well as rhetorically. Ganshof followed a clear model of what did and did not belong within the scope of historical time. The most salient absence in Ganshof’s texts about Charles the Great was surely that of a cultural perspective on religious matters, especially given the importance of this topic in the works of other historians of the same period37. There was a second type of narrative order in the texts, however, demonstrating that neither sequential closure nor thematic limitations were a necessary consequence of narration. This second order was entirely episodic, sporadic and lacking in direction. It becomes visible only if one turns away from overarching macrostructure and focuses on the microstructures of certain passages. The narrative order in question pertains to the actions of the author of the text and those of other historians; and to books about history and events in the history of the discipline. The order in question was episodic and at times anecdotal, providing information only in a very restricted way. In part, it was sealed off from the main text in the notes; in part it came in the form of ‘asides’ and introductory and concluding remarks in the text. The notes, however, were an integral part of history writing. Scholars’ practical knowledge about historical explanations included knowledge about the places – or during a speech, the moments – where footnotes ought to occur. Indeed, for specialists in certain areas, such as Frankish history, even the contents of the notes could be quite obvious. Such annotations and authorial asides occurred only as occasional episodes and were quite distinct from those parts of the text that dealt with, for example, Frankish military adventures. They contained a different vocabulary for time-based description. For instance, in the last note of the Charlemagne paper one reads: Since the writing of this text, there has appeared a book by my master, Professor F. Lot, Naissance de la France (Paris 1948). This work contains an excellent notice on the reign of Charlemagne and a very remarkable portrait of him. The reader will easily note the connections and differences between my study and the work of this illustrious French scholar. My friend Gray C. Boyce, of Northwestern University, has had the kindness to read my manuscript. He has suggested to me some important corrections, for which I remain most grateful to him38.

First of all, it is necessary to explain why this very brief and modest account 37

For instance in P.E. Schramm, Kaiser, Rom und Renovatio. Studien zur Geschichte des römischen Erneuerungsgedankens vom Ende des karolingischen Reiches bis zum Investiturstreit [1929] (Darmstadt, 19623); L. Halphen, Charlemagne et l’empire carolingien (Paris, 1947); or, perhaps most famously, E. Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies. A Study in Medieval Political Theology (Princeton, 1957) who refers back to the Carolingian period frequently although actually treating a later epoch. 38 Ganshof, «Charlemagne», 27, n. 22. For Gray Cowan Boyce (1899-1981) see P. Kibre, J. R. Strayer and L. White, «Gray C. Boyce», in Speculum, 57 (1982): 703-05; for Lot see C.-E. Perrin, Un historien français. Ferdinand Lot 1866-1952 (Geneva, 1968).

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of events from the world of scholarship should be regarded as narrative at all. This is easy to show in relation to the second part of the note, which matches, if in a somewhat caricatured manner, the classical Aristotelian beginning-middle-end norm: Boyce has read the manuscript, he has made corrections, Ganshof remains ingratiated. The first part is somewhat more difficult to match to this kind of scheme. However, it does follow a pattern of temporal sequence and implicitly explains – in a historical fashion – why Ganshof’s text does not refer to Lot’s book in the rest of the notes (his own text was actually written earlier). With a flexible concept of ‘narrative’, as advocated here, this should be enough for sorting the short passage into this category and to speak of a ‘narrative order’ of text visible in it. The most prominent feature of this order is that it actually contains a present. This present was even rather dominant; and it had its own past, but this past was referred to in different terms than the Carolingian one. Recorded events, for the most part, were relatively recent. For instance, there were the allegedly helpful criticisms of Boyce or the publishing activities of Ganshof’s erstwhile «master» Lot, occurrences that had only shortly preceded the conference in Washington D.C. In this narrative order – based on academic phronesis, so to speak – there were «illustrious scholars», «excellent notices», «remarkable portraits» and «important corrections». This was a vocabulary referring to Ganshof’s contemporary world of learning, to the social relations and the ethical values of the profession of history. More interestingly, perhaps, it was a vocabulary in which there were ‘kindness’, «masters», «friends» and «gratefulness», i.e., one in which there was space for emotions and subjective experience. It constituted the transgressive character of the «portrait» of Charlemagne (discussed earlier) that, under the protection of the «perhaps» in the opening paragraph, the emperor’s subjective motivations and his faith could be talked about. Strictly speaking, such things could not be located properly in the time of Carolingian history. The narrative order visible in some of the notes and the scholarly asides in the main text also had another quality setting it off from the narrative order of historical time. It was centred, to a large extent, on actual research, of which it gave a specific kind of representation. Unlike in other texts, the representation of research did not assume a structuring function for the texts of 1947 and 1948, where discussions of other scholars’ works did not become prominent. Moreover, many of the references that these texts make to the actual work of research do not appear to be narrative at all. The most typical example of an annotation is perhaps this: «MGH, Cap., I, no. 45»39. Arguably, however, this kind of signal to a textual passage in a specific edition of the Capitularies is based on a specific practical knowledge about the actions and events underlying historical research; and clearly, this entails a notion of time at hand. There is a past and a present, both from the perspective of the author (research and writing) and that of the reader (writing and reception). From this point of view, it seems plausible that even the most elliptic 39

Ganshof, «Charlemagne», 27, n. 18.

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notes about research are borderline cases of narration, contributing to the constitution of a particular narrative order pertaining to the world of scholarship. What these remarks suggest is that there were (at least) two notions of time present in the papers under examination40, describable in different terms and constituting different narrative orders of text: a time of Carolingian history and a time of historical writing. They could carry different weight from text to text. In general, they were closed off from each other. Carolingian time was characterised by thematic and rhetorical closure, framed in list making. The time of historical writing was marked by the elliptic and minimalist style of the references to the world of scholarship. These references were merely episodic, failing to be framed in salient plot lines, and remaining open to a present of subjective experience. Both times together constituted a double rhetoric of narration, a double mode of organising narrative text. In terms of notions of ‘historical time’, this diagnosis complicates the situation, as the world of scholarship has its own history, and the knowledge brought to the fore in this area is historical too. In Ganshof’s case this is quite obvious, for instance, in the numerous intrusions that the ethics of commemoration made into his notes. Thus, the notes of the papers faithfully deferred to ‘the late’ whomever, whenever a deceased colleague was mentioned; moreover, Ganshof tended to use the present tense when he referred to the writings of scholars still alive, and the past when the authors were already dead. To complicate things even more, the distinction of the two notions of historical time was only of a relative nature. The two sides could actually become blurred, as the following example from The Failure of Charles the Great shows. In this text, after having reached the conclusion of his argument, Ganshof added a few sentences about the question of whether the contemporaries of the Emperor had seen things the same way. Here, as elsewhere, his witness was Einhard. Ganshof pointed out that Einhard devotes only one chapter of his Vita Karoli to the administratio regni, and that is taken up with Charlemagne’s preservation of the old Frankish tongue and the revision or committal to writing of the national laws […]. Einhard has a habit of skating over topics which did not enhance his hero’s glory, and he may well have felt that this was a case in point. When he read Suetonius’s account of the great governmental and administrative achievement of Augustus, he must surely have been aware of a contrast41.

This was a dangerously conjectural argumentum e silentio. Ganshof tacitly assumed that Einhard had to have had the same notions about «governmental and administrative achievement» which he entertained himself and which, in passing, he also read into Suetonius. And even more complicatedly, Ganshof did not appear to assume that Einhard had been influenced, as a witness of history, by a different worldview altogether. Einhard could not have failed to notice Charlemagne’s administrative failure. He could only have concealed it. There was nothing intricate 40

For a different approach to the varieties of temporal notions in historical writing see R. Koselleck, «Die Zeiten der Geschichtsschreibung», in Idem, Zeitschichten, 287-97. 41 Ganshof, «The Failure», 259.

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in perceiving one’s present in the correct way. Objective observation was unshakeable. At the level of witnessing one’s own times, nothing could go awry. Distortion could enter historical writing only at a later level, at that of the ‘representation’ of the directly observed ‘facts’, to take up the vocabulary of Seignobos and Langlois. At this level there was only the writer’s own agency. If Einhard had a «habit of skating over» sensitive issues, the formulation suggested that this habit was a vice, an ethical flaw. Einhard was not objective. To be sure, he did not incur a severe reproach from Ganshof, who, as the formulation suggests, was rather disposed to accepting the inevitability of Einhard’s retouches. But something was wrong, even if it could be excused easily. In the quoted passage, Ganshof applied to Einhard’s case the epistemological and ethical concepts and norms he ordinarily used to describe the attainment of historical knowledge by professional historians. Einhard’s pursuit of knowledge about his immediate past came to resemble that of modern research. His writings about Carolingian history could be analysed according to the linguistic models used for the temporal order of scholarly work. Instead of acknowledging the possibility that Einhard was motivated in terms of a different ‘mentality’ of some sort, Ganshof instead presented the ninth-century clerical writer in similar terms as those he would have used for a nineteenth-century professional historian. That is to say, the blurring of the two narrative orders and their respective notions of historical time formed part of the use of anachronisms described earlier. Presumably, in Ganshof’s eyes, Einhard’s writings could not be sufficiently elucidated by the imperfect explanatory know-how reserved for Carolingian history. In this way, the characteristic blurring of ethical and epistemic notions governing the use of anachronism also underlay the blurring of the narrative orders observed in the quoted passage42. This was not an isolated phenomenon. On the contrary, it occurred unfailingly when Ganshof wrote about historians from distant pasts43. Already in his earliest

42

It might be rewarding to try and determine the role of the historian as a narrator-figure in historical texts along the lines of Genette’s structural categories. It seems relatively obvious, then, that the historian-narrator is ‘extradiegetic-heterodiegetic’ (i.e., a first-degree narrator telling a story into which he himself does not belong) in the first narrative order (in this case Carolingian history), whereas he is ‘extradiegetic-homodiegetic’ (i.e., a first-degree narrator who is, if in an often peripheral way, part of the story he tells) with respect to the second narrative order (concerned with actions and events in the world of historical scholarship). It is not the case that the second narrative order constitutes a frame narrative from which the events of the first narrative order can be told. Based on these considerations, one could argue that Ganshof transfers Einhard from the heterodiegetic to the homodiegetic level, which means that he allows himself to cross the border between these two structural categories. The example suggests that the study of historical writing needs to accept the possibility that these categories become blurred. For the concepts, see G. Genette, Narrative Discourse. An Essay in Method (Ithaca, N.Y., 1980), esp. 243-52; French as «Discours du récit», in Idem, Figures III. Essais (Paris, 1972). 43 See F.L. Ganshof, «Jean Froissart», in Annales de la Société Royale d’Archéologie de Bruxellles, 42 (1938): 256-72; Idem, «Leopold August Warnkoenig en de Vlaamse rechtsgeschiedenis», in Rechtskundig Weekblad, 40 (1962): col. 2079-86; Idem, «Een historicus uit de VIe eeuw. Gregorius van Tours», in Mededelingen van de Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en

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paper about Einhard’s biography of Charlemagne44, this blurring had been constitutive. Here, the argument as a whole was constructed between an exclusive alternative. Either Einhard had bent the truth in order to achieve a full-scale imitation of Suetonius or else he had merely used the literary model as an outward form for the faithful representation of his testimonies, and research, about Charlemagne’s reign. If one could disprove the imitation claim – which was actually achieved with relative ease – Einhard was freed from the ‘charges’ raised against the facticity of his accounts. Thus, the argumentative core of the paper was based on the transfer of Ganshofian notions of historical writing to Einhard. The idea of a mediaeval historiography with literary traditions of its own, pursuing different aims than the representation of objective historical truth, was disregarded. Ganshof attempted not only to prove the utility of Einhard’s biographical work as a historical source, but also to vindicate the mediaeval historiographer ethically, as a virtuous scholar aiming at an objective representation of the past. This intricate blurring of distinctions was merely the downside of the forceful establishment and maintenance of the same distinctions in other texts or passages of text. Intellectual movements of this kind characterised Ganshof’s historical writing as a mimetic practice. Historical writing was based on a practical knowledge of historical explanation that drew on phronesis in a general sense, pertaining to actions and events, and to a specific domain of knowledge regarding the representation of the past in text. List-making, complexity and alterity, anachronism, explanatory imperfection, genres of narrative and hybrid text, the dynamics of blurring and distinguishing discursive patterns all informed this practice. Practical knowledge of historical writing was foundational for notions of historical time. Hence, it carried a local and complex ‘regime of historicity’ with plural notions of time. REGIME CHANGES What remains to be tested is the stability of that regime. Here, one can start out from the assumption that the openness towards practice also subjected it to a certain variability over time. For instance, the extent to which the notions of historical time were blurred in the lectures was a result of the respective circumstances; in a conflicted academic context, the author’s present might gain more prominence than it would when a text was directed to readers outside professional history. This general point about textual situations apart, a stronger argument for the variability of the regime of historicity governing Ganshof’s lectures about Charlemagne in the post-war years emerges from a pre-war lecture about the same Schone Kunsten van België, 28 (1966), Nr. 5; Idem, «Een historicus uit de VIIe eeuw: Fredegarius», Ibidem, 32 (1970), Nr. 5; Idem, «Een historicus uit de IXe eeuw. Nithard», Ibidem, 33 (1971), Nr. 3. 44 F.L. Ganshof, «Notes critiques sur Eginhard, biographe de Charlemagne», in Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire, 3 (1924): 725-58.

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topic, delivered at the Institut des Hautes Etudes de Belgique in Brussels, on 26 October 193545. This address differed strongly from the later ones, in terms of content, structure and tone, and it displayed another constellation of historical times that hardly surfaced in the texts from after the war. In this text, at the beginning, the narrative order pertaining to the author’s present was dominant. Held only two days after Pirenne’s death, the lecture began with some paragraphs of a eulogy that were added into the already formulated speech and printed in italics in order to mark them as a later addition. With a heavy emphasis on the scholar’s duty to disregard personal matters, such as grief and mourning, Ganshof then accomplished a transition into the discourse about Charlemagne. He began by listing the most important works of mediaeval scholarship on the first emperor written in the years from 1919. The informed section of the audience was thus furnished with an implicit positioning in the topography of conflict that had emerged in the literature on Charlemagne in those years. Yet, Ganshof did not follow up this list with a discussion of the merits and demerits of the works of his colleagues. Presumably, his audience at the Institut lecture – which was open to all to attend – was not exclusively composed of historians, and there was little rhetorical sense in dwelling on the opinions of others. Instead, he proposed that one should «reconsider the figure of the great emperor» in order to re-determine his «significance for general history»46. Ominously, he also warned against doing so in a spirit of value judgement and politics. The troubled political background of the period that coloured contemporary writings about Emperor Charles also coloured Ganshof’s address. The ‘reconsideration’ of Charlemagne’s achievements started out with a portrait section superficially not unlike the one in the 1948 paper. The Emperor’s physique was discussed along the lines provided by Einhard, and then Ganshof turned to what he called Charles’s «moral physiognomy» («physionomie morale»)47. Under this heading, Ganshof clearly took issue with German debates about Charlemagne at the time48, when he inserted a few sentences conceding that Charles had been «Germanic by race and language» («Germain de race et de langue») and also by «taste» («goûts»), with respect to costume and poetry49. These remarks were based on Einhard’s Vita, except in that text one could not find the term ‘Germanic’. In the portrait passage from 1948, Ganshof simply used ‘Frankish’. The term ‘race’ was vague and could carry both an ethnic and a biological meaning. Ganshof’s readiness to engage with the kind of discourse flourishing beyond the eastern border of Belgium is in a way interesting as a sign 45

Ganshof, «Charlemagne», in Revue de l’Université de Bruxelles, 41 (1935-36): 139-50. Ganshof, «Charlemagne» [1935], 140: «reconsidérer la figure du grand empereur»; «signification dans l’histoire générale». 47 Ibidem, 141. 48 See esp. Karl der Große oder Charlemagne? Acht Antworten deutscher Geschichtsforscher, ed. K. Hampe (Berlin, 1935), a volume with which renowned mediaevalists tried to counter a post-1933 reassessment of Charlemagne as a Romanised ‘slaughterer of the Saxons’. 49 Ganshof, «Charlemagne» [1935], 141. 46

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of how powerful the shifts in international debates were50. However, the 1935 lecture about Charlemagne, with its conscious phrases about the Emperor’s ‘race’, does not betray some kind of flirt with fascism, but bespeaks Ganshof’s willingness to make compromises in a strongly divisive scientific discourse51. This attitude had consequences for the way in which the orders of historical time were deployed in the text. The author’s present became rather dominant in that his ethical and political stance dictated his account of the historical past. Ganshof’s 1935 vision of Charlemagne was not one of ‘failure’. On the contrary, the text gave reasons for attributing Charlemagne with ‘greatness’. The first emperor could claim much credit for the long-term consequences of his political actions; and he also was the main carrier of agency over the course of his reign. There was no talk of a period of rather continuous crises, and Charles the Great appeared as a politician responsible for an «extremely vigorous effort at regularisation»52, both in political-institutional and religious affairs. The latter played a much more accentuated role than in the post-war papers. This was advantageous because an emphatic description of Charlemagne’s religious orientations and actions made it possible to include him with ease into a continuum of Latin Christian culture, thus weakening the preceding claims about his ‘Germanic’ affinities. At the same time, the religious theme connected easily with the prime long-term effect of Charlemagne’s rule, the creation of a community of culture that occidental and central Europe has known during the Middle Ages. Community of culture which one must not exaggerate, for it is accompanied by profound national, regional, ethnic or even individual differentiations, but which is nonetheless a fact and which, in spite of transforming itself, has not disappeared in our days53.

Ganshof connected this ‘community’ with occidental Christianity, with the use of Latin and Latin literature, artistic style and the shape of occidental institutions: 50 Ganshof’s lecture was noticed in Germany; see Historische Zeitschrift, 154 (1936): 392 (in a note by W. Holtzmann) and Jahresberichte für deutsche Geschichte, 12 (1936): 220, where Ganshof’s lecture, and in particular its statements about Charlemagne’s ‘race’, were gratefully reported. The most notorious example of debates among German historians with Nazi allegiances influencing scholarly discourse in Belgium particularly is surely the one about the work of Franz Steinbach and Franz Petri; see M. Beyen, «Eine lateinische Vorhut mit germanischen Zügen. Wallonische und deutsche Gelehrte über die germanische Komponente in der wallonischen Geschichte und Kultur (1900-1940)», in Griff nach dem Westen. Die ,Westforschung’ der völkisch-nationalen Wissenschaften zum nordwesteuropäischen Raum (1919-1960), eds. B. Dietz et al., 1 (Münster etc., 2003), 351-81. 51 M. Beyen, Oorlog en verleden. Nationale geschiedenis in België en Nederland, 1938-1947 (Amsterdam, 2002), esp. 25-27, 387-90, argues convincingly that Belgian historians were accustomed to writing what might be called with a phrase by Pirenne ‘habitable histories’ capable of accommodating multiple identity claims. Arguably, Ganshof was among those who, for the sake of internationalism, applied this pattern to their dealings with German historians, too. 52 Ganshof, «Charlemagne» [1935], 145: «effort extrêmement énergique de régularisation». 53 Ibidem, 146: «[…] communauté de culture que l’Europe occidentale et centrale a connue au moyen âge. Communauté de culture qu’il ne faut pas s’exagérer, car elle s’accompagne de différenciations nationales, régionales, ethniques ou même individuelles profondes, mais qui cependant est un fait et qui, tout en se transformant, n’a pas disparu de nos jours».

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kingship, territorial principalities (counties and margraviates), feudo-vassallitic relations, the organisation of courts (with échevins, i.e., jury courts), and finally the idea of the ‘Empire’ as a universal monarchy. The last point presumably related to the German uses of the word Reich in the 1930s, which Ganshof reclaimed as common European property. Ganshof also connected the emergence of the large nation states of Western Europe to the fragmentation of Charlemagne’s realm – in a rather standard fashion, as one might add. In the case of Germany, he described the first Emperor as a «necessary condition» («condition nécessaire») of the country’s genesis inasmuch as Charlemagne first unified the regions commonly regarded as the original historical seed of the German nation54. This, too, was an implicit rejection of an account of history that regarded the German nation as the natural follow-up of the various Germanic tribes. Two things are salient about the historical time here described: firstly, it contained long-term structures of a kind that was absent from the post-war addresses examined above. Secondly, these structures connected the author’s present and the historical past in a very straightforward way. To be sure, the past was still separated from the present by a gulf of unspecified ‘transformations’, but unlike in the postwar papers it had direct relevance to current affairs. The connection had not been broken. The author and his audience took part in the historical past. It was close to home. This was a different way of achieving historicity – of making the past historical – than one finds in the post-war addresses. Hence, the notion of historical time that Ganshof employed in the later texts was different. This time was at least in part presented as being closed off from the present. The intimate connection between the author’s present and historical past in the 1935 address comes to the fore even more clearly in the last section of the text. Here, after a description of the royal chapel at Aachen, Ganshof remarks, rather unexpectedly: Few places are charged so strongly with memories, are so evocative for those who know and love history. In the course of a recent visit, an episode from the life of Charlemagne imposed itself on our memory with particular force. 813: Charlemagne has lost two of his sons […]. He retains but one, Louis, King of Aquitaine, pious, erudite, sensual and soft. Following the council of the grand of the realm, he has decided to associate him with his power. In the church, at the same place where we find ourselves, Charlemagne, by dint of his own authority, in front of the altar, […] invests him with the royal diadem. It is the last public act of the emperor. A few months later, just steps from here, in his palace – the actual City Hall – he dies55. 54

Ibidem, 148. Ibidem, 149: «Peu d’endroits sont aussi chargés de souvenirs, aussi évocateurs pour qui connaît et aime l’histoire.// Au cours d’une récente visite, un épisode de la vie de Charlemagne s’imposait sur notre mémoire avec une force particulière. 813 : Charlemagne a perdu deux de ses fils […]. Il lui en reste un, Louis, roi d’Aquitaine, pieux, instruit, sensuel et mou. Sur le conseil des grands il a décidé de l’associer au pouvoir. Dans l’église, au même endroit ou nous nous trouvons, Charlemagne, en vertu de sa propre autorité, devant l’autel, […] le ceint du diadème impérial. C’est le dernier acte public du grand empereur.// Peu de mois plus tard, à quelques pas de là, dans son palais – l’actuel Hôtel de Ville – il meurt».

55

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Historical time, as it appears in this passage, is a matter of memory, of the author’s and his audience’s present, associated with strong emotions. It is linked closely to actual places, which, preserved over the course of time, can still be visited. Historical sites function as starting points of an emotionally charged imagination. They are «evocative» without being explicit, in a purely indexical way, as places present that can be pointed to. This connection of spatial and temporal present has no parallel in the later texts. The pathos with which Ganshof recounts Charlemagne’s death – not just generally in Aachen, but in Aachen, just a few steps from the chapel, where the palace used to be and the City Hall now stands – could not be attained through the notion of historical time Ganshof employed in the addresses about Charlemagne from after the war. The emotionally charged conclusion was a highly rhetorical one, but this type of rhetoric did not combine well with what one finds in the post-war papers. Here, historical actions and events were described virtually without references to concrete sites, and history in general was not located in a concrete and detailed space. The model for representing space in the post-war addresses emerged from the knowledge of maps, and the spatial references were directed at such entities as could be found in maps. Events took place «in Saxony» or «in Italy» rather than in the Aachen palatine chapel, in front of the altar, in a room «charged with memories», inspiring affection, sympathy and care, and capable of being visited on foot and referred to by the emphatic indexical ‘here’. It is not surprising that a perspective on ‘failure’ did not arise in this context. The emotions evoked in the text limited the way in which historical explanation could be formulated. The death of Charlemagne was presented as the starting point of the decomposition of the Carolingian realm, with all its momentous consequences. The spatial references placed heavy emotional and imaginative baggage on this starting point, furnishing it with extraordinary historical significance. In this way, Ganshof sketched something like a deep structure of the time of European history, which he marked as an indispensable and inalienable feature of European history writing. Almost needless to say, this was a message playing in some field of ‘the political’ that was delineated by the preoccupations of the time when the speech was delivered. The variations of situational conditions led to variations in the notions of historical time underlying Ganshof’s writings. The consequences for the ‘regime of historicity’ governing his texts thus were significant. This regime was local, plural and situational. Occasion, tradition and writing habits combined to produce what was understood as ‘historicity’ and ‘historical time’.

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THE MAGIC OF SOURCE-CRITICISM: UNDERSTANDING A KEY CONCEPT IN DANISH ACADEMIC HISTORY

Jeppe Nevers

As the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre once argued, to use a word is like pushing a button, and once the button is pushed, an entire range of associations is almost magically engaged. Such associations might be to very specific things or actions, but often the use of a word engages something closer to a paradigm of thought and reasoning. This article argues that this not only counts for political concepts such as welfare, freedom, and democracy, but also for technical vocabulary within fields of specialized scholarship. My case will be the concept of source-criticism (kildekritik) in Danish academic history. Just as a German historian can speak of Quellenkritik and a British historian can use the phrase source-criticism, many Danish historians have used the word kildekritik throughout the twentieth century. However, unlike their German or British counterparts, Danes can when speaking to colleagues expect (at least a part of) the audience to invoke a specific methodology. Many would indeed think of this methodology as that which distinguishes the professional historian from the amateur historian; as something, one learns when studying history in a university. In recent years, mostly younger historians have challenged these ideas, but this has not changed the fact that the word is still an important part of the discourse in Danish academic history. Thus, it is still common fordanish historians, for instance when defending doctoral dissertations, to refer to the method of source-criticism (den kildekritiske metode). Through a conceptual-historical investigation of Danish contributions to historical theory, this article tries to explain why that is case, as well as it questions whether there are any good reasons for preserving this local discourse1.

I. THE MODERN IDEA OF A SCIENTIFIC HISTORY From the mythological construction of past realms in ancient and medieval times, through the rise of critical inquiry during the Renaissance, to the great narratives of states and princes in early modern Europe, histories have always been an important part of political discourse, as well as that of everyday life. In this respect, there is nothing distinctly modern about the writing of history, or for that 1 The article is based on J. Nevers, Kildekritikkens begrebshistorie: En undersøgelse af historiefagets metodelære (Odense, 2005) which is a study of theoretical discussions in Danish academic history with special attention paid to the concept of source-criticism.

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matter in the theorizing of historical scholarship as a discipline or literary genre. As recently shown by Anthony Grafton, the Renaissance poetics of ars historica is indeed a clear example of this2. In spite of such early modern attempts to theorize the nature of historical research and writing, it seems, however, to have been a more recent development to see historical scholarship, if not as a real science then at least as something close to a scientific discipline. In the German case, Reinhart Koselleck has argued that this fundamental change in the status of historical knowledge took place during the so-called Sattel-Zeit, from the mid eighteenth century until the mid nineteenth century. While histories have always been told and used for various purposes, it is – according to Koselleck – an outcome of this period that everything is seen as having a history, including the world as a whole. In modern times, history is not only a reservoir of experience from which we may be able to take moral lessons or build theory. In our age of time, history designates a scholarly discipline, as well as the historical process this discipline intends to convey3. Some scholars have argued that Koselleck’s theory does not apply on other areas of language. Most recently, Jan Marco Sawilla has shown that the French word for history as a totality, l’histoire, was common even in the seventeenth century4. Regarding the German-speaking language areas it is, however, difficult to contest, that the nature and use of historical thought changed significantly during the so-called Sattel-Zeit5, and as the Danish historian Mads Mordhorst has shown in a recent dissertation on the concept of history in Danish sources from the 1770s until the 1840s, an almost similar break took place in Denmark6. According to Mordhorst, the theoretical discussions in this period were marked by a wish to integrate two scholarly traditions in a new vision of a ‘historical science’ (historisk Videnskab). On the one hand, early nineteenth-century historians were well aware that the formation of a scientific history would have to follow the enlightenment ideals of critical inquiry, but, on the other hand, they also incorporated the vision that historical scholarship should result in large-scale narratives with the purpose of explaining the historical process as a whole. According to Mordhorst, the idea of uniting these ideals created an intellectual paradox that historians have had to struggle with ever since, the challenge of combining analysis and scope7. Christian 2

A. Grafton, What Was History? The Art of History in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 2007). R. Koselleck, «Historie, Geschichte», in O. Brunner, W. Conze & R. Koselleck (eds.), Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe, vol. 2 (Stuttgart, 1975). 4 J. M. Sawilla, «‘Geschichte’: Ein Produkt der deutschen Aufklärung? Eine Kritik an Reinhart Kosellecks Begriff des ‘Kollektivsingulars Geschichte’», Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung, vol. 3 (2004): 381-428. 5 See, for instance, U. Muhlack, Geschichtswissenschaft im Humanismus und in der Aufklärung: Die Vorgeschichte des Historismus (München, 1991). 6 M. Mordhorst, På sporet af historien, vol. 1-2 (University of Copenhagen, Ph.D. dissertation, 2002). 7 Although this ambition was a novelty in nineteenth-century historical theory in Denmark, it has its modern roots in the vision of a historia integra proposed by early modern theorists such as François Baudouin and Francesco Patrizi. See D. Kelley, «Historia integra: François Baudouin and His 3

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THE MAGIC OF SOURCE-CRITICISM

Molbech (1783-1857), the founder of the Danish Historisk Tidsskrift, is a good example of an early nineteenth-century historian who was caught in this paradox. Molbech continuously argued that historical scholarship stood firmly in historical criticism, historisk Kritik, by which he meant a critical assessment of sources. However, he did not develop a methodology for that purpose, since his primary concern was to connect such critical inquiries with a total representation of the past. In that respect, he developed the romantic idea that a thorough inquiry of the sources would almost automatically lead to this unity8. In practice, this idea led to severe difficulties, and as Mordhorst has argued, Molbech never really managed to fulfil his ambitions. There is, however, nothing specifically Danish about this problem. As Stefan Jordan has shown, the first half of the nineteenth century was also a threshold period in the history of German historical theory; a transitional period between Enlightenment pragmatism and the rise of classical historicism9. However, a major difference between the German and the Danish cases is that the German output of this period, classical historicism, has no direct counterpart in Denmark. Departing from the well-established thesis that the Danish equivalent to German historicism has been a strong empiricist legacy10, I will argue that a new idea of sourcecriticism, understood as a scientific methodology, entered into the theoretical language of Danish historians at this time. II. KRISTIAN ERSLEV AND HIS METHODOLOGY As already mentioned, it was an important part of early and mid nineteenthcentury historical theory in Denmark that a modern historical science should rest Conception of History», Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 25: 35-47 as well as A. Grafton, What Was History? The Art of History in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 2007), 133-134. 8 C. Molbech, «Om nordisk Historiographie», in Maanedsskrift for Litteratur, vol. 11 (1834): 420493, 437. See also C. Molbech, «Om Historien i Almindelighed, som Videnskab og fortællende Konst, dens Forhold til Poesie, især den episke, dens Behandling og Fremstilling, dens Interesse og Værd», in C. Molbech, Indledninger til Forelæsninger over Universalhistorien (Copenhagen, 1815). 9 S. Jordan, Geschichtstheorie in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts: Die Schwellenzeit zwischen Pragmatismus und Klassischem Historismus (Frankfurt am Main, 1999). This work is only the latest contribution to a vast literature on this formative period in German historical theory. See also W. Hardtwig, «Die Verwissenschaftlichung der Geschichtsschreibung zwischen Aufklärung und Historismus», in W. Hardtwig (ed.), Geschichtskultur und Wissenschaft (München, 1990), U. Muhlack, Geschichtswissenschaft im Humanismus und in der Aufklärung: Die Vorgeschichte des Historismus (München, 1991), J. Rüsen, «Von der Aufklärung zum Historismus: Idealtypische Perspektiven eines Strukturwandels», in H. W. Blanke & J. Rüsen (eds.), Von der Aufklärung zum Historismus: Zum Strukturwandel des historischen Denkens (Paderborn, 1984), and E. Schulin, «Die Epochenschwelle zwischen Aufklärung und Historismus», in W. Küttler, J. Rüsen & E. Schulin (eds.), Geschichtsdiskurs, vol. 3 (Frankfurt am Main, 1997). Standard references on the Danish case are H. Horstbøll, «Civilisation og nation 1760-1830», in S. Mørch (ed.), Historiens historie (Copenhagen, 1992) and J. C. Manniche, «Historieskrivningen 1830-1880», in S. Mørch (ed.), Historiens historie (Copenhagen, 1992). 10 See J. C. Manniche, Den radikale historikertradition: Studier i dansk historievidenskabs forudsætninger og normer (Aarhus, 1981).

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upon historical criticism (historisk Kritik). Whereas early nineteenth-century theorists, such as Molbech, combined this idea with a quest for a more or less philosophical totality, it is an interesting aspect of later nineteenth-century historical theory that the critical ambition came to dominate. A good example is the thought of Caspar Paludan-Müller (1805-1882), professor of history at the University of Copenhagen from 1872. Inspired by early German historicism, and mostly Ranke11, Paludan-Müller never wrote a book or an article on the subject of historical methodology, but he did lecture on the subject as a professor. Through his notes from the 1870s, we can reconstruct the first Danish attempt to develop a methodological vocabulary. Central in Paludan-Müller’s lectures on the theory of history, is the distinction between monuments (Monumenter) and accounts (Beretninger). Whereas the latter are mere representations of something in the past, the monuments are the original testimony of those events (Begivenheder) the historian is out to capture. According to Paludan-Müller, all historians begin with the accounts from where they backtrack, through the chain of earlier accounts, towards the original monument. If the original monument confirms the tradition, we are in the presence of a historical truth, and if this is not the case, it should be classified as mythological12. As mentioned, Paludan-Müller never published his thoughts on the theory of historical scholarship. The studies he did publish on the discipline were all histories of historical writing. Here we should also remember that the theoretical writings from the first half of the nineteenth century, the writings investigated by Mordhorst and Jordan, are best described as abstract discussions on the nature of history, rather than as textbook methodologies. This picture changed significantly, however, during the second half of the nineteenth century. In Germany, the publication of Droysen’s lectures (and later Bernheim’s textbook on the methodology of history) are well-known examples of an entirely new genre, and in Denmark it was Kristian Erslev (1852-1930, professor 1883-1916), a student of Paludan-Müller, who became the most important figure. As author of two important books on the methodology of historical scholarship; a teacher for several generations of Danish historians during an age often described as that of the professionalization of the discipline; and perhaps most importantly, as a systematically oriented thinker, Erslev can indeed be described as a founding father of an academic tradition. As mentioned by Bernard Eric Jensen, he was quite simply «the right man at the right place at the right time»13. Put briefly, Erslev is an almost perfect example of that generation of historians who, across the continent, were – as Rolf Thorstendahl has put it – on a

11

M. Mordhorst & J. F. Møller, Historikeren Caspar Paludan-Müller (Copenhagen, 2005). C. Paludan-Müller, «Indledning til Historiens Studium», Danske Magazin, vol. 8/6 (1991): 1-209, 47-48. 13 B. E. Jensen, «In the footsteps of a father. The handling of a legacy in 20th-century Danish debates on method and theory», in F. Meyer & J. E. Myhre (eds.), Nordic Historiography in the 20th Century (Oslo, 2000), 287. 12

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quest for a firm basis for historical knowledge14. Introduction aux études historiques (first published in 1898), in which Charles Victor Langlois and Charles Seignobos presented a classic empiricist account of historical knowledge, is arguably the most famous book in this age of methodology, but counterparts can be found all over Europe15. In 1878, Erslev had studied in Berlin with figures such as Georg Waitz, Karl Wilhelm Nitzsch, Johann Gustav Droysen, and Heinrich von Treitschke16, and when he got a chair in 1883, one of his most important moves was to establish introductory, and later on advanced, courses on historical methodology17. During this period, he also wrote several articles and books on medieval and early modern Danish history, in which his project was to apply the methodology he practiced in the seminars18. Published in 1892 as Grundsætninger for historisk Kildekritik [Basic Principles for Historical Source-Criticism], his lecture notes are undoubtedly the best introduction to the theory and methodology he developed in this formative phase in Danish academic history. It is a crucial part of Erslev’s historical theory that he in no way considers what he calls source-criticism (Kildekritik), to be the only aspect of historical research. It is, however, also very important to mention that the entire text, as the first of its kind in the Danish setting, deals only with the techniques labelled source-criticism. Furthermore, Erslev mentions that the principles of source-criticism are «the necessary starting point for all historical investigations and that it also constitutes what is special about historical inquiry»19. Similar to Paludan-Müller, Erslev starts out from two concepts which designate different types of sources, relics (Levninger) and accounts (Beretninger). Although these concepts seem similar to the ones developed by Paludan-Müller, there are several differences of which only one shall be mentioned here. Whereas PaludanMüller held monuments as something above criticism, Erslev clearly stated that both accounts and relics should be tested for authenticity (Ægthed). One result of

14

R. Thorstendahl, «Fact, Truth, and Text: The Quest for a Firm Basis for Historical Knowledge around 1900», History & Theory, vol. 42 (2003): 305-331. 15 C. V. Langlois & C. Seignobos, Introduction aux études historiques (Paris, 1898). As Peter Burke has noticed, Britain is a notable exception to this pattern: «there is no real British rival to Bernheim or Langlois and Seignobos, for example, introductions to method which were for a long time historians’ bibles in Germany and France, respectively». P. Burke, «Historiography and Philosophy of History», in P. Burke (ed.), History and Historians in the Twentieth Century (Oxford, 2004), 231. 16 L. Tandrup, Ravn: En beretning om Kristian Erslevs udvikling som menneske, historieforsker og historieskriver og om hans syn på historien og dens værdi indtil 1912, vol. 1-2 (Copenhagen, 1979) vol. 1, 191-199. 17 Ibid. vol. 2, 46 ff. 18 The most didactic examples are K. Erslev: «Erik Plovpennings Strid med Abel: Studier over ægte og uægte Kilder til Danmarks Historie», Historisk tidsskrift, vol. 6, II (1890): 359-442 and K. Erslev: «Det stockholmske Blodbads Forhistorie og C. Paludan-Müllers Opfattelse deraf», Historisk tidsskrift, vol. 6, III (1891): 127-166. 19 K. Erslev, Grundsætninger for historisk Kildekritik (Copenhagen, 1892), 1: «… den nødvendige Begyndelse til enhver historisk Undersøgelse, og den er tillige det for historisk Granskning særligt ejendommelige».

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this difference is that while Paludan-Müller does not consider monuments to be sources (Kilder), Erslev uses that concept as something common to both types, although relics are still described as objective sources providing truth once tested for authenticity: «Relics and accounts are sharply divided as the objective and subjective sources of history»20. On this basis, he develops other concepts: «It is the task of source-criticism to determine the genesis and authenticity of all sources. Regarding the accounts it is also the task: a. to distinguish the secondary accounts, b. to classify the primary by determining the subjective aspect of the account»21. The main part of the book deals, on this basis, with the problems concerning primary and secondary accounts: «Accounts are divided into primary and secondary, original and derived. We call a source for secondary if it provides only the testimony we can find in other accounts; primary accounts are, on the contrary, those where we have no other sources between that and the events»22. In other words, the difference between primary and secondary accounts has to do with layers of testimony in the chain of sources, something which is very important, of course, for a historian studying medieval history. Erslev provides many examples of the difficulties one encounters in that regard and it seems clear that this sort of classification was an important, if not the most important, part of his seminars. As argued by Frank Ankersmit, no historical theory has ever been formulated which is completely neutral to variants of historical practice23. In the case of Erslev, this is certainly true. In addition to this inter-textual relationship, Erslev also makes an important distinction between first-hand and second-hand accounts. Whereas the distinction between primary and secondary sources has to do with the relationship between historical accounts, this distinction has to do with the relationship to the events described by the accounts. Whereas the first-hand account is based on a personal experience of the event, the second-hand account is based on the testimony of someone else24. The idea of these classifications is, of course, that there is a hierarchy between relics and accounts, primary and secondary accounts, as well as between first-hand and second-hand accounts. Erslev establishes a number of rules in that regard, rules that many Danish historians even today learn to remember; for instance the famous statement that an event testified only by one account can not be determined with objective certainty25. 20 K. Erslev, Grundsætninger for historisk Kildekritik, 5: «Levninger og Beretninger staar skarpt adskilt som Historiens objektive og subjektive Kilder». 21 K. Erslev, Grundsætninger for historisk Kildekritik, 7: «Kildekritikens Opgave overfor alle Kilder er at bestemme disses Oprindelse og Ægthed. Overfor Beretninger er Opgaven videre: a. at udsondre de sekundære Beretninger, b. at værdsætte de primære ved at bestemme Beretterens subjektive Del». 22 K. Erslev, Grundsætninger for historisk Kildekritik, 11: «Beretninger deles i primære og sekundære, oprindelige og afledede. Sekundær kalder vi en Kilde, der kun gengiver de ogsaa for os tilgængelige Efterretninger; primære Beretninger er derimod saadanne, mellem hvilke og Begivenheder der ikke ligger nogen bevaret Kilde». 23 F. Ankersmit, Historical Representation (Stanford, 2001), 262. 24 K. Erslev, Grundsætninger for historisk Kildekritik (Copenhagen, 1892), 18. 25 K. Erslev, Grundsætninger for historisk Kildekritik, 17.

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In later writings on the techniques of source-criticism, Erslev changed the definition of some of the concepts and new ones entered into his theoretical vocabulary. In his most formal work on these topics, Historisk teknik [Historical Technique] from 1911, he reformulated the distinction between relics and accounts, and in the second edition of the same book, published in 1926, he presented the distinction between «speaking» and «silent» sources. The problem he wrestled with was the observation that accounts can also be used as relics of their own period. A well-known statement learned, remembered, and often quoted by generations of Danish historians, is: «what Saxo [author of the great medieval history of Denmark c. 1200, JN] tells about the Danish deeds are accounts, but his work itself is a relic from the age of the Valdemars»26. This observation is also closely related to the new distinction between «speaking» and «silent» sources, since «speaking» sources can be both relics and accounts, whereas «silent» sources can only be considered as the former kind. In the literature later published on source-criticism and historical theory, Danish historians have again and again returned to this problem and have tried to solve it with a variety of different reformulations of the vocabulary27. III. THE RHETORIC OF SOURCE-CRITICISM As Quentin Skinner has argued, the occurrence of new words in a vocabulary is often the result of so-called rhetorical re-descriptions28. As he himself has shown in numerous writings, many of the key concepts in our moral and political vocabulary are to some degree results of such rhetorical re-descriptions executed by innovating ideologists in the history of political thought. Regarding the topic of this article, I will argue that the evolution of the concept of source-criticism in Danish historical theory could be explained along these lines. Erslev was an innovating ideologist because his vocabulary remained central to Danish historical theory throughout the twentieth century. His key concept, source-criticism, was a re-description since there was nothing fundamentally new in the actual techniques he proposed, and it was deployed as a rhetorical re-description since it allowed him to present his methodology as something new, and as something in opposition to the prescientific historians of the nineteenth century. The point of this is certainly not to 26

K. Erslev, Historisk Teknik: Den historiske Undersøgelse fremstillet i sine Grundlinier (Copenhagen, 1926), 5: «hvad Sakse fortæller om de Danskes Bedrifter, er Beretninger, men selve hans Værk er en Lævning fra Valdemarstiden». 27 A few examples from the 1970s are H. Poulsen, «Beretningen som kildetype», Studier i historisk metode, vol. VII (1972): 66-76, K. Thorborg, Arbejdspapirer til historisk metode, vol. 1-2 (University of Copenhagen, working paper, 1977), and H. Paludan, «Planer og planløshed i kildearbejdet: Nogle synspunkter vedrørende kildebegrebet og dets baggrund», in N. Christensen et. al. (eds.), Tradition, opbrud og formidling: Diskussion om historisk metode og teori på Historisk Institut, 1973-78 (Aarhus, 1978). P. Bagge, «Rev. H.P. Clausen, Hvad er historie?», Historisk Tidsskrift, vol. 12, II (1966): 147159 reaches the seldom conclusion that there is nothing useful in this vocabulary. 28 Q. Skinner, Visions of Politics, vol. 1 (Cambridge, 2002), 182 ff.

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diminish the importance of his work. Thus, there is no doubt that his scholarly strictness changed many interpretations of medieval history, and his importance as a teacher can hardly be overestimated. The aim is solely to understand the impact of his rhetoric – an impact that is closely connected to his prowess as a practising historian. The context that Erslev moved within was that of on intellectual battlefield. Thus, many historians have described the intellectual environment in Copenhagen, during the concluding decades of the nineteenth century, as a battle between conservatives on the one side and so-called radicals on the other. Within the scholarly communities at the University of Copenhagen, these conflicts over a variety of political and moral questions also marked the discourse, and within the history department, these conflicts perhaps had their most lasting impact. On the triumphant side, the radicals for many years dominated the history department, and on the other side, the conservatives fought a losing battle well into the twentieth century29. Even today, sizeable dissertations on these conflicts are defended for degrees, dissertations positioning themselves in either one of the two camps30. In this context, Erslev clearly was a radical. Politically this would most importantly mean that he supported the democratic movement at the time, and his scholarly critique of national myths is perhaps the most political aspect. In that respect he went far further than any of his conservative predecessors, and as already mentioned his deeds in this area are long celebrated. Moving within this context of a radical anti-national movement, Erslev often drew a line between his national predecessors and his own generation writing on the experience of the Danish defeat to Prussia in 1864. This strategy is most explicit in a speech he gave as the rector of the University of Copenhagen in 1911, entitled Vort Slægtleds Arbejde i dansk Historie [The Work of Our Generation in Danish History]31. In this speech Erslev stressed the difference between the generations primarily concerned with the greatness of the nation, and then his own generation concerned with a more scientific study of the past. In that way, he developed the notion of the critical genius (den geniale Kritiker) as a term labelling the scholars of the older generation; and most of all, his own teacher Caspar Paludan-Müller. Accordingly, in contrast to critical geniuses who sometimes uncovered the truth as a result of their geniality, the truly scientific historian was seen as more certain since he applied the methodology of source-criticism. Thereby he could distance himself from his own teacher without committing an open patricide: «The criticism of the genius could only be the work of one man, and 29

See, among many other interpretations, J. C. Manniche, Den radikale historikertradition: Studier i dansk historievidenskabs forudsætninger og normer (Aarhus, 1981). 30 T. Svenstrup, Arup: En biografi om den radikale historiker Erik Arup, hans tid og miljø (Copenhagen, 2006) and J. Gissel, Den indtrængende forståelse: Johannes Steenstrups historiesyn (Copenhagen, 2003) are the latest and most notable examples defending, respectively, key figures in the radical and the conservative tradition. 31 Later published as K. Erslev, Vort Slægtleds Arbejde i dansk Historie: Rektortale ved Københavns Universitets Aarsfest 16. november 1911 (Copenhagen, 1922).

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when Paludan-Müller, teacher as he was, tried to put it into system, it resulted in a method with obvious weaknesses (…) In opposition to the criticism of the genius, we now have the source-criticism as the systematic and methodical; that does not look isolated on difficult issues, but on all historical tradition and demands that all witnesses should be asked: from where do you have your testimony, and are you to be trusted?»32 Here, it should also be noted that Erslev was the first in Denmark to speak of source-criticism in the definite term of «the source-criticism» (Kildekritiken). Paludan-Müller used source-criticism (Kildekritik) as a synonym for historical criticism (historisk Kritik)33. Before we turn to the critics of Erslev’s theory, it is worth mentioning that he had an impact on the teaching of historical methodology. Though proponents of the radical and the conservative camps continued to fight over both political, scholarly, and most of all personal matters, it is a characteristic part of academic history in twentieth-century Denmark, that there was no real debate over how historians should be taught and what constituted historical scholarship on its basic level34. In that realm, radicals and conservatives agreed that Erslev’s model was the right model to use. This means that the textbook from 1911, Historisk teknik, and a set of sources collected and published by Erslev, was used for several decades with only minor alterations to the source material. Thus, until the 1970s all students of history in Copenhagen and in the new departments at the universities of Aarhus (founded 1928) and Odense (founded 1966) were introduced to historical methodology through that publication. From the 1970s onwards, many changes occurred, but even today all students of history, in all Danish universities, have to go through a basic course in source-criticism, and although Erslev’s Historisk teknik is no longer used as a textbook, the spirit lives on in other forms. Most notable is a compilation of sources published in 1978 as Kildekritisk tekstsamling [Texts for Source-Criticism]. Gathered by Aarhus-based historians, this collection of texts follows the Copenhagen idea of teaching historical methodology through a set of texts especially designed for teaching purposes. Even today, all new students of history in the department in Aarhus use this book, and from time to time it has also been used by instructors in other departments. There are, of course, also differences between this book and the compilation originally gathered by Erslev. First, Kildekritisk tekstsamling covers problems in Danish history from the Middle Ages to the present, and second there is an 32

K. Erslev, Vort Slægtleds Arbejde i dansk Historie, 18: « Denne geniale Kritik kunde dog kun blive Enkeltmandsværk, og naar Paludan-Müller, Pædagog som han var, gerne vilde sætte den i System, blev det en Methode, hvis Svagheder var saare aabenbare (…) I Modsætning til den geniale Kritik staar nu Kildekritikken som den systematiske og methodiske; der ser ikke særlig paa de vanskelige Punkter, men paa al historisk Overlevering og forlanger, at man overfor ethvert historisk vidne skal spørge: hvorfra har du din Viden, og kan man stole paa dig?» 33 E.g. C. Paludan-Müller, «Dansk Historiografi i det 18de Aarhundrede», Historisk Tidsskrift, vol. 5, IV (1883): 1-189, 65. 34 The minor discussions that did take place are covered in J. C. Manniche, «Tysk-kritisk skole og fransk-kritisk skole: Et bidrag til studiet af historieteoretiske synspunkter i Danmark», Historisk Tidsskrift, vol. 75 (1975): 39-59.

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introduction on «the terminology of source-criticism»35. In this introduction, the editors repeat the statement earlier put forward by Erslev, that source-criticism is only a part of historical practice. In general, though, the idea is the same. Through the techniques of source-criticism, students are supposed to distinguish between relics and accounts as well as classifying the accounts where they contradict each other, and on that basis, a conclusion should be reached about an actual event. No matter what theory or perspective one brings to these operations, the idea is that this type of source-criticism is the basis of historical scholarship. Thus, there is no tradition of asking why the topics are interesting (from the violent murders of medieval kings to riots in the nineteenth century and parliamentary debates in the twentieth century), or for that matter what there might be of different approaches to the problematics. Undoubtedly, some teachers have asked such questions alongside the technical operations, but this does not change the fact that the basic framework remained the same. We might say that considering this stability in the teaching of historical methodology, it is not surprising to note that new students of history continuously expect to be taught source-criticism.

IV. THE CRITICS OF THE EMPIRICIST LEGACY Povl Bagge (1902-1991), professor of history in Copenhagen, is probably the most original theorist of history in the Danish tradition. At the very least, it is incontestable that he is the most interesting critic of the empiricist legacy in the aftermath of Erslev. Although he never published a distinct theory or methodology of historical scholarship, he did publish many articles driven by a deep insight into the nature of historical scholarship36. Departing from the hermeneutical position that for all interpretations of the past scholarly traditions and contemporary paradigms of thought are indispensable, Bagge’s most significant contribution to Danish historical theory is a critique of Erslev’s distinction between historical research (Historieforskning) and the writing of history (Historieskrivning). Whereas German theorists abandoned this dichotomy by the mid nineteenth century, it remained as a crucial part of Erslev’s theory37. In an essay from 1911 on Historieforskning og Historieskrivning [Historical Research and the Writing of History] this dichotomy is systematically used to justify the techniques of sourcecriticism as the basis of historical research. In this way he could rescue the idea of history as a science, and at the same time discuss the challenges historians meet when they want to go beyond mere reconstructions of past events. 35 J. Fink et. al., «Den kildekritiske terminologi», in J. Fink et. al. (eds.), Kildekritisk tekstsamling (Aarhus, 1978). 36 M. Rüdiger, Povl Bagges historiebegreb (Copenhagen, 1984). 37 For the German case see S. Jordan, Geschichtstheorie in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts: Die Schwellenzeit zwischen Pragmatismus und Klassischem Historismus (Frankfurt am Main, 1999), 84.

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More clearly than anyone else, Bagge saw these difficulties and presented them as early as 1940, a time at which the basic principles in Erslev’s theory of history had only been seriously, though indirectly, questioned by himself38. In this seminal article, Bagge questions one of Erslev’s basic assumptions, that the principle of choosing (Udvalgsprincippet) only affects the level for historical writing and not the level of historical research. Erslev continuously tried to separate this layer of subjectivity from the process of historical research39, but according to Bagge, this was a seriously misguided position since choosing is an important part of the historian’s practice on both levels40. In other words, he challenged not only the idea of a theoretical separation of research and writing, but in fact the whole idea of finding a methodological foundation. Bagge’s alternative was relativism. In an article from 1950, he writes: «Considering the conditions for historical research, I see no other conclusion than that of relativism. The poet wanders on the road I have here tried to follow. If he follows that road, he might reach the insight of the French historian Lucien Febvre: There is no history in itself, there is only historians»41. Although Bagge had many students at the University of Copenhagen, and although many of these students made significant contributions to a variety of fields, it is probably not too harsh to say, that the Danish historians in general were not ready to accept this conclusion. Thus, it is a fact, that Bagge never became involved in the basic teaching of methodology, and from among his students it was only a few, most notably Bernard Eric Jensen who, as late as the 1970s, took the theoretical path (Bagge was also an expert on nineteenth-century political history) and challenged the supremacy of the empiricist tradition42. In other words Bagge’s alternative, really the only serious challenge to the program of Erslev, was far too radical. As late as 1969, one of Bagge’s students, Lorenz Rerup (1929-1995), tried to reconcile the insights from 1940 with the dichotomy of Erslev. In an interesting article on the role of subjectivity in historical authorship, Rerup argued that what Bagge had analyzed as the inevitability of a «view on history» (Historiesyn) in all historical research and writing was more dominant in some types of research and scholarship than in other types. His position was, that focused analyses are not as biased as 38

And to some extent also by his conservative counterpart, Johannes Steenstrup. See, for instance, J. Steenstrup, Nogle Omrids af min Virksomhed som Universitetslærer (Copenhagen, 1934), 15. 39 K. Erslev, Historisk Teknik: Den historiske Undersøgelse fremstillet i sine Grundlinier (Copenhagen, 1926), 38. 40 P. Bagge, «Om historieforskningens videnskabelige karakter: Nogle bemærkninger i anledning af Kr. Erslevs skrift Historieskrivning», Historisk Tidsskrift, vol. 10, V (1940): 355-384. 41 P. Bagge, «Historiesyn og historieforskning», in P. Diderichsen et al., Videnskab og Livssyn (Copenhagen, 1952), 84-85: «Jeg ser ikke rettere, end at konsekvensen, således som historieforskningens vilkår er, må blive relativismen. Digteren vandrer på den vej, som jeg her har søgt at følge. Går han den til ende, vil han måske nå til samme indsigt som den franske historiker Lucien Febvre: Historien eksisterer ikke, der eksisterer kun historikere». 42 B. E. Jensen, «Et bidrag til revisionen af metodelærens grundlag», Historisk tidsskrift, vol. 76 (1976): 113-148. Another example from the same generation of scholars is I. Skovgaard-Petersen, «Kritik af den klassiske metodelære», in Studier i historisk metode vol. VII (1972): 9-22.

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syntheses of entire epochs or countries since the latter rest on a «frame theory» (rammeteori)43. Just few years prior to the publication of Rerup’s article, another Danish historian, H.P. Clausen (1928-1998), published a textbook on historical methodology. This book came to replace Erslev’s book in the basic method teaching. With regard to the history department in the University of Aarhus, some have argued that a special interpretation of Erslev xvas developed44. Thus, Aarhus methodologists typically argue that Clausen, far more than Erslev, recognized the importance of the historian’s questions and interpretative frameworks, and for that reason many still regard his book to be the best ever written in Danish on the nature of historical scholarship. It is, however, a crucial part of Clausen’s book that Erslev’s fundamental idea of source-criticism as a methodology, shared by all historians, lives on: «In source-criticism, historians have a field in which methodological training is necessary and where historians from all specialities meet on a principal and common foundation. Regarding source-criticism we can point to principles and norms that make it possible to speak of the method of source-criticism which again can be described and presented in its main characteristics»45. The terminology of this methodology is, perhaps to no surprise, almost identical to the principles and terminology of Erslev. Though some historians might be right in saying that he challenged the empiricist legacy, it seems difficult not to agree that the terminology of source-criticism and its basic raison d´être was not challenged. Instead, one could argue that the language of source-criticism not only lived on, but also was reinforced in Århus during the 1960s. One clear example of this is the export of the terminology to Norwegian methodologists such as Ottar Dahl and Sivert Langholm through the Nordic conferences on historical methodology46. Just as interesting as Clausen’s reappraisal of Erslev is the finding that Marxist historians, in many cases, followed the same pattern. In a 1973 reassessment of the classical tradition, Uffe Østergaard (1945-) closely examined the vocabulary of Erslev and reached the conclusion that most of it is closely related to the study of medieval history; in other words, that many of the technical distinctions could not be considered fundamental for a general theory of historical scholarship. It is, however, an interesting aspect of Østergaard’s article that he considers the 43

L. Rerup, «Historiesynets funktion i et historisk forfatterskab (A.D. Jørgensen)», Studier i historisk metode, vol. 4 (1969): 94-109, 102. 44 E.g. H. Paludan (2001): «Det funktionelle kildebegreb – en århushistorie?», in M. Mordhorst & C. T. Nielsen (eds.), Fortidens spor, nutidens øjne – kildebegrebet til debat (Roskilde, 2001). 45 H. P. Clausen, Hvad er historie? (Aarhus, 1986), 17: «I kildekritikken har historikeren et felt, hvor metodisk træning er nødvendig, og hvor historikere fra alle specialområder mødes på et principielt fælles grundlag. For kildekritikkens vedkommende kan der peges på principper og normer, der gør det muligt at tale om en kildekritisk metode, og den kan beskrives og fremstilles i sine hovedtræk.» 46 See O. Dahl, «Terminologi og systematik i kildeteorien», Historie, vol. VII (1966): 4-12. O. Dahl, Grunntrekk i historieforskningens metodelære (Oslo, 1967) and S. Langholm, Historisk rekonstruksjon og begrunnelse: En innføring i historiestudiet (Oslo, 1967) show the very direct consequences in two subsequent Norwegian textbooks on historical methodology.

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distinction between relics and accounts still to be of a general and fundamental character: «It is my hypothesis that this [distinction, JN] alone is the constituting and common basis of historical methodology»47. Therefore, the fundamental element of source-criticism is still a part of that basis on top of which Østergaard argues in favour of theoretical frameworks, most notably that of historical materialism which is the primary focus of the article. An almost identical line of argument can be found in a textbook on historical methodology written by the Marxist Copenhagen-historian Benito Scocozza (1935-) and published in 1983 in which most of the traditional vocabulary is reasserted48. However, few historians did dismiss the old vocabulary. In Historievidenskabens teori: Kompendium i fagrelevant filosofi for historikere [Theory of Historical Science: Texts on Discipline-Related Philosophy for Historians], Jes Barsøe Adolphsen and Steen Busck argued that the theory inherited from Erslev was a positivistic heritage49. Another example of a dismissal of the empiricist legacy is Dansk historievidenskabs krise [The Crisis of Danish Historical Science], published by Søren Mørch (1933-) together with a group of students from the University of Odense (later the University of Southern Denmark). Inspired by Thomas Kuhn, their argument was that the vocabulary of source-criticism is the foundation of a paradigm established in the 1880s; a paradigm that only worked as long as no one introduced the one question this paradigm could not answer without it falling apart; that is the question of the purpose of history50. Moving away from the few Marxist theorists who doubted there was anything useful in the methodological tradition inherited from Erslev, it remains an interesting part of modern Danish academic history that only very few historians have rejected the idea that there is something called source-criticism and that this is a methodology all historians have in common. Moreover, for generations that system was taught in first- or second year courses in the major history departments, and for generations the students educated in these departments have carried this rhetoric on to secondary school students, who even today expect to be taught something called source-criticism when they arrive as new students of history. Also, within the scholarly community the language and rhetoric of source-criticism is marked by an impressive level of inertia. For instance, it is interesting to note how Danish debates on historical theory still have this tradition as their point of departure. This is certainly the case in an article such as this one, but more importantly it has also been the case with the Danish reception of the linguistic 47

U. Østergaard: «Nogle betragtninger over terminologi og systematik i det historiske begrebsapparat med særlig henblik på definitionen af kravene til en historisk teori, specielt den materialistiske historieopfattelse», in N. Christensen et. al. (eds.), Tradition, opbrud og formidling: Diskussion om historisk metode og teori på Historisk Institut, 1973-1978 (Aarhus, 1978), 14: «Det er min hypotese, at denne [sondring, JN] alene udgør det konstituerende og fælles i historisk metode». 48 B. Scocozza, Om historie: En introduktionsbog (Copenhagen, 1982). 49 J. B. Adolphsen & S. Busck, Historievidenskabens teori: Kompendium i fagrelevant filosofi for historikere (Aarhus, 1977). 50 H. Eriksen et al., Dansk historievidenskabs krise (Odense, 1977).

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turn. Thus, proponents of these developments in contemporary historical theory have mostly contrasted their inspirations with the Danish tradition presented here. Most notably this has been the case in the writings by Jan Ifversen (1955-) and Dorthe Gert Simonsen (1968-), based in Aarhus and Copenhagen respectively, and critics of their proposals have likewise revitalized some of the principles and concepts from the tradition outlined above51. It is also a fact that, since the turn of the century, not less than textbooks on source-criticism have been published in Danish. It is, of course, a matter of personal convictions as to whether this is good or bad, but it is hard to contest that such examples confirm the existence of a certain Danish tradition in historical theory. The proponents of this tradition, often professors with a teaching responsibility, typically defend the existence of courses in source-criticism and examination along the traditional lines, with the argument that such a course teaches students to be truly critical readers. Although there is something compelling in the practical character of that argument, there is also something to the typical counter-argument that a critical attitude could perhaps also be taught without the use of the traditional terminology. After all, critical readers exist in places other than Danish history departments. In my view, there is really only one fruitful aspect to this tradition, and that is its focus on the importance of distinguishing between, as the Anglophones say, primary and secondary sources. But as Arthur Marwick has stated: «The difference between primary sources (the relics and traces left by the past society being studied) and secondary sources (the reports, interpretations, contributions to historical knowledge produced by historians working in a later society – which might in their turn, as pedants sometimes point out, become primary sources for still later historians, a matter of such triviality as really to be not worth making) is a critical one, though no historian has ever pretended that it offers a magic key to the nature of historical study, or that primary sources have a necromantic potency denied to secondary ones. They are different, that is all»52. In this, nothing is said about how historians should use primary and secondary sources; how analysis and scope are to be connected; why history is worth studying; or for that matter, how the practice of historical scholarship ought to be taught – questions that are as impossible to answer in general, as they are necessary to confront individually.

51

See J. Ifversen, «Tekster er kilder og kilder er tekster – kildekritik og historisk tekstanalyse», in M. Mordhorst & C. T. Nielsen (eds.), Fortidens spor, nutidens øjne – kildebegrebet til debat (Roskilde, 2001), D. G. Simonsen, «Tegn og iagttagelse: At læse Erslev efter ’Den sproglige vending’», Historisk tidsskrift, vol. 101 (2001): 146-180, S. Olden-Jørgensen, «Hvad er kildekritik? Et essay om arven fra Erslev og den sproglige vending», Historisk tidsskrift, vol. 101 (2001): 521-541, and C. M. Jørgensen, «Det funktionelle kildebegreb og den sproglige vending», in Per H. Hansen & J. Nevers (eds.), Historiefagets teoretiske udfordring (Odense, 2004). 52 A. Marwick, «Two Approaches to Historical Study: The Metaphysical (Including ’Postmodernism’) and the Historical», Journal of Contemporary History, vol. 30 (1995): 5-35, 19.

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FROM PHILOSOPHY TO HISTORY, FROM FASCISM TO COMMUNISM: A CONVERSION IN TIMES OF TRANSITION1

Patricia Chiantera-Stutte

Some Italian intellectuals, including historians, who lived through the Second World War, have been remembered and studied much more with respect to their political attitudes towards fascism, rather than for their intellectual contribution to historical knowledge. One example of this is Delio Cantimori, the historian who developed a radical new interpretation of the heretical movements and introduced a new methodology into Italian historiography in his 1939 monograph Eretici italiani del Cinquecento. In this, he stressed not only the political meaning of the dissent and the relations between the Italian religious immigrants and the Anabaptists, but he also introduced a new method, which was inspired by the research of Lucien Febvre and Stanislaw Kot on popular culture and educational institutions in Italian historiographical debates. Cantimori was, after the Second World War, one of the most influential and charismatic figures in the milieu of the left-wing intelligentsia. He was a fascist during his youth and left fascism during the 1930s in order to embrace a completely different political position, i.e. Communism2. The conversion from fascism to communism is not exceptional in the biographies of intellectuals in the 1930s and 40s. It is possible to explain these changes in political outlook as opportunistic behavioural patterns. This analysis will not try to denounce the opportunism or the cynical attitude as displayed by many intellectuals, who radically changed their political positions. It will instead look at the continuities and discontinuities in their attitudes towards politics and it 1

For their helpful comments on the text, I am grateful to Tullio Gregory, Henning Trüper and Niklas Olsen. 2 See on Cantimori: A. Prosperi, «Introduzione», in D. Cantimori, Eretici italiani del cinquecento e altri scritti (Torino, 1992). For Cantimori’s conversion to communism see: E. Garin, «Delio Cantimori», in Belfagor, 22 (1967) (now in Idem, Intellettuali del XX secolo (Roma, 1974), 171-213); G. Miccoli, Delio Cantimori. La ricerca di una nuova critica storiografica (Torino, 1970); M. Ciliberto, Intellettuali e fascismo. Saggio su Delio Cantimori (Bari, 1977); L. Mangoni, «Europa sotterranea», in D. Cantimori, Politica e storia contemporanea. Scritti (1927-1942), ed. L. Mangoni (Torino, 1991), XIII-XLII; Prosperi, «Introduzione», in Cantimori, Eretici italiani, XI-XLII; G. Belardelli, «Dal fascismo al comunismo. Gli scritti politici di Delio Cantimori», in Storia contemporanea, 3 (1993): 379-403; R. Pertici, «Mazzinianesimo, fascismo, comunismo: l’itinerario politico di Delio Cantimori (1919-1943)», in Storia della storiografia, 31 (1997); B. Bongiovanni, «Cantimori, Schmitt e la rivoluzione conservatrice», in Ventesimo secolo, II, 4, (1992): 21-44; P. Simoncelli, «Cantimori, Schmitt e il nazionalsocialismo», in Nuova Storia contemporanea, 1 (1997); G. Belardelli, Il ventennio degli intellettuali. Cultura politica ideologia nell’Italia fascista (Bari, 2005); G. Sasso Filosofia e storiografia. Saggio su Delio Cantimori (Pisa, 2005).

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PATRICIA CHIANTERA-STUTTE

will attempt to analyse the relationship between their work and their political positions in the context of the milieus in which they lived. The reason for this analytical decision is the attempt to suspend judgement about the behaviour of these intellectuals, in order to chronologically reconstruct the different positions in the milieu and political backgrounds of these individuals. In this way, it will be possible to offer insights on the impact of fascism in the cultural milieus and on the conditions that grounded the intellectual consensus to the regime. The aim is to provide an interpretation of Cantimori’s intellectual trajectory, demonstrating that his political and scholarly conversions, from fascism to communism, and from philosophy to history were interlinked and interdependent. The word ‘conversion’ is used in this case because Cantimori believed in an altogether political, moral and cultural renewal that could be achieved by fascism. His political position was intertwined with his moral stance, and with the representation of his intellectual duty. In this very way, Cantimori adhered to Giovanni Gentile’s observation, according to which fascism was a form of religion3. Fascism was not a political party among many others: it was the agent of a moral and cultural revolution and a faith, that had to be supported. The reconstruction of the continuities and discontinuities in Cantimori’s thought will shed light on his individual path from fascism to communism and on the meaning that he (and some intellectuals of his generation) gave to ‘fascism’ and to the relation between culture and politics. FASCISM SEEN FROM THE PROVINCE Delio Cantimori was born in a small town called Russi in Emilia Romagna in 1904, and he grew up in a milieu in which Giuseppe Mazzini and the Risorgimento represented the main political and intellectual models. The so-called myth of the Risorgimento and of the nation were some fundamental principles in his family’s education: his father, Carlo Cantimori, who, after being a Republican, became a member of the fascist party in 1926, was the author of a book on Mazzini4 which conformed with Giovanni Gentile’s nationalistic interpretation of Italian history5. The milieu in which Cantimori grew up was also characterised by the emergence of conflicting and anti-establishment movements like revolutionarysyndicalism, communism, and nationalism, in the restless atmosphere after the First World War. Cantimori was an adolescent, when the Italian political and social life radically changed at the end of the First World War. In the artistic field, Marinetti and futurism had already started a veritable revolution some years before the war erupted (1909 marked the emergence of the futurist manifesto): the new avant-garde was the first movement that was both intellectual and political simultaneously. It strongly contributed, along with many other different forces, to 3

G. Gentile, «Manifesto degli intellettuali del fascismo», in Popolo d’Italia, 21 April 1925. C. Cantimori, Saggio sull’idealismo di Giuseppe Mazzini (Faenza, 1904). 5 G. Gentile, I profeti del Risorgimento italiano (Firenze, 1923). On Delio Cantimori’s education and family and on the importance of Mazzini see Pertici, «Mazzinianesimo». 4

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FROM PHILOSOPHY TO HISTORY, FROM FASCISM TO COMMUNISM

the birth of fascism. Another intellectual, the famous writer Gabriele D’Annunzio, who certainly inspired Marinetti, provided a very effective representation of the political power of the artist, when in 1919 he lead a volunteer troop in order to conquer the city of Fiume (which had been taken away from the Italian government after the Versailles agreements). Fascism emerged, in this atmosphere in 1919, out of the fusion of different and conflicting movements. Its anti-Catholic and anti-conservative revolutionary wing, represented by the avant-garde and revolutionary syndicalism, was thus difficult to reconcile with the nationalistic ideals supported by the small bourgeois and by nationalistic right-wing fascism. Militarism and the cult of the nation were the common ideas shared by all internal currents, but could not support a coherent political program, even if Mussolini tried to guarantee the movement’s unity with his charisma and with his strategy of combining revolutionary and reactionary propaganda6. Delio Cantimori was too young to actively participate in the First World War. Yet, he observed and was involved in the political and social events that shattered Italy and Europe, from the perspective of his ‘provincial world’ and of his familiar background that was typical for the middle bourgeoisie. He shared with many future intellectuals of his generation – like Curzio Suckert and Ugo Spirito – the ideals of revolutionary fascism. According to a later autobiographical description, his political attitude was a product of «residual ideas of patriotic nationalism of the war propaganda, attitudes of republican interventionism, traits of the combating movement of the First World War, memories of the propaganda during the Fiume occupation»7. From his viewpoint, fascism had to renew the political and social life and to fight against the Church and the conservative elites. The praise of the fascist revolution – seen by Cantimori and by many as a generational and not a class revolution8 – and the false perception of the opposition of the differences between fascism and communism, are the main features of his vision. Later, he writes about his former political conception: Back then, I admired the humanity of these men [the fascist and communist activists], and sometimes their chivalric spirit. It seemed to me that they should be in agreement with each other, courageous as they were on both sides; my machiavellian realism was entirely theoretical, in practice I did not understand, I did not feel the hatred and the interests of the different political groups; I saw in them only the theories, that, as one knows, can always and easily be reconciled one with another9.

This perspective on the revolution also integrated idols from beyond the Italian 6

See P. G. Zunino, L’ideologia del fascismo, (Bologna, 1985); E. Gentile, Le origini dell’ideologia fascista (Bologna, 1996); Z. Sternhell, Nascita dell’ideologia fascista (Milano, 1993). 7 Cantimori’s Notes dated from 30 August 1934, in Prosperi «Introduzione», in Cantimori, Eretici italiani, XXI. The ‘combating movement’ is that of the so-called interventisti who were nationalist and favoured the war. 8 See Z. Sternhell, Nascita; Gentile, Le origini. 9 Cantimori’s Notes dated from 30. August 1934 in Prosperi, «Introduzione», in Cantimori, Eretici italiani, XXII. See Cantimori, Il mio liceo a Ravenna (1919-1922), in Ravenna. Una capitale. Storia, costumi, tradizioni (Bologna, 1965), 249-253 (my translation).

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situation. For instance, in Cantimori’s opinion, the German Jungkonservativen represented (like the young fascists) a generation that could renew the political and cultural life. They were all revolutionary, because they fought against the old political conceptions – conservatism and liberalism – and brought politics to the masses. At the same time, they were conservative, because they revived the community and traditional values of order and of hierarchy10. The revolution was not bound to be won by a class, or even by a political party, but by a generation, whose different political positions were less important than their will to destroy the existing order. From this perspective, the ideas echoed well-known futurist and nationalist claims that fascism was not opposed to Communism, but was instead opposed to liberalism, because both fascism and communism had the same goal of the renewal of the political and moral life; they differed only in their method of attaining such a goal11. These ideas were not novel. The same conception of fascism was supported, for instance, by a writer belonging to the same generation: Curzio Suckert (known as Curzio Malaparte)12, who embraced fascism after having been a follower of the Republican Party. Suckert’s struggle for the revolution and against the bourgeoisie, and his praise of the ‘Italian people’ were the main themes of his first political pamphlet Viva Caporetto!13 written in 1921; this was used to praise republicanism and later, in 1923, served as fascist propaganda14. The same idea of a fascist revolution, which had to destroy the old conservative world, was represented in early fascism by revolutionary syndicalism and the avant-garde, and later on during the consolidation of the regime, by a part of the so-called fascist corporativism, whose exponents were, amongst others, Giuseppe Bottai15 and Ugo Spirito16.

PISA UNIVERSITY MILIEU: ‘LEHRJAHRE’ IN AN A-FASCIST ATMOSPHERE In 1924, two years after the fascist seizure of power, Cantimori began to attend 10

Cantimori, Politica e storia contemporanea. Scritti (1927-1942), ed. L. Mangoni (Torino, 1991), 38-39. 11 Ibidem, 86. 12 He was born in 1889 and made a brilliant career as a writer. He was very near to Mussolini and became a communist during the end of the fascist regime. 13 C. Malaparte, Viva Caporetto! (Prato, 1921). 14 After serving as a manifesto for the revolt – even a socialist revolt against the leading elites after the First World War, this pamphlet was published again after the fascist seizure of power. Only the title was changed to La rivolta dei santi maledetti and an introduction that praised Mussolini’s work was added, see: La rivolta dei santi maledetti (Rome, 1923). See also: Appendice: Prefazione alla seconda edizione romana del 1923, Storia editoriale del testo, Revisione testuale dall’edizione 1921 all’edizione 1923, in C. Malaparte, Viva Caporetto! La rivolta dei santi maledetti, ed. M. Biondi (Firenze, 1995). 15 Giuseppe Bottai was a fascist leader and cultural organiser, born in 1895. He participated in the First World War, wrote futurist reviews and was fascinated with Mussolini, whom he met in 1919. 16 Spirito, born in 1896, was a skilled academic more than a political activist. He was one of Gentile’s most famous pupils. He was also very well-known for his theory of corporativism during fascism. After the war he became politically active in Communism.

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philosophy courses organised by Giovanni Gentile, at the famous Scuola Normale in Pisa. After a few years, Cantimori became not only one of Gentile’s ‘pupils’, but also the most intimate friend of one of his sons, Giovannino Gentile jr., who was also a Scuola Normale student. At that time, the older Gentile and Benedetto Croce were the most influential intellectuals in the country. The revolt against positivism – that the two of them had started at the beginning of the century with their articles in the famous review La critica – had introduced Hegelian idealism to Italy, as well as the newest European and American literature, history and philosophy17. In the 1930s, when Giovanni Gentile’s political power as an activist fascist intellectual and cultural leader increased, his brand of idealism called the ‘philosophy of the act’ came to dominate the Italian philosophical-intellectual field. Gentile’s works propagated a cult of the state that was meant to provide a particular political and ethical education of the masses. His conception of politics as a civic religion was extensively discussed in all intellectual milieus and gave legitimacy to the fascist regime18. A related issue, that is the relation between culture and politics, was a primary theme of debate and was discussed in particular after the 1925 opposition between Gentile’s fascist and Croce’s antifascist intellectuals’ manifestos19. According to Gentile, the intellectual activity was all part of a political act: fascism was a moral and political movement that deserved support in every minute of the individual’s life; therefore the intellectual’s duty was to promote fascism as a form of civic religion. Croce opposed this ‘total’ view of politics and culture: he defended the liberal separation of culture, politics and religion and dismissed any totalitarian and all-encompassing idea of politics. The Scuola Normale, even under Gentile, could not be said to be an institution with a homogeneously fascist character. Gentile did not worry much about the lack of enthusiasm for fascism, as shown by many students, and he cared more about the academic qualifications of teachers rather than their political positions. He only intervened directly, if a political scandal threatened to damage the survival of the institution. This kind of ‘tolerance’ was a pre-condition for the development of the political discussions inside the Scuola Normale. An ‘a-fascist’ attitude characterised its atmosphere; «the disdain towards fascism» and «the will to neglect» it20. Moreover indifference towards fascism was left unpunished, the

17

See, among others: G. Turi Lo stato educatore. Politica e intellettuali nell’Italia fascista (Bari, 2002); Turi, Il fascismo e il consenso degli intellettuali, (Bologna, 1980) E. Gentile, Le origini dell’ideologia; L. Mangoni, L’interventismo della cultura: intellettuali e riviste del fascismo, (Bari, 1974); G. Belardelli, Il ventennio degli intellettuali. Cultura politica ideologia nell’Italia fascista (Bari, 2005); S. Romano, Giovanni Gentile. La filosofia al potere (Milano, 1984). 18 See G. Gentile, Genesi e struttura delle società (Firenze, 1975). 19 On the 21 April 1925 Gentile published his «Manifesto degli intellettuali del fascismo» in Popolo d’Italia and soon afterwards, on 1 May 1925 in an antifascist review Il Mondo the «Manifesto degli intellettuali antifascisti» written by Benedetto Croce was published. See, among others, E. Papa, Fascismo e cultura (Padova, 1978). 20 G. Manacorda, in Il contributo dell’università di Pisa e della Scuola Normale superiore alla lotta antifascista ed alla guerra di liberazione, ed. E. Frassati (Pisa, 1989), 142.

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antifascists did not suffer, and the fascist students did not even enjoy any particular benefits21. Even if the antifascists were few and far between, their activities did become evident in the years when Cantimori was attending the school. Before and after 1929, Aldo Capitini, the secretary-economist of the institution, organised secret discussions at night. These meetings promoted the critique against violence and war and spread the principles of non-violence. These discussions were open to anyone, tolerated by the school ‘authorities’ and were attended by fascists and antifascists – one of whom was Cantimori. From these discussions, which took place in one of the ‘crown jewels’ of the fascist university system, an important current of the antifascist movement, the so-called ‘liberalsocialismo’ led by Aldo Capitini and Guido Calogero (who would in 1934 become professor at the Scuola Normale) emerged. During his time as a student in Pisa, Cantimori was strongly influenced by Gentile’s political and intellectual theories. Moreover, Gentile, who was also Minster of Education in Mussolini’s government and led the main cultural institutions, was Cantimori’s model of the ‘philosopher-politician’ who would express a new political and civic religion22. Accordingly, the intellectual – the philosopher-politician – would succeed in filling the gap between the masses and the political elites, through the process of education and his direct political participation in the government23. According to Gentile and to his ‘pupil’ Cantimori, the mobilisation of the masses, which following Sorel – who had been read by Cantimori – could be achieved through the evocation of irrational emotions; which would represent a smooth process based on the universal function of philosophy in order to educate man-kind24. This conceptualisation was grounded on the philosophy of education that Gentile had formulated in his works25, in which he pointed to the teacher’s mission in guiding the child and to showing to him the fundamental values of the community and of state authority. For Cantimori, the necessity to create a link between the intellectual and the masses, and to give a political role to the academic activity, was based on his rejection of a mere academic interpretation of the intellectual activity. This is clear in some 1932 notes, in which he writes:

21

P. Simoncelli, Cantimori, Gentile e la Normale di Pisa (Milano, 1994); Idem, La Normale di Pisa. Tensioni e consenso 1928-38 (Milano, 1997). 22 See the extensive correspondence from Cantimori to Giovanni Gentile jr., that shows Cantimori’s enthusiasm towards the intellectual and political figure of Giovanni Gentile. Cf. P. Simoncelli, Tra scienza e lettere. Giovannino Gentile (e Cantimori e Majorana) (Firenze, 2007) and P. Chiantera-Stutte, Res nostra agitur, il pensiero di Delio Cantimori, 1928- 1937 (Bari, 2005). 23 See, for example, the article by Cantimori «Osservazioni sui concetti di cultura e storia della cultura», published in 1928 and now in Politica e storia, 5ff. 24 Cantimori, Politica e storia, 5ff. 25 Cf. many works by Gentile on the education, from his Scuola e filosofia in 1908, Il problema scolastico del dopoguerra in 1919 to La riforma dell’educazione in 1920 to his La riforma della scuola in Italia in 1932.

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FROM PHILOSOPHY TO HISTORY, FROM FASCISM TO COMMUNISM When I look at an armoury shop window, I consider the uselessness of my efforts, of the efforts of the république des lettres, I consider the transcendental character – the abstractness – that imminet in our studies. We represent a Church, with his God, the Spirit and the Intellect: we believe that this Church is the reality, but we cannot grasp the reality. It is better to cultivate one’s own garden, to work in order to give food to others26.

Cantimori’s support of idealism was shown in the discussions in his letters to Capitini, in which he not only confessed to believing in the fascist State, as it was theorised by Gentile, but also demonstrated a negative reaction to the refusal of a mutual friend, Claudio Baglietto, to do his military service and to return from Germany, where he had been sent in order to study Heidegger’s philosophy. Even if he was personally struck by the coherence in the outlooks of Baglietto and Capitini – Baglietto died in banishment and Capitini was fired – Cantimori expressed in his private letters to both friends his disapproval of their political position and he asserted his belief in the ‘fascist revolution’ for which he would «serve with the arms if necessary»27. However, this was only one side of Cantimori’s political position. On the other side, in his letters to the ‘fascist’ Giovannino Gentile jr., his position was far less defined, and in particular he appeared to actually criticise fascist politics and Gentile’s idea of State and to defer to a more ‘revolutionary’ idea of the nation. In a 1933 letter, he explained his doubts concerning Mussolini’s idea of ‘building’ a nation and a people: ordinary people were not interested in politics and Mussolini would probably fail to mobilise them. Moreover, the model of ethical State as elaborated by Giovanni Gentile seemed to Cantimori to be too strict, too legal: the liberty could not ‘be given’ by the State, on the contrary the State had to respect the citizens’ autonomy. Therefore, the State had to live inside the individual consciousness, and not be represented only in the military institutions and in the State buildings28. In his academic essay on Hutten in 1928, Cantimori denounced the weakness of Gentile’s vision: that his ethical State was a philosophical and juridical construction, which could kill the liberty, the individual, personal [...] liberty because of its partial interpretation of the ethical life – an interpretation that derives from the general philosophical attitude – in which every element of originality (of plain spontaneity) is banished because it is anarchist, atomistic and so on: if the morality becomes identical with the law, the true liberty will be found only in the law and the law eats morality and destroys its principles29.

Also, in his writings in the reviews Vita Nova and Leonardo (two periodicals which were popular and oriented at a non-academic public), Cantimori was ambiguous regarding fascism and National Socialism. In these writings, his aim 26

Notes quoted in Chiantera-Stutte, Res nostra, 37 (my transl.). Cantimori’s letter to Capitini, dated 24 October 1932, ibidem, 109. 28 Letter from Cantimori to Giovanni Gentile jr. dated 9 March 1933, Archivio Gentile (Rome), quoted ibidem, 60ff. 29 D. Cantimori, «Ulrico von Hutten e le relazioni fra Rinascimento e Riforma», now in Pertici, «Mazzinianesimo», 144 (my transl.). 27

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was to underline the European character of Renaissance and of the Italian reformers’ movement; to show the specific Italian contribution to European civilisation30. This line of research was not very original. It rested on Gentile’s interpretation31 according to which the main Italian role for the development of the European civilisation was shown by the success and the continuity of the three great cultural and political Italian renewal movements: Renaissance, Risorgimento and Fascism. Following this scheme, Cantimori praised the Italian antiindividualistic and aristocratic character of these movements and stressed fascism’s ability to renew the political and cultural Italian tradition32. If the main political problems in fascist Italy were the masses’ indifference towards politics and the gap between masses and elites, the solution to these problems could be found – according to Cantimori – not only in education but also in the power of myths, like that of the nation, which was capable of mobilising the masses. Sorel and the revolutionary syndicalism, as well as Mazzini and Gentile, were revolving points in his thought, which paid attention to the irrational forces as well as to the power of education in the political processes and was clearly inspired by the themes belonging to revolutionary fascism. The use of myths and irrationality was seen here as a means of leading the revolution and to mobilise people; as a sort of necessary step in order to get to the masses participating in politics. In line with this, Cantimori commented in his writings in Vita nova and Studi germanici on the political activity and meaning of the Weimar Republic’s ‘movimenti giovanili’33, in particular the group of the Jungkonservativen. In Germany, the ‘juvenile’ revolt against the elites was taking place, causing the state to become a mere expression of ‘economic factors’ and to be replaced by the nation, seen as «a historical product of civilisation that has its best and true expression in civilisation»34. In light of his support of both revolutionary and conservative ideas, it is possible to understand that Cantimori’s nationalism accompanied his support of the right-wing European groups of peoples, a project of European spiritual renewal that was developed by, among others, the Prince of Rohan. According to Cantimori this union, which aimed at restoring European values in opposition to American and Russian powers, could be achieved only if the European nations reached an agreement and overcame the ‘bad’ nationalism and the dangers of fanaticism35. He espoused the revival of the typical Italian and European tradition of tolerance – promoting peaceful confrontation between nations – as a possible common ground 30

This was a research project sent by Cantimori to G. Volpe, quoted in Prosperi, «Introduzione», in Cantimori, Eretici italiani, XXIV-XXV. 31 Gentile, Giordano Bruno e il pensiero del Rinascimento (Firenze, 1925), 18-19. 32 Cantimori, Politica e storia, 113. 33 See all the articles written by Cantimori on the «Germania giovane» [young Germany] between 1927 and 1928 now in Cantimori, Politica e storia, 30ff. 34 Ibidem, 43 (my transl.). On Cantimori and the German culture see: N. D’Elia, Cantimori e la cultura politica tedesca (1927-1940) (Milano, 2007) (my transl.). 35 Cantimori, Politica e storia, 65-70 and 54-7.

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for the discussion among the nations of Europe. Praise both of nationalism and tolerance did not seem contradictory to Cantimori. In his writings, directed to a wide public and dated from the end of the 1920s, Cantimori found it necessary to keep the irrational and the rational function of politics. The rationality (tolerance and open discussion) was considered necessary in order to control the irrationality of the masses in overcoming the preliminary nationalistic step which was necessary for the mobilisation of the people and in order to build a united Europe. Europe’s future was therefore made dependent not only upon the masses and the generational revolt, but also upon the intellectual and moral progress. According to Rohan’s idea, as supported by Cantimori, intellectuals were «architects of the new Europe»: their duty was to «find the thread of the diffusion of the European thought, not only with regards to the political aspect, but also to the ethical and moral aspect»36. Cantimori was not the only one to propose an ideological convergence of all new revolutionary movements against the old conservative and liberal system. At a congress held in Ferrara in 1932, Ugo Spirito, who was also one of most brilliant of Gentile’s pupils, had proposed an alternative approach: a union of the fascist and communist economic model of organisation that should overcome the shortcomings of the communist, and of the individualistic capitalist, world. During this congress, Spirito proposed the creation of the «corporazioni proprietarie» [owner corporations] that had to be owned by their members – workers and managers37. In Spirito’s, as well as in Cantimori’s vision, intellectuals were an active part for the revolution: their duty was to create a science and a philosophy that were strictly linked to a political vision and were able to support the participation of the masses in the public life and in their political and cultural growth. Both Spirito and Cantimori supported this vision and apparently did not notice, until the middle of the 1930s, that the fascist revolution was a mere chimera and that the process of stabilisation of the regime was achieved through political censorship, compromises with the ruling classes, the suppression of civil liberties and aggressive imperialistic politics.

THE POLITICAL CONVERSION Ten years later, at the beginning of the 1940s, Cantimori no longer believed in the fascist revolution and he did not hide his interest in the Marxist interpretation of political history38. He changed not only his political position, but also his 36

Ibidem, 94 (my transl.). In 1931 Cantimori described tolerance historically as an «attitude, a way of acting, of behaving towards people who have another faith or another religious opinion. [This attitude] shifted the ideal and political religious competition on a higher level and united [...] all men that supported [tolerance]» (ibidem, 96). 37 U. Spirito, «Individuo e Stato nell’economia corporativa», in Capitalismo e corporativismo (Firenze, 1933). 38 Ciliberto, Intellettuali.

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approach to the scientific research: he ‘betrayed’ philosophy for history – as a friend of his wrote in a letter dated in 193139. Cantimori’s move to history did not imply a complete rupture: his academic references on the ‘political’ and national level continued to be those of Gentile and Gioacchino Volpe, but he naturally had contacts with other historians of a younger generation, like Carlo Morandi and Federico Chabod. It is important to stress that in the mid-1930s he shifted his source of inspiration and referred gradually to Benedetto Croce and to his methods, even if he did not hide his critiques to Croce’s od liberal conception. On the international level, he developed a stimulating series of relations with famous international non-fascist and anti-fascist historians. The times where he travelled to Basel and in Eastern Europe (in the mid-1930s) led to his acquaintance with leading European academics and his appropriation of new and innovative research methods. In terms of his academic career, Cantimori enjoyed rapid success. He became a secondary school teacher in 1929 and left Pisa, but he was soon given the possibility of continuing his research. He received a grant as a result of his relations with Gentile and Volpe and in 1940 he succeeded in returning to Pisa as a university professor; always with the support of Giovanni Gentile. In the intervening period, he had travelled around Europe and had worked at the German Institute in Rome where he had met Emma Mezzomonti, a communist activist, who became his wife in 1936. He got acquainted with the most famous European historians of heresy and Renaissance – like Ronald Bainton and Werner Kaegi and Stanislaw Kot. His correspondence with them shows that their relations were intellectually rewarding and were characterised by personal affection. Interestingly, he only rarely mentioned in his correspondence – and notably only after the Second World War – his support for the fascist regime40. The influence of these historians was likely to be very strong and the same can be said for Emma Mezzomonti. Unfortunately, Cantimori very rarely recorded his autobiographical experiences. Some other events may have underpinned his gradual disillusion with fascism: the ‘scandal’ that involved Baglietto and Capitini and the necessity to help a friend (and Jewish professor at the Scuola Normale), Paul Oskar Kristeller, to leave Italy after the racial laws of 193841. Cantimori’s turn to communism took place at that time, but it was not openly expressed. Many historians42 have defined Cantimori’s political attitude as a form of ‘nicodemism’. Originally, this was the label for the position adopted by many 39

Letter by Mario Manlio Rossi to Cantimori, dated 7 May 1931, in Chiantera-Stutte, Res nostra,

126. 40

See J. Tedeschi, «Introduction», in The correspondence of Ronald H. Bainton to Delio Cantimori 1932-1966, ed. J. Tedeschi (Firenze, 2002). 41 Cantimori and Giovanni Gentile helped Kristeller flee to America and, together with Roland Bainton, supported him so that he could secure a position at Columbia University. For the events that led to Kristeller’s emigration and the related correspondence between Cantimori and Bainton, see: The Correspondence of Ronald H. Bainton. 42 Ciliberto, Intellettuali; Simoncelli, Cantimori, Gentile.

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heretics in the sixteenth century, when they did not openly oppose the Catholic Church, but instead expressed a critical stance inside the Church, and therefore raised discussions and undermined the main Catholic dogma. Cantimori, who became one of the most famous Italian historians of heretical movements, probably ‘used’ in his political and social life the very strategy that he was studying. As the atmosphere at the Scuola Normale was rather lenient, Cantimori was not ‘obliged’ to be fascist or to conceal his scepticism of fascism. As a matter of fact, neither did he collaborate with the anti-fascist Resistance nor was he a member of the anti-fascist movement. However, he dealt in with Marxism and Jacobinism in his classes; he wrote about Babeuf and Saint-Simon for a review (Popoli) aimed at the education of the public at large43; and, according to some scholars44 and some former students, he was a Communist even by 193945. Since he became professor (in 1940), and afterwards as Vice-Director at the Scuola Normale (from 1943 onwards), he turned a blind eye to the openly anti-fascist atmosphere and activities of many students and professors. In his writings, by the mid-1930s, it is clear that he shared with the young generation – like Ugo Spirito and Curzio Malaparte – the general experience of disillusion towards politics46. As observed by the famous fascist intellectual, Camillo Pellizzi, the plurality of cultural movements, the intellectual discussions and the political enthusiasm that had characterised the culture of the 1920s had disappeared in the 1930s only to be replaced by a «uniform» and «conventional academic style»47. By the end of the 1930s, the fascist revolution had become mere propaganda: fascism economically supported the capitalist elites and politically allied with the conservative powers like the monarchy and the Church. With the socalled Conciliazione with the Church in 1939, Mussolini acknowledged a central role for Catholicism in the education and in some juridical relations – like that of marriage. In order to gain control over the culture the regime used two methods: the promotion of fascist institutions and activities and the repression of political opposition, like the obligatory oath to fascism in schools and universities, the repression of antifascist intellectuals, the political censorship of press, and the dissolution of anti-fascist parties and organisations. Colonialism and the creation of a total State became the main fascist goals after the start of the war in Ethiopian from 1935. The participation in the Spanish Civil War, the increasing collaboration with National-Socialism and the ensuing adoption of the racial laws (1938) shed light on Mussolini’s regime: it became clearer that fascism represented neither the revolt of the young generation, nor was it a ‘brother’ of the red revolution. The 43

D. Cantimori, «Gracco Babeuf», in Popoli, 1 (1941): 473-6, and «Saint Simon», in Popoli (1942): 106-8. See G. Miccoli, Delio Cantimori, 180ff. 44 Ciliberto, Intellettuali. 45 Contribution by F. Ferri, in Il Contributo dell’Università, 221ff. 46 On the younger generation’s disillusionment with fascism see R. De Felice, Mussolini il duce. 1: Gli anni del consenso (1929-1936), and 2: Lo stato totalitario (1936-1940) (Torino, 1974-1981). 47 C. Pellizzi, Le lettere italiane del nostro secolo (Milano, 1929), 175ff.

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racial laws promulgated in 1938 as well as the murder of the socialist leader Matteotti that was organised by Mussolini in 1924 were a «real political shock» (following Cantimori’s later reconstruction dating from 1961)48. Concerning Cantimori’s judgement of the German totalitarianism and culture from the middle of the 1930s, it becomes clear that he was reconsidering his notion of intellectual activity. Cantimori had begun to regard the mingling of politics and culture as a danger in 1935: according to him, Moeller van den Bruck’s philosophy was not a tool to gain knowledge or a method of education, but was mere ideology, a «weapon used for the [political] fight»49. Thus the «theological way of thinking» (the belief in the politics as a form of religion) that characterised the conservative revolution was rejected because it prevented the development of a critical mind50. In Hitler’s Germany, history itself – Cantimori wrote – had been replaced by the creation of a tradition «seen as the community of the people with the dead who share the same blood»51. According to his interpretation, «there is no place for the problem of liberty, because there is no difference between the community and the individual, because the community lives in the individual, in his blood [...]. The purity of blood is equivalent to his freedom, because it prevents the individuals to feel alien with respect to the people’s community»52. Cantimori’s judgement on German totalitarianism accompanied a reconsideration of Italian fascism: Cantimori increasingly pointed out the similarities between fascism and National Socialism. This shift became clear between 1934 and 1937. In 1934, Cantimori stressed their divergences and, in particular, the lack of racism in fascist propaganda53, and three years later, he asserted that the «political affinities» between the two regimes were far more relevant than their respective formal differences54. He thus implicitly distanced himself from the racial politics of fascism, as he had already done in his first articles about the political situation of the German minorities in Italy55. Interestingly his denunciation of the political use of philosophy, concerning among others Moeller van der Bruck and Carl Schmitt56, did not mean that he embraced the liberal separation of culture and politics. This is clear if we refer to one of Cantimori’s book reviews in 1936 concerning the failure of fascist 48

Cantimori, «Introduzione», in R. De Felice, Storia degli ebrei italiani sotto il fascismo (Torino, 1961). 49 Cantimori, Politica e storia, 246. In this essay of 1935 called «La politica di Carl Schmitt» (in Politica e storia, 237ff.) Cantimori inverts his interpretation of Schmitt’s theory that he had elaborated in 1930 in his essay «La cultura come problema sociale» (Ibidem, 71-80) in which Schmitt was criticised for his scientific objectivity that «does not say anything on Good and Evil» (Ibidem, 76). 50 Cantimori, Ibidem, 201-202. 51 Ibidem, 470. 52 Ibidem, 471 (my transl.). 53 Cantimori, «Recensione a G. Bortolotto, Fascismo e nazionalsocialismo, a R. Farinacci, Da Vittorio Veneto a Piazza San Sepolcro, a Ciano, La comunicazioni del primo decennio fascista», in Leonardo, 5 (1934): 368-369. 54 Cantimori, Politica e storia, 354. 55 Ibidem, 50 ff. 56 See Cantimori, «La politica di Carl Schmitt», from 1935.

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corporativism57. Ugo Spirito, who had been one of the most convinced promoters of corporativism, denounced in his 1936 book La vita come ricerca [Life as research] the inadequacy of Gentile’s idealism, which was the ideological foundation of his corporativist vision58. In particular, Spirito dismissed the praise of the political function of the philosopher: he asserted that philosophy was a never-ending process of criticism and that it implicitly played a role in the development of the individual but that it was not necessarily linked to the support of any political project. This position was linked to a deep scepticism towards any idea of political renewal. According to Cantimori – who had first praised the corporative theory in an article published in 1935 for the review Leonardo59 – Spirito’s doubts were too devastating. His philosophy, which gave up notion of political struggle, coincided moreover with intellectual activity – the philosophical ‘ricerca’60. On the contrary, Cantimori still defended the political and civic role of philosophy. Instead of leaving any political responsibility, the intellectual had to choose and «fight for one [myth], and be aware of its limits»: he had to get involved in the reality, which was made of «States, nations and social and political movements that are represented in the parties»61. The parallel between Cantimori’s refusal of Moeller’s use of philosophy as a political propaganda and his contemporary condemnation of Spirito’s rejection of the philosopher’s political function is puzzling. It is likely that in the mid-1930s he was already approaching another intellectual ideal: not more the fascist but instead more of a communist intellectual engagement. Some later comments by Cantimori trace the origin of his interest in Marxism precisely to 193662. He read and discussed Marxist texts even earlier, but only from the mid-1930s, when Marxism began to offer him an alternative key to historical and political analysis63. Cantimori’s interest in Marxism was not an exception in the Italian intellectual milieu. Already in 1931, Curzio Malaparte had written «Technique du coup d’état», which took inspiration from Lenin’s methods and had implicitly praised the Russian revolution. Another example is given by some corporativist 57

This was the book review of Ugo Spirito’s La vita come ricerca (Firenze, 1937). Where it was first intended to have greatly changed the European economy and politics and represented the ‘third way’, corporatism had become mere political propaganda. Fascist corporations were not at all democratic centres where the workers and the capitalist elites would cooperate; they were instead controlled by the State and were structured in hierarchical and bureaucratic organisms. See: R. De Felice, Mussolini il duce. 2: Gli anni del consenso (Torino, 1974), 11ff.; S. Lanaro, «Appunti sul fascismo di sinistra. La dottrina corporativa di Ugo Spirito», in Belfagor, 26 (1971): 577590; R. Quartararo, «Roma e Mosca. L’immagine dell’URSS nella stampa fascista (1925-1935)», in Storia contemporanea, 27 (1996): 447-472; G. Parlato, La sinistra fascista, storia di un progetto mancato (Bologna, 2000). 59 D. Cantimori Politica e storia, 573. 60 Ibidem, 611. 61 Ibidem, 629. 62 S. Seidel Menchi, «Ein neues Leben: contributo allo studio di D. Cantimori», in Studi Storici, 34 (1993): 777-786. 63 C. L. Ragghianti, «Tempo su tempo», in Critica d’arte, 17 (1970): 12-13. 58

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intellectuals, in particular by Spirito, who in the corporativist review Nuovi studi di diritto, economia e politica (directed by Spirito and Volpicelli from 1927), elaborated a third approach which lay between capitalism and communism. What from today’s theoretical and the political perspective seems to be a ‘conversion’ or a shift in looking at two opposite ideologies – communism and fascism – was in the eyes of part of Cantimori’s generation a smoother transition between two different, but not completely opposing political and cultural visions. Ugo Spirito pointed precisely to this argument, when he asserted that he had stuck to the same political theory both before and after fascism. Therefore Spirito’s conversion did not mean a radical rupture: the propagation of his corporativist theory, first as a fascist, and later a communist model was more due to the changing historical events than to a change of his own64. The ‘belief’ in the fascist revolution was a rejection of fascism communism, but instead represented a continuation of the generational revolution against the old world, the liberal politicians and the conservative elites. Clearly, the perspective of intellectuals (like Spirito and Cantimori) was already a biased one which lay ‘inside’ fascism. Influenced by idealism, they believed that the class revolution was identical to the national and generational revolution and that fascism would overcome the older ideological distinctions. Only later, when he began to doubt fascism, did Cantimori start reasserting the distinctions between the different political conceptions. The discrepancy between the concrete political developments, and the philosophical and intellectual sphere of discussion (in which fascism and communism could be reconciled) was achieved by Cantimori, only in the mid-1930s. FROM PHILOSOPHY TO HISTORY Cantimori’s reconsideration of politics accompanied a shift in his work as scholar. He began to work on Marxism, to organise courses on Babeuf and on the Jacobins and to educate the students on a political critical approach, without showing any open opposition in his articles. He also changed his approach to the study of heresy and reformation and he analysed the internal – and ‘hidden’ – heretical opposition towards the Church in the sixteenth century. Three changes are relevant in this regard. Firstly, he abandoned the philosophical idealistic approach and studied the heretics from a strictly historical point of view – which represented a methodological change. Secondly, he changed the scope of his research. He no longer pointed to the positive meaning of the Italian Renaissance and Reformation movements for European civilisation – which was Gentile’s idea of the «Italian primacy» in European civilisation. Instead, he investigated the emergence of an ‘internal’ debate in the Church and the emergence of forms of heresy that were not institutionalised in other reformed Churches. In other words, he reconstructed the 64

For an autobiographical account see Spirito, Memorie di un incosciente (Milano, 1977); Spirito after the war published many essays on the meaning of corporativism in democratic societies – see, amongst others, «Attualità del corporativismo», in Rivista di studi corporativi, II (1972): 6, 23-27.

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ideas spread by the heretics and the relation between the heretics (in particular the intellectual elites), and the Anabaptist popular movements (the masses). Finally, he theorised on an original idea of tolerance that coincided with the heretics’ rational critique of religious dogmas – therefore he introduced new categories in order to explain heresy. For sure, his professional and personal relationships with the most famous contemporary historians of heresy (Kot, Bainton, Kaegi), and his knowledge of the German and French literature on the theme – in the works of Benrath, Dilthey, Baron, as well as Febvre – influenced his new approach to the history, but it is likely that his decision to abandon philosophy for history was more than the reaction to scholarly ideas. His deferral to history was linked to a general reflection on the meaning of intellectual activity and the political world. Choosing history over philosophy meant forgetting the history of culture in order to reconstruct the «history of concrete men and of their relationships»65. Therefore, Cantimori did not fail to follow Gentile’s philosophy, but also the historical school that was dominating the Scuola Normale – Giuseppe Saitta’s school, which, according to his definition in 1935, had produced a «generic and not well grounded» historiography, in which the «history of thought was dissolved» – and became the mirror of the historian’s actual interests66. In particular he now refused to use general philosophical explanations in order to investigate historical processes, and therefore the philosophical-historiographical interpretations as elaborated by Gioacchino Volpe and Giuseppe Saitta; who had preferred a longterm historical vision of Italy’s national formation over detailed reconstructions based on source work and the analysis of social processes. This meant that Cantimori’s project of writing a history of ideas, as described in a 1932 report to the history professor Gioacchino Volpe67, was abandoned. Concerning the subject of his research, he had begun from «the assumption (presupposition) that the Protestant Reformation [...] was a progress and that Italy should participate to it»68. During his research, this hypothesis changed: the Reformation was no more the main theme and it was no longer seen as a mere positive and progressive movement. Cantimori’s interest instead became focused on the heretics, who did not belong to any institution and who were persecuted by all churches. Scholars like Socino, Aconcio, Pucci were, according to Cantimori, men of intellect and were religious believers. They cultivated a strict relation to the Anabaptist popular movements of the sixteenth century and, at the same time, developed further the philological method, that was at first elaborated by Lorenzo Valla, which would make the first critical interpretation of texts possible69. 65

Prosperi, «Introduzione», in Cantimori, Eretici italiani, XLII. Cantimori, Politica e storia, 133. 67 Prosperi, «Introduzione», in Cantimori, Eretici italiani, XXIV-XXV. 68 Cantimori notes dated from the 20 April 1952 quoted in Prosperi, «Introduzione», in Cantimori, Eretici italiani, XIII (my transl.). 69 F. C. Church, The Italian Reformers (New York, 1932), Italian translation by D. Cantimori, I riformatori italiani, 2 vols., (Firenze, 1935). 66

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Cantimori now included a perspective on the history of political and social ideas, and focused his attention on the debates raised by the heretics and on their relationships with the larger social groups and with political power70. He no longer saw the Reformation simply as the revolution in the minds of a few, or as a tale about national heroes, but instead he saw it as a complex and popular European movement71. The result of his work, the Eretici italiani del Cinquecento published in 1939, was in strong opposition not only with Gentile’s philosophical interpretation of the Reformation, but also with the methods used by some of the main Italian historians. The critical method as espoused by heretics – which according to Cantimori was linked to the historical origin of the idea of religious tolerance – is one of the book’s main themes together with the social and political role of the heretic opposition to religious dogma. In particular, he gave up on the interpretation that praised the heretics as individual heroes persecuted by the ruling system and isolated from the masses72. The heresy of the ‘irregular’ scholars who did not belong to any Church was seen by him as a laboratory in which one could study the transformation of an intellectual current into a political and social movement, and in order to investigate the process of political mobilisation73. From this perspective, the emergence of Valla’s philological method offered the heretics a new way of approaching religious issues: it consisted of «raising questions, of raising controversies, of keeping the minds awake»74. According to this viewpoint, this method and the deep scepticism towards human knowledge, (the rejection of any religious imposition of a truth), built the basis for the later elaboration of the idea of tolerance. Therefore, tolerance did not originate as a tool, used by the sovereigns and by the political parties which allowed them to maintain power over the population. According to Cantimori – who referred to Wilbur’s interpretation75 – 70

G. Miccoli, Delio Cantimori, 113ff. Cantimori, Prefazione all’edizione di Basilea, in Idem, Eretici italiani, 12. 72 Cf. the famous interpretation given by De Sanctis and which was well known to all Italian scholars at that time, in F. De Sanctis, Storia della letteratura italiana (Torino, 1981), 380. Cantimori rejected on the one hand Gentile’s attempt to find the first sign of the Italian political consciousness in the Renaissance and in some isolated, heroic heretics, like Giordano Bruno (see Gentile, Giordano Bruno). On the other hand, he was inspired by Croce’s praise of the Reformation, and in particular of Calvinism, seen as the religious basis of the building of political liberalism. 73 Cf. a letter from Cantimori to Bainton on 12 May 1932 (in The Correspondence of Ronald H. Bainton, 63): «I would like to shed light on the importance of the thought of the Basel’s group [of heretics] for the general history of philosophy, interpreted in a general sense. I will fight against the suspicions of the secular culture, that sees [in the heretics] mostly the theologians and the suspicions of the religious culture, which sees [in them] mostly the philosophers and the laymen. [...] I will point out not only the impact of Valla’s method for the building of their critical methodology, but also the way in which they elaborate, in the light of their concept of religious liberty, their concept of ‘Conscientia’, whose meaning shifts from ‘Gewissen’ to ‘Bewußtsein’, and I will underline that the main problem of finding their research methodology (that is dealt by all of them in their scientific work) becomes a guide also in their religious research». 74 Cantimori, Eretici italiani, 139. 75 E. M. Wilbur, «Faustus Socinus: an estimate of his life and influence», in Histoire des religions, 5 (1933): 48-60. 71

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tolerance came from the heretics’ defence of the critique that meant «the renewal of the thought through the language»76. In this way, the juridical and theological hermeneutics became a revolutionary device in its historical and political context. The stress on the political meaning of the heretical movement can shed light on Cantimori’s apparent withdrawal from political engagement. Cantimori’s political articles, written for a wider public from the mid-1930s, seem to witness his withdrawal from the direct political intervention and his increasing interest in broader cultural themes. Nonetheless, this orientation hides a concrete reference to politics in a ‘subtext’: even when he does not deal with the actual political events, his general observations aim at criticizing some general political phenomena, for example when he condemns Moeller’s use of philosophy as a political device. Even if he then refused to directly translate political principles into intellectual ideas, he still tried to assert an indirect link between political and academic activity, through the emphasis on the intellectual education of the masses, which was at that time represented also in the Marxist tradition. In other words, the intellectual would still act politically, but he would do so not in an immediate sense, but instead through his work, when he consciously accomplished his function as an educator of the young77 and as an organiser of culture. This change in the role and function of the intellectual work can be made clear by the description of Cantimori’s main intellectual model from the 1920s to the 30s. Most likely the model ‘philosopher-politician’, embodied by Gentile, was replaced by the model of the ‘heretic’; the intellectual who did not take an ‘open’ political position, but undermined the political and religious truths and, by doing so, paved the way for a revolution of the masses. His formulation of the relation between politics and culture was gradually mediated through the intellectual critique: the intellectual Cantimori no longer took an open position in political discussions, and instead he criticised the inconsistencies and the incoherencies of the cultural and political institutions. Another interpretation of his behaviour was to look at the academic advantages that could come from a kind of political abstention. Political abstention was a ‘feature’ of one part of Cantimori’s generation, which experienced the decline of the political and cultural model of idealism and the degradation of fascism into a more and more reactionary and racist regime. Some young academics had chosen the Resistance, others, like Cantimori and Spirito, chose to criticise the regime without openly struggling against it. Ruggiero Zangrandi, a representative of a younger fascist generation (who was born in 1915) and himself was a Communist ‘convert’, wrote in his autobiography Lungo viaggio attraverso il fascismo. 76

Cantimori, Eretici italiani, 16. It is noteworthy that Cantimori was not only very keen on orienting the publications of Einaudi, one of the most important publishers of the left-wing political arena, but he personally was keen on educating people through his academic work as writer and as an editor. Interestingly, Cantimori was due to edit before the end of fascism, (at the beginning of the 1940s), the first publications of the Communist Party, with the publisher Nuova Biblioteca. He had compiled an entire list of future publications, which could not take place due to the war situation.

77

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Contributo alla storia di una generazione [The long journey through fascism. A contribution to the study of a generation]about the ambivalent attitude of many young people who, in spite of their belonging to fascism, were more and more sceptical about it.

CANTIMORI’S ‘GREAT

MISTAKES’

Cantimori’s political position is more understandable if we read some of his notes from 1956. From this time onwards he abandoned his political engagement for good and distanced himself from the Communist Party. Some speculations about his withdrawal from Communism point to Cantimori’s refusal to commit himself to the formation of a strict communist historiographical school and to support a re-interpretation of history and culture following the Party’s directives78. It is likely that the events of 1956 played a role in Cantimori’s decision. He took refuge in his academic life, as Spirito had done many years before, and confessed his frustration with his own political experience in the following words: My big mistakes: 1) believing that I understood something about politics and conceiving of my political activity as a ‘mazzinian’ duty; 2) believing what my father and the lawyer Magrassi told me in Abbazia: that it had been the fascists who had caused the revolution; 3) not pulling myself out of the sterile moralism in the style of Mazzini and Rousseau; 4) getting involved with the Communists; 5) joining the Italian Communist Party; 6) abandoning my studies in order to translate Marx etc. [...]. The only remedy: retiring to my own studies. Finishing in a clean way, a disordered, and dust-covered life79.

The desire to square the circle, to find on the one hand a political solution for the gap between the elites and the masses, without using mere irrational feelings and creating an authoritarian State, and on the other hand to promote an intellectual activity that would really educate the people and increase their sense of liberty and solidarity, revealed itself as an illusion. This deep disappointment was already evident in a note written at the beginning of the 1940s, when he complained that «all the world of the youth is ended, the hopes, the ambitions are ended [...]. This is a failure; the failure of an ideal of elites, to which I attributed some of my ideas of Korps and Orden. The time of Lehrjahre and Wanderjahre is ended»80. Cantimori’s trajectory ended therefore, not only with his final withdrawal from 78

See A. Vittoria, «Il PCI, le riviste e l’amicizia. La corrispondenza fra Gastone Manacorda e Delio Cantimori», in Studi storici, 44 (2003): 745-888. 79 He wrote on 28 March 1956: «I miei grandi sbagli: 1) credere di capire qualcosa di politica, e farmene un dovere ‘mazziniano’; 2) credere quello che mi dissero mio padre e l’avvocato Magrassi ad Abbazia, che i fascisti la rivoluzione l’avrebbero fatta loro; 3) non tirarmi fuori dallo sterile moralismo rousso-mazziniano; 4) saltare fra i comunisti; 5) iscrivermi al Pci; 6) lasciare i miei studi per tradurre Marx ecc. [...]. Ritirarsi nei propri studi, l’unico rimedio. Finire pulitamente una vita disordinata e polverosa», now in Mangoni, «Europa sotterranea», in Cantimori, Politica e storia, XLI (my transl.). 80 Quoted in P. Chiantera-Stutte, «Rivoluzione conservatrice ed europeismo: riflessione su alcuni scritti e appunti giovanili di Delio Cantimori», in Annali dell’Istituto Trentino di Cultura, 27 ( 2001): 168.

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the political activity, but also with his renunciation with reconciling political emancipation with the intellectual work. This project of finding a way to unite politics and culture had dominated his life and other developments. This was clear for example, when Cantimori gave a new interpretation to his academic work with a ‘turn’ to history that was the result of both a political and a scholarly process of reflection. Not only were his academic interests intertwined with his political position, but his self-representation as an intellectual was grounded on his political beliefs too. Therefore, the changing political situation and the shift in the political judgements provoked different considerations of the academic and intellectual selfrepresentation and finally characterised Cantimori’s trajectory in fascism and in the intellectual field – as exemplified in his peculiar way of becoming a historian. The rejection of ‘being philosopher’ was therefore a scholarly and, simultaneously, moral choice, that implied the refusal of a certain idea of intellectual. The ensuing self-representation as a historian was the result of his choice to give up the general explanations that led to a nationalistic and fascist interpretation of history and to look at the sources with a critical mind. The representation of the heretical movement, and of its relation to the masses, was strongly influenced by the Marxistic dynamics of class struggle81. Moreover the emphasis on the intellectual critique as a necessary stage for any social and political change were signs of the new frame in which he could answer to his long lasting questions; the necessity of filling gap between the masses and the elites and the need to give a practical, moral and political meaning to intellectual output. The stress on the total meaning of the intellectual activity, of a coherent and integral development of him as intellectual, is witnessed even in the notes in which Cantimori listed his mistakes. He never embraced the idea of a separation between morality, philosophy and life and he gravitated from the totalitarian fascist ideology to Communism, without even consideration of the notion of liberalism. The failure of Communism, and of the final revolution that could integrate peoples and intellectuals for a political and moral renewal, meant the end of his political engagement. In this way, Cantimori’s intellectual development forms a complex pattern of continuities and discontinuities. At the end of the day, even the seemingly relentless list of his ‘great mistakes’ contains a blind spot. Taking the form of a ‘confession’, it still betrays Gentile’s manner of talking about political and intellectual activity in religious terms. Thus, even the convert to ‘scepticism’ remained a believer, and his intellectual biography was ultimately unified, no matter how many notions and ideas had been jettisoned along the way.

81

See for instance Cantimori, «Rinascimento», in Dizionario di Politica, vol. IV (Roma, 1940), 61, and «Riforma», Ibidem, vol. IV, 57a (my transl.).

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RESISTING HYPERBOLE. PROFESSIONAL HISTORIANS IN BELGIUM AND THE NETHERLANDS AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP WITH WARTIME HISTORICAL CULTURE (1940-1945)

Marnix Beyen

In the spring of 1943, the Düsseldorf-based archivist, Bernhard Vollmer, who was responsible for the archives in the occupied Netherlands, received an urgent request which had originated from no one less than SS-leader Heinrich Himmler. The SS were creating a school for its militants in the Netherlands, and they were looking for an appropriate name for it. The original plan was to name the school after the sixteenth-century Protestant intellectual and Mayor of Antwerp, Marnix of Saint-Aldegond. After all, in 1578, he had called, in the German Reichstag, for closer ties between the German Reich and the Dutch, were struggling against the Spanish, and therefore Latin, oppressor1. However, the conceivers of the school had been informed that Marnix was considered in the Netherlands to be «a representative of Calvinism, […] in which was perceived one of the roots of Dutch particularism»2. In order to avoid potential error in choosing a name that was either scientifically or politically inadequate, Himmler consulted Friedrich Wimmer, the German Commissar for Administration and Justice in the Netherlands, and himself an art historian. It was Wimmer who passed Himmler’s request to Vollmer, who was generally regarded as the expert on historical matters within the Generalkommissariat. Vollmer, however, appeared to feel less self-assured with regard to his own expertise. He redirected the request to Otto Oppermann, a German historian who had been teaching and researching medieval history at the University of Utrecht since 19043. The sequence of inquiries on the issue did not stop there: Oppermann addressed the same question to a Dutch colleague of his, who he did not name, but 1

Himmler had suggested this name (as early as April 1942) to the German Generalkommissar in the Netherlands, Alfred Seyss-Inquart, who had shown his enthusiasm for the idea. In May 1942, it appeared to be customary to use the name ‘Marnix-van-Sint-Aldegondeschool’ for the future SS-school. See: De SS en Nederland. Documenten uit SS-archieven, 1935-1945, ed. N.K.C.A. in’t Veld (The Hague, 1976), 694-695 and 729. For the appropriation of the historical figure of Marnix within Nazi discourse, see: I. Schöffer, Het nationaal-socialistische beeld van de geschiedenis der Nederlanden. Een historische en bibliografische studie (Utrecht, 19782), 192-194. 2 Bernhard Vollmer to Otto Oppermann, June 10, 1943, Amsterdam, Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie (NIOD), 24 (archive of the Abteilung Archivwesen), H 7-a. 3 On Oppermann, see: C. Strupp, «Die Institutionalisierung der Geschichtswissenschaft in den Niederlanden. Otto Oppermann und das Institut für niederländische Geschichte in Utrecht», in Rheinische Vierteljahrsblätter für Geschichte, 62 (1998): 320-352.

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PROFESSIONAL HISTORIANS IN BELGIUM AND THE NETHERLANDS

who was a specialist in sixteenth-century Dutch history. Partly as a consequence of the response of this Dutch colleague, Oppermann’s reaction to Vollmer’s request was firmly negative. If Marnix had tried to re-affirm the ties between the Dutch Protestants and the German Reich, this had been for purely strategic reasons and not, as the SS-officials wanted to believe, out of a certain sense of racial affinity. In fact, Marnix of Saint-Aldegond had in essence been a French Huguenot exiled to the Netherlands, and his entire intellectual outlook betrayed his French – and therefore Latin – origins. Oppermann had suggested William of Orange as an alternative solution, be it not without hesitations. He admitted that William, too, symbolized Dutch independence (though he neglected to stress that he did so much more than Marnix), but since he was born in the German Rhineland, he might be acceptable as an icon for those Dutchmen who wished «an affiliation with Germany, but no annexation» («einen Anschluss an Deutschland, aber keine Einverleibung»)4. This last solution was entirely unimaginable, if only because of the iconic character of William of Orange within the Dutch resistance movements5. This was keenly understood by Vollmer, who concluded disappointedly in his letter to Wimmer that «an outstanding statesman incarnating the unity of the Netherlands with the German Empire» could not be found in history. He suggested, therefore, some personalities from other domains – most notably the twelfth-century poet Hendrik van Veldeken, as a «cultural expression of the ancient unity of the empire» and «the 17th century ‘Greater German sea-hero’ Michiel de Ruyter» – but he admitted that none of these options was entirely satisfactory6. When the SS-school was finally opened – in the Southern Limburg town Valkenburg and not, as originally planned, in Soestdijk – it did not carry a historical name. The correspondence between Himmler, Wimmer, Vollmer, Oppermann and the anonymous Dutch historian is, therefore, one of these historical events which lead to a dead end – one of these events, in other words, for which historians seem to have a certain predilection since only they are acquainted with them. And yet, the event is meaningful, since in it, some characteristics of what I would call wartime historical culture are evident. First of all, it provides a hint of the pervasiveness of the past in political discourse of that time. «Of all times, times of war are the most beset with history», told the Belgian historian Léon-Ernest Halkin in 1939 to his students at the University of Liege, and the succeeding war years would prove how right his assertion was7. The war years did seem to witness a hyperbolization of the pre-existing historical culture. Not only 4

Oppermann to Vollmer, 17 June 1943, Amsterdam, NIOD, 24 (archive of the Abteilung Archivwesen), H 7-a. 5 See, for example, L.W.M. Gruntjes, De Tachtigjarige Oorlog tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog, University of Nijmegen, unpublished Master Thesis, 1983. 6 Vollmer to Wimmer, 28 June 1943, Amsterdam, NIOD, 24 (archive of the Abteilung Archivwesen), H 7-a. 7 L.-É. Halkin, «Introduction», in Id., Histoire et critique. Notes à l’usage du cours des Notion de Critique Historique (Liege, 1939), 3.

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MARNIX BEYEN

did the popular interest in history increase, as was shown by the commercial successes of historical novels and popular histories, and by the remarkable popularity of genealogy. Also, various political actors attempted to legitimize their political and territorial claims with references to the past. During the initial months of the occupation, for example, the newly installed German authorities in both Belgium and the Netherlands were overwhelmed with blueprints for the future, sent to them by ambitious personalities of the occupied countries, and most often based on visions of the past8. As a reaction to this, defenders of the existing nationstates were compelled for their part, too, to re-assert their historical roots. This hyperbolization of historical culture should not come as a surprise. The Second World War can be considered as a historical period in which the results of the nation-building of the first half of the nineteenth century were discarded and had to be re-considered. The romantic historical culture that had accompanied the first stage of nation-building, seemed to re-emerge during this second phase. This return to romanticism implied a ‘re-historicization’ of elements of the past. Many of these elements, which had to a certain extent received a fixed meaning in existing historical culture, now were invested with new, and often contested, meanings. The aforementioned case of Marnix of Saint-Aldegond is a striking example of such an attempt at re-historicization. At the same time, it shows the resilience of the older historical culture to this process of re-invention of the past. After having been officially commemorated in 1939 – on the occasion of the fourhundredth anniversary of his birth9 – as a national Dutch hero, it was not easy for Marnix suddenly to become an idol of Pangermanism. If the discussion about the name of the SS-Institute reveals the more explicit presence of the past in wartime culture, it also highlights the opportunities and the challenges this hyperbolic historical culture presented to professional historians. First of all, it reveals that processes of re-historicization created a renewed demand for professional historians, a demand that potentially could give back to them the prestige they had cherished during the romantic phase of nation-building. Even in a highly politicized discourse (such as that used by the SS-leaders), the need to be backed by professional historians was felt. Similar to the romantic phase, these professional historians could once again become the high-priests of the cult of the nation, a position which the very process of professionalization and specialization had eroded since the end of the nineteenth century. These new opportunities were keenly felt by the Dutch left-wing historian Jan Romein. In the inaugural lecture which he held at the University of Amsterdam in 1939, he expressed regret at the fact that the professionalization of history had led to the impossibility of historians creating synthetic images of the past; images that would be relevant to their society. The way in which professional historiography had contributed to the fragmentation of the historical image of the Dutch revolt, 8

See my Oorlog en Verleden. Nationale geschiedenis in België en Nederland, 1938-1947 (Amsterdam, 2002), 113-117. 9 Ibidem, 69-70.

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was, according to Romein, symptomatic in this respect10. Two years later, he appeared much more optimistic. In an article devoted to the historiography of the Eighty Years’ War, he asserted that in recent times, professional historians seemed to be reconnecting with more popular demands. «The contact between the public and the historians», thus he wrote, «disturbed because of the normal evolution, is repaired thanks to the abnormal evolution»11. Romein’s optimistic view in 1941 was probably largely inspired by the huge numbers of historical legitimizations of the Dutch nation, which were produced during the initial months of the Occupation. Several groups of intellectuals or students, all over the country, organized meetings in which the Dutch nation or the Dutch character were discussed and of course defended. Almost always, historians were invited to these events in order to present their views on how history had contributed to the genesis of the Dutch nation12. One of the most reputed of these talks was given by Jan Romein himself and was entitled Nederlands geestesmerk [The Spiritual Stamp of the Netherlands]. This romantic engagement of historians in the defense of their nation could easily contribute to blurring the boundaries between science and politics. One of the most explicit illustrations of this romantic tendency was given by the controversial Orthodox-Protestant poet and historian F.C. Gerretson. When defending himself, after the war, against accusations of proNazi sentiments, he stressed that he had used every given opportunity to «put patriotic history, through words and through writings, at the service of the reinforcement and the deepening of the national consciousness». Even more strikingly, he expressed his gratitude to the German occupiers because they had facilitated for historians such «an enormous space […] to wage nationalistic propaganda under the guise of history!»13. Not all historians, however, were as willing as Gerretson to subordinate their scientific ethics to their political passions. With this in mind, the discussions about the SS-school are once more illuminative. Not only do they provide a sense of the new opportunities that wartime offered to professional historians, but they also reveal a reticence on the part of the latter to make use of these openings. The adhering of the three historians – Vollmer, Oppermann and the anonymous Dutch historian – to their historical credibility made them unwilling to facilitate this attempt at historical legitimization. However, this case might have represented a rather peculiar one, and the reticence of these actors could be seen to be rather 10

J. Romein, Het vergruisde beeld. Over het onderzoek naar de oorzaken van onze Opstand. Rede uitgesproken bij de aanvaarding van het ambt van buitengewoon hoogleraar aan de Universiteit van Amsterdal op 16 october 1939 (Haarlem, 1939). 11 J. Romein, «De geschiedschrijving van den Tachtigjarigen Oorlog. Een historiografische studie», in Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, 55 (1941): 225-257. 12 A. van der Lem, Het eeuwige verbeeld in een afgehaald bed. Huizinga en de Nederlandse beschaving (Amsterdam, 1997), 216-220. 13 F.C. Gerretson, «Notitie behoorende tot de vragenlijst van de Commissie van Zuivering en Herstel en Zuivering van de Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht», 28 June 1945, The Hague, National Archive, 2.21.246 (papers Gerretson), 772.

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predictable. On one hand, the SS-interpretation of Marnix of Saint-Aldegonde was so blatantly inaccurate that serious historians could hardly be expected to support it; on the other hand, neither Vollmer nor Oppermann were historians who were aspiring to a greater public role for historians. As an archivist, Vollmer cared more for the preservation of sources than for the narration of meaningful events. Oppermann, for his part, was reputed for his hyper-critical and empiricist approach of those sources, which prevented him from rising to the level of their interpretation. Even for the sake of German nationalism, of which he was a staunch militant, he would not make an exception to that critical attitude. In this contribution, I will try to discern the more general reaction of Belgian and Dutch professional historians to what I refer to as the wartime historical culture. I will do so by looking briefly at the wartime trajectories of some of these historians. Even if they are not entirely representative, these cases can serve to illustrate the diverse positions historians could adopt in circumstances which offered both opportunities and hazards to them.

A WOULD-BE OFFICIAL HISTORIAN: JOHAN THEUNISZ The first of these trajectories is that of Johan Theunisz, a doctor in history and teacher at a secondary school in Zwolle (in the North-East of the Netherlands) and, significantly, a staunch national-socialist. For Theunisz, the German occupation of the Netherlands presented an opportunity to improve the position of the historian. «In great times», he exclaimed, «the historian, who identifies his own fate with the one of his people, is a pioneer, a fighter, a soldier!»14. And, it was very clear to him that the German occupation had heralded such a significant era in the Netherlands. It had drawn an end to the liberal period, during which everyone had been able to browse at his own will through the sanctuaries of our past and to publicize what he wanted and in the way he wanted it, without bothering one moment about the exactitude of his conclusions or about the finalities dominating this historiography. And whilst everyone and everything was protected, whilst no laborer could work one hour longer without the syndicate intervening, whilst no calf too much could become a cow, whilst no law could be treated without an amendment being judged necessary, no one has ever pitied about the fact that one of the most sacred things, the past of our people, was tossed about by each dilettante, by each juvenile politician, by Everyman15.

For Theunisz, the solution to this problem consisted of the creation of a Dutch Institute of History, which would have a monopoly over the entire historiography, and which would be directed by one, almost omnipotent administrator. There is little doubt that he would have considered himself an appropriate person for this job. Roundabout the same time, he wrote to an SS-official in the Netherlands stating that he aspired a job as «a sort of official historiographer» at the Ministry of 14

A lecture given on radio by Johan Theunisz on Christoph Stedings Die Krankheit der europäischen Kultur, undated, NIOD, 077-085: archives of the Reichs Höhere SS- und Polizeiführer (RHSSPF), 386-b. 15 J. Theunisz, «Geschiedschrijving staatszaak», in Volksche Wacht (6 January 1941): 26-28.

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Education16. During the years that followed, Theunisz would keep on lobbying for the creation for an official Historical Institute, to which he gave an ever more panGerman outlook. However, these proposals seem never to have been taken very seriously, neither by the German SS, who created their own Germanisches Forschungsinstitut, nor by the collaborating Dutch authorities, who founded the Dutch Institute for Language and Popular Culture during the Second World War17. Theunisz found out, to his dismay, that National Socialist cultural policy was less concerned with history in the proper sense, than with historically oriented disciplines such as pre-history and ethnology18. In spite of the pan-Germanic effort made, Theunisz’s historical framework remained probably too Dutch for the occupying forces to take him seriously and to appoint him as the official historiographer – the role to which he aspired. He was even left unsupported in his attempts to succeed the aforementioned Oppermann as Professor of Medieval History at the University of Utrecht; while he was backed by the Germanische Leitstelle, the section dedicated to ‘Education and Churches’ in the Generalkommissariat opted for the Cologne-based medievalist Gerhard Kallen19. As one might imagine, Theunisz’s discontent with this decision was immense20. The strategy followed by Theunisz in order to render its cultural value to history was a marginal one. Probably, this attempt was too overtly politicized to gain any success at all. Academic historiography was, in Theunisz’s case, subdued to such a degree to political ambitions, that it lost each form of credibility, even in the eyes of his political allies. It had become clear, in other words, that objectivity and neutrality had become in themselves conditions for a historian to play a role in society. THE TRAGIC FATE OF A ROMANTIC HISTORIAN: AART ARNOUT VAN SCHELVEN The weight of politics not only prevented some promising historians from entering into academia, but it also contributed to destroying the careers of historians who were firmly established in academic establishment. Among those affected in this way was Aart Arnout Van Schelven, who had from 1918 occupied the Chair of History up to 1600, at the Free University of Amsterdam. Being the scientific stronghold of the Orthodox-Calvinist community in the Netherlands, this 16

Johan Theunisz to Hans Schneider, 14 January 1941, NIOD, 210 (Berlin Document Center), H815. On this ‘proliferation of institutes with the same objective’, see my Oorlog en Verleden, 181-187. 18 On the politicization of these disciplines in the Netherlands during the War, see respectively: M. Eickhoff, De oorsprong van het ‘eigene’. Nederlands vroegste verleden, archeologie en nationaalsocialisme (Amsterdam, 2003), and B. Henkes, Uit liefde voor het volk. Volkskundigen op zoek naar de Nederlandse identiteit, 1913-1968 (Amsterdam, 2005). 19 For the support by the Germanische Leitstelle, see SS-Obersgruppenführer Hinrichs, «Jahresbericht über 1943 der Germanischen Leitstelle. Dienststelle Niederlande, 1943», NIOD, 077-085 (HRSSPF), 15-a; for the option for Kallen, see the report by Von Stokar about the situation at the Dutch universities, 17 April 1944, NIOD, coll. 20 (Stab Wimmer), case 3B, folder 3. 20 Theunisz to SS-leader Feldmeijer, 23 November 1943, NIOD, 077-085 (HRSSPF), 378-b. 17

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university was situated more or less at the margins of the Dutch intellectual landscape, which was dominated by a liberal paradigm of impartiality21. Notwithstanding this, Van Schelven became one of the most reputed experts of sixteenth-century history during the 1930s. The fact that he wrote the official biography of William of Orange, on the occasion of the four-hundredth anniversary of his birth, was symptomatic in this respect. For this biography, as for most of his works, he was generally well acclaimed by fellow historians, from different backgrounds. Van Schelven’s successful attempt to write history in a non-confessional manner formed part of his larger aspiration to open up the boundaries of the religious community to which he belonged22. The lion’s share of his historical activities aimed at proving that he was not only a Christian, but also a truly national historian. He tried to do this not only by writing history in a non-partisan way, but also by addressing himself to wider audiences. The romantic idea that people’s national feelings had to be stimulated by confronting them with images of their past, was firmly entrenched in his intellectual credo. Writing the commemorative biography of William of Orange fitted very well into his outlook, but it was mostly during the general mobilization of 1939 that he started to explicitly use history for national causes. He wrote a chapter for Nederland: Erfdeel en taak [The Netherlands: heritage and mission], a book aimed at the mobilized Dutch soldiers, in which the main historical qualities of the Dutch people were described by four authors from different ideological and religious backgrounds. More importantly, he became the driving force behind the fourhundredth anniversary of Marnix of Saint-Aldegond. In 1939, he published a biography of Marnix, which again received an almost official status. During that same year, he was designated President of the Organizing Committee for the Commemorative Festivities, which was founded in 1940 by the Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letteren [Society of Dutch Literature], a traditionally Liberal organization. Rather than concentrating on him as a staunch Calvinist, Van Schelven took pains to commemorate Marnix in a patriotic vein, and he could not hide his frustration about the lacking financial support by the Dutch authorities. «A National Figure», was the title of the lecture which he planned to give at the commemorative celebration of 2 July 194023. Due to the circumstances of the Occupation, this commemoration was reduced to a much more intimate scale. Its patriotic meaning, however, was probably enhanced by these same circumstances. 21

On the emergence of this paradigm, see: J. Tollebeek, De toga van Fruin. Denken over geschiedenis in Nederland sinds 1860 (Amsterdam, 1991). 22 After his death, his wife would write that «circumstances (his father) had made him enter into a society, to which he did not belong, precisely because of his independence and of the aristocracy he had inherited from his mother, but that he was too loyal to abandon that community», Mrs Van SchelvenWilde to Hendrik Smitskamp, 9 March, 1955, Amsterdam, Historisch Documentatiecentrum voor de Geschiedenis van het Protestantisme, papers Smitskamp, 34. 23 Programme of the commemoration in Utrecht, State Archives, R62, Papers of the Historisch Genootschap Gevestigd te Utrecht, 61.

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During the war, the figure of Marnix would remain at the center of Van Schelven’s national and historical preoccupations. In several different ways, he tried to counter the aforementioned national-socialist attempts to appropriate Marnix’s heritage. He wrote the introduction to a scholarly refutation written by his fellow-historian E. van Wessem; he taught his students about the true significance of Marnix’s appeal to the Reichstag; and it seems very plausible that he was the Dutch expert whom Oppermann referred to before answering to the request of the SS. If Van Schelven’s national engagement had been confined to these assertions about the past, his career would probably not have been threatened at all. During the initial months of the Occupation, however, the Amsterdam-based historian believed that the nation’s defense should be taken up in more practical ways too. He considered taking part in the Nederlandsche Unie, a mass movement striving for national regeneration within a context of German hegemony, but he was quickly disillusioned by the vagueness of its programme. For that reason, in September 1940 he enrolled in the more explicitly Fascist National Front, over whose cultural council he presided. It is likely that he did not lie, after the War, when he stressed that his adhesion to this party was dictated by his willingness to counter the Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging [National Socialist Movement], which he despised for its straightforward and power-oriented collaboration with the occupying forces. For Van Schelven, the National Front was the only party able to free the Netherlands from its democratic and liberal past without handing it over to foreign powers. He was particularly attracted by the Greater Dutch programme of the party, and he depicted a utopian vision of the Low Countries which would be reunited and freed from the Walloon population. As he would stress frequently, there was no fundamental contradiction between this radically ethno-nationalist position and his historical defense of the Dutch nation. His position was undoubtedly Fascist, but not necessarily collaborationist. Significantly, the journal of National Front also published a detailed refutation of the National-Socialist interpretation of Marnix of Saint-Aldegond24. The Orthodox-Protestant community to which he belonged, however, had a different view. Many people were profoundly shocked, not primarily because of the anti-democratic nature of Van Schelven’s engagement – anti-democratic feelings were deeply rooted within Orthodox circles – but because the National Front was a predominantly Catholic organization. In order to indicate their discontent, they refused to pay their annual contribution for the maintenance of the Free University. For this university, which did not receive any state support, the loss of income was dramatic. For that reason, the university’s administration confronted Van Schelven with a fundamental choice: either he would retire from the National Front, or he would be dismissed from the University. Unwillingly, 24

[E. van Wessem], «Marnix voor de Rijksdag te Worms», in De Weg, 16 August 1941. The attribution of this article to E. van Wessem stems from a letter by Van Schelven to Gerretson (who had attributed the article to Van Schelven himself) of 30 September 1941, The Hague, National Archives, 2.21.246 (Papers Gerretson), 259.

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Van Schelven chose for the former option, and was able to maintain his affiliation with the University. Nonetheless, the relationship between himself and his intellectual surroundings was profoundly disturbed. After the war, he would be forced to retire25. In the entire story of Van Schelven’s demise, his fellow-historians seem to have played no role whatsoever. Within both the circles of Orthodox-Protestant historians and within those of the more general historical craft, Van Schelven’s credibility remained by and large untainted. He kept on functioning within the Society for Christian Historians, and his collaboration to a multi-volume Vaderlandsche Geschiedenis [Patriotic History], conceived from an OrthodoxProtestant angle, went unquestioned by his co-authors. The publishing house for this book, on the contrary, feared that Van Schelven’s political adventure would «strongly inhibit the exploitation» of the book, and decided therefore to exclude him from the team of authors26. This desire was inspired much more by the antiGerman sentiments within the Orthodox-Protestant Community than with any intellectual distance taken by historians. Throughout the occupation, Van Schelven displayed an outspoken eagerness not to lose credibility from among his fellow historians. His political reputation was a significant barrier to the fulfillment of that ambition, but by and large, he succeeded in his project. When the famous historian Pieter Geyl was arrested in October 1940, Van Schelven was appointed as his temporary substitute by the Faculty of Arts of the University of Utrecht. However, the Faculty only did so because it was more or less compelled by the Secretary-General for Education, Jan van Dam, who more or less underwrote the same combination of regenerationist Fascism and Dutch autonomism as Van Schelven27. According to Van Dam, Van Schelven was a candidate who was acceptable to the occupiers, without therefore being a straightforward and unscientific collaborationist. The reticence of the Utrecht Faculty for Van Schelven was only partly provoked by his political reputation. His ambition to break out of the Protestant milieu was generally known, and raised suspicion that he would not be willing to withdraw when Geyl returned. Precisely in that last respect, however, Van Schelven demonstrated his loyalty to the laws of the historical craft. He categorically refused to be appointed as Geyl’s official successor. This attitude, and the general recognition that his courses were both scientifically sound and nationally inspired, meant that by the end of the war Van Schelven was held in fairly high esteem among his fellow historians. This would not make him any more welcomed after the war at the Free University of Amsterdam, nonetheless. In Van 25

For a more detailed description of Van Schelven’s vicissitudes during the war, see my Oorlog en verleden, 353-354. 26 Director of publishing house Zomer en Keuning to Z.W. Sneller, 9 October 1940, Amsterdam, Historisch Documentatiecentrum voor de Geschiedenis van het Protestantisme, 343 (Papers of the Society for Christian Historians), 52. 27 Jan van Dam to the Curators of the University of Utrecht, 8 May 1941 (Document added to the report of the Faculty of Arts, 16 May 1941), Utrecht, University Archive.

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Schelven’s wartime trajectory, the conflation of historical and political engagement had proved to be lethal for his public role in society. For all his professionalism, Van Schelven fitted into the pattern of the Romantic historian, for whom historical science and political activities are both parts of one and the same service to the Nation. All suspicion that is raised about the political activities of this type of historian also automatically casts its shadow on their scientific achievements.

THE SUCCESSFUL SEPARATION BETWEEN HISTORY AND POLITICS: ROBERT VAN ROOSBROECK AND FRANZ PETRI Much more successful in his attempt to combine the spheres of academia and politics was the Antwerp historian Robert Van Roosbroeck. This expert of sixteenth-century history, who before the war had been a prominent figure within the radical wing of the Flemish movement, became one of the leading figures within the Flemish SS during the Second World War. On the other hand, he was appointed in 1940 as Professor of History at the University of Ghent, first in the Faculty of Law and from 1943 in the Faculty of Arts. Some historians have readily concluded that this appointment was solely due to the support he had received from the German occupiers28. At closer investigation, however, this support cannot entirely account for Van Roosbroeck’s academic success. His appointment was backed by a nearly anonymous vote from within the Faculty of Arts, and rested therefore, at least partly, on the academic credibility he had built up in the preceding years29. Since Van Roosbroeck’s academic skills were generally well recognized, the occupying forces did not need to exercise much pressure in order to get him nominated. Van Roosbroeck’s credibility, in its turn, was the result of a careful and assiduous separating of his roles as a historian and as a political publicist. As a historian, he meticulously followed the rules of his discipline and maintained collegial contacts with his fellow-historians. He had even managed, during the second half of the 1930s, to draw the most prominent academic historians of the time into a project which fitted perfectly into a Flemish nationalist logic, a multivolume History of Flanders. This historical synthesis was universally praised for its high scientific standards, but it fitted nonetheless into a well-defined strategy of nation-building. There is little doubt that Van Roosbroeck attempted, with this project, to become a sort of captain of historical industry within an autonomous Flanders30. 28 See, for example, H. Derks, Deutsche Westforschung. Ideologie und Praxis im 20. Jahrhundert (Leipzig, 2001), 114. 29 Beyen, Oorlog en Verleden, 166. 30 See my «‘Een werk waarop ieder Vlaming fier kan zijn’? Het boek 100 Groote Vlamingen (1941) als praalfaçade van het Vlaams-nationale geschiedenisbouwwerk», in De lectuur van het verleden. Opstellen over de geschiedenis van de geschiedschrijving aangeboden aan Reginald de Schryver, eds. J. Tollebeek, G. Verbeeck and T. Verschaffel (Leuven, 1998), 411-440.

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Strikingly, Van Roosbroeck managed to maintain the support of these fellowhistorians during the initial years of the Occupation. In a way, this should not astonish, since he had in the meantime become an academic colleague of theirs. On the other hand, his Flemish nationalism had evolved into a very overt and radical type of National Socialism. Although the other academic historians in Flanders were far removed from this collaborationist stance, they did not feel compelled to distance themselves from Van Roosbroeck. It was only at the beginning of 1942 that the Ghent historian Hans Van Werveke seems to have become aware of the political incorrectness of this collaboration with a radical collaborationist. On January 8 of that year, he wrote the publisher of the History of Flanders that his contribution to the sixth volume of the work should be dated ‘April 1940’, even if it had been written during the years of the Occupation31. Van Roosbroeck’s success, in this respect, seems to have been largely due to the fact that as long as he publicly wrote about the past, he stuck by and large to the conventions of the scientific community to which he belonged. Only within the enclosed circles of radical collaborationist organizations like the Flemish SS or the Deutsch-Vlämische Arbeitsgemeinschaft (DeVlag), could he shift to a more ideologized register; like, for example, when he taught his courses for SS-militants on the Germanic roots of Flanders32. This gap between the two roles played by Van Roosbroeck is strikingly illustrated by comparing the general introduction he wrote for the prestigious and popular book 100 Groote Vlamingen [100 Great Flemings] with the broad overviews of Flemish history he simultaneously produced for the journal DeVlag. In this first publication, he started by presenting Flanders as a frontier zone «with a profoundly European character», repeating thus a motif which fitted well in a traditionally Belgian discourse. Only by the end of this introduction did he gradually move into a more recognizably collaborationist rhetoric, presenting 1648 as a catastrophic year, because it had detached the Southern Netherlands both from the North and from the Germanic sphere of influence. In his articles for DeVlag, he ascribed an entirely and nearly unalterable Germanic nature to Flanders in the past and the present33. In other words, Van Roosbroeck selectively engaged in the hyperbolized historical culture of the ideological group to which he belonged. It turned out to be a much more fruitful strategy than the one that was followed by Johan Theunisz and Aart van Schelven, who both tried to combine a political and an academic approach to the past. Van Roosbroeck’s approach was very similar to the one of Franz Petri, the 31 Van Werveke to publishing house De Standaard, 8 January 1942, Antwerp, Archief en Museum voor het Vlaams Cultuurleven (AMVC), G32995. 32 Information on these courses in the juridical dossier of Van Roosbroeck at the Archives of the Military Court in Brussels. 33 For a more extensive comparison of these texts, see: «‘Spijts de geschiedenis...’ Het discours over het nationale verleden in een aantal ‘historische belijdenissen’, verschenen in Vlaanderen tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog», in Hun kleine oorlog. De invloed van de Tweede Wereldoorlog op het literaire leven in België, eds. D. De Geest, P. Aron and D. Martin (Louvain-Brussels, 1998), 155-197.

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Rhineland medievalist who was in charge of German cultural politics in Belgium during the Occupation34. Petri’s own research on early medieval Germanic migrations to Wallonia and the North of France had considerably influenced National Socialist ideas with regard to the ethnic reorganization of Western Europe. As a member of the occupying administration he was expected, to some extent, to support those collaborationist forces within Belgium which tried to further the case of this reorganization. However, Petri’s support for these projects was often halfhearted, and in some cases he even had to mitigate the enthusiasm of some collaborationist militants trying to extend the Germanic territories to the boundaries which they believed to be legitimized by Petri’s own work. He accompanied the Flamingant northern-French priest Jean-Marie Gantois during an excursion through the Northern Provinces of France in order to prove that the historical traces of Germanic presence in this region did not suffice in legitimizing annexation in a Flemish or Greater Dutch territory35. Petri’s careful approach was partly inspired by political requirements. The first mission of the military administration to which he belonged was to maintain the territorial status quo. Attempts to reshuffle the map of Europe along ethnic lines could be considered a threat to this mission. At the same time however, not engaging in these projects also fitted into his strategy of maintaining his academic credibility, in spite of his overt political involvement. Even if Petri’s appointment during the military occupation was largely due to his scientific research on the Low Countries, as an official of the German Army, he tried to keep politics and history separate as much as possible36. In terms of his own academic career, this strategy turned out to be extremely rewarding. During the Occupation, Petri was able to entertain scholarly contacts with many of his Belgian colleagues, to whom he also offered some important services. In return, these same Belgian colleagues would strongly contribute to Petri’s reputation as a benign administrator, who protected Belgian society from the Nazi oppressors. A positive testimony from the Ghent historian François-Louis Ganshof helped to mitigate the verdict on Petri of the administration of the University of Cologne. Even if this did not enable him to return to this university, it probably contributed to his appointment in Münster, where he became academic Director of the Provinzialinstitut für Westfälische Landes- und Volkskunde [Provincial Institute for Westfalian Regional and Ethnological Studies]. Other Belgian historians, like Jacques Willequet and Adriaan Verhulst, would later perpetuate in their writings the positive image of Petri, which would remain almost totally unchallenged until the early 1990s. 34

K. Ditt, «Kulturraumforschung zwischen Wissenschaft und Politik. Das Beispiel Franz Petri (19031993)», in Westfälische Forschungen, 46 (1996): 73-176. 35 Beyen, Oorlog en Verleden, 117-118 ; E. Defoort, «Une démarche flamingante auprès d’Hitler», in L’occupation en en France et en Belgique, ed. E. Dejonghe, special issue of Revue du Nord (1987): 605-613. 36 M. Beyen, «Wetenschap, politiek, nationaal-socialisme. De cultuurpolitiek van het Duits militair bezettingsbestuur in België, 1940-1944», in Bijdragen tot de Eigentijdse Geschiedenis/Cahiers d’Histoire du Temps Présent, 11 (2003): 47-70.

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UNSHAKEN PROFESSIONALISM The willingness of the academic historians in Flanders to keep on collaborating with Van Roosbroeck can be considered as being symptomatic of the way the majority of them reacted to the historical culture surrounding them. In a way, this reaction could also be described as a non-reaction. Instead of using their historical knowledge to legitimize ideological positions in the present, they stuck to their ideal of scientific neutrality and tried, as well as they could, to continue with their specialized research. If they engaged in some of the popular historical series which became public during the war, they did so at the explicit request of the publishers, who attempted to exploit the possibilities of the sudden thirst for the past. These series were presented most often as patriotic undertakings, and academic historians at that time did not seem to consider patriotism to be an obstacle to neutrality. At the same time, however, the contributions of academic historians to these patriotic undertakings were rarely explicitly patriotic themselves. Or, to be more precise, their patriotic aspect resided in the external features of the books rather than in their actual content. The series Notre passé, started in 1941 by the publishing house La Renaissance du Livre, displayed the colors of the Belgian flag (black-yellow-red) and the heraldic Belgian Lion prominently on its cover. Nonetheless, the books that appeared as a part of this series are seldom dominated by an all-pervading sense of patriotism. If patriotic sentiments cropped up, this happened much more in the foreword of these books than in the actual texts themselves. An example of this can be found in the book that was dedicated by the editor of the series, the Brussels historian Suzanne Tassier, to the revolutionary figures of the late eighteenth century. The question that she asks in the first page of her foreword is impregnated by a strong belief in the existence of an unalterable Belgian essence: «Whence that surprising awakening of a people that appeared to have forgotten that great epoch when, under the firm guidance of the Burgundian dynasty, it had shaken off the hold of its powerful neighbors?»37. In the rest of the book, this basic belief remains present in the way that Tassier describes the eighteenth-century revolutionary figures unhesitatingly as «Belgians». Apart from that, however, the book does not contain any explicit eulogies of the Belgian character. Its author attempted in the first instance to situate the revolutionary figures within their precise historical contexts. Other books that appeared in the same series were, in spite of their patriotic outlook, potentially even detrimental to Belgian nation-building. This seems to have been the case with the volume that the Brussels historian Paul Bonenfant devoted to the Burgundian Duke Philip the Good, who was traditionally presented as the founder of the Belgian state. In that book, Bonenfant stressed, as he had formerly done in more scholarly publications, that Philip’s preoccupation with the unification of the Low Countries fitted into his ambition to play a primordial role 37

S. Tassier, Figures révolutionnaires (XVIIIe siècle) (Brussels, [1942]), 9.

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on the French political scene38. Bonenfant’s Liege-based colleague Fernand Vercauteren, for his part, explicitly presented the social struggles in Liege in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries not as a form of proto-democratization, but as something which strengthened the omnipotence of the corporations39. Insofar as these historians participated in wartime historical culture in this respect, it seems only to have been in a rather formal or external way. The way they treated their historical subjects was barely altered by the war circumstances. If academic historians during the Second World War seem to have been more willing to write historical syntheses than before, this should be considered less, therefore, as an attempt directly to reconnect with the public than as a response to the policy of publishers. Another explanation of this tendency might be found in the fact that wartime circumstances, to some degree, made the original research in the archives more problematic than before, and therefore created room for the writing of syntheses. As a result, the writing of syntheses did not correspond with fulfilling public expectations. The most striking example of evolution is probably the fourteen-volume Algemene Geschiedenis der Nederlanden [General History of the Low Countries], which appeared at the end of the 1940s and the beginning of the 1950s, but which was conceived during the Second World War. In May 1942, the Dutch publishing house De Haan approached the aforementioned Jan Romein with a request to write a new, multi-volume national history which should be simultaneously scientific and popular. It should be, in the words of the publisher, «a synthesis of our currentday knowledge with reference to the problems which are left open»40. Despite the extremely difficult circumstances in which he lived – trying to evade imprisonment by the German occupiers – Romein successfully contacted a whole range of Dutch and Belgian historians for this ambitious project. In the concrete realization of this project, these collaborators (among whom figured Van Werveke, Ganshof and Van der Essen) seem to have followed a primarily scientific logic, and did not try to satisfy the nationalistic needs of the Dutch population. The national framework selected – that of the seventeen Provinces – is significant in this regard. The socalled ‘Burgundian’ view of the history of the Low Countries had acquired some notoriety during the years immediately preceding the war, and the idea of the Benelux had become influential during the war in some intellectual and political circles. It had not, however, become a notion around which some sort of nationalist sentiment had crystallized. Insofar as it did not attempt to satisfy the need for national identification among the Belgian and Dutch populations, the choice for this framework can be seen as being un-Romantic.

38

P. Bonenfant, Philippe-le-Bon (Brussels, 19442), particularly 97. F. Vercauteren, Luttes sociales à Liège, XIII et XIVème siècles (Brussels, 1943). 40 Diary note by Jan Romein, 13-20 May 1942, Amsterdam, International Institute for Social History, Papers Romein. 39

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MARNIX BEYEN

CONCLUSION The fact that the Algemene Geschiedenis der Nederlanden is probably the most monumental and most lasting contribution of professional historians to wartime historical culture, tells us a lot about their general response to wartime circumstances. It shows that, apart from some exceptions, these historians did not profit from the increased historical demand to regain something of their old prestige. ‘Historicizing the past’ continued to mean for them a process of alienation, rather than one of identification. The devotion to the rules of the historical profession turned out to be stronger than the will to reconnect with the people. Very strikingly, Belgian professional historians were even more unwilling than their Dutch colleagues to allow their approach to the past to be guided by the demands of society. This difference can only be explained by the diverging strength of national consciousness in the Netherlands and in Belgium41. Dutch national identity was firmly embedded in all social and ideological segments of society and was deeply rooted in a vision of the country’s past. The shock of 1940, when the Netherlands were occupied by a foreign power for the first time since 1814, automatically brought national feelings to a zenith. Unsurprisingly, historians not only formed part of this national consensus, but also were expected to fulfill a guiding role in it. In Belgium, on the contrary, public opinion was already from the late nineteenth century thoroughly fragmented on the question of national identification. In this context, the claims made to the academic historians were never as intense or as univocal as was the case in the Netherlands. The needs of national identification, therefore, never implied an equally strong challenge to their empiricist credo. The cases of Van Schelven and Van Roosbroeck, both historians with an outspoken predilection for authoritarian regimes, are very illustrative in this regard. For Van Schelven, the Dutch nation formed the personification of both his historical and his political activities, thus rendering him vulnerable to the reproach of inadmissibly merging aspects of both. In Van Roosbroeck’s case, on the contrary, political and historical activities evolved in two entirely separate worlds. The academic milieu in which he operated, was dominated by a vague and far from uncontested Belgian patriotism. His political activities, conversely, were entirely devoted to the attainment of Flemish autonomy within a greater Dutch or German unity. The difference between these two worlds was so immense that the risk of contamination could appear to be much less significant. In terms of academic credibility, therefore, Van Roosbroeck suffered less from his extreme collaboration than Van Schelven did from his non-collaborationist form of ‘national Fascism’. A strong and uncontested sense of national identity could be a curse for a historian trying to historicize the past in a detached manner. 41

See, for this difference, my «Naties in gradaties. Nationaal en historisch besef in België en Nederland», in Ons Erfdeel. Algemeen-Nederlands Tweemaandelijks Cultureel tijdschrift, 45 (2002): 233-241.

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BOOK REVIEWS

Friedrich Meinecke. Akademischer Lehrer und emigrierte Schuler. Briefe und Aufzeichnungen 1910-1977. Eingeleitet und bearbeitet von Gerhard A. Ritter (Biographische Quellen zur Zeitgeschichte, herausgegeben im Auftrag des Instituts für Zeitgeschichte von Elke Fröhlich und Udo Wengst, Band 23), R. Oldenbourg Verlag, München 2006 Friedrich Meinecke starb 1954 mit 91 Jahren. Dass seine Schriften und sein ganzes Historikerleben uns auch noch ein halbes Jahrhundert später viel zu sagen haben, beweisen drei Veröffentlichungen des Jahres 2006: die italienische Übersetzung seiner Aforismi e schizzi sulla storia durch Giuseppe Di Costanzo, mit Einleitung von Fulvio Tessitore (Liguori Editore, Napoli); der Sammelband Friedrich Meinecke in seiner Zeit. Studien zu Leben und Werk, herausgegeben von Gisela Bock und Daniel Schönpflug (Verlag Steiner, Stuttgart); und die von Gerhard A. Ritter bearbeitete Edition über den Lehrer und seine emigrierten Schüler, die hier besprochen werden soll. Sie zeigt sehr eindrucksvoll, dass Meineckes Wirkung als akademischer Lehrer au‚ ergewöhnlich war und vielleicht, wie Ritter meint, seine nachhaltigste geblieben ist. Mit der Wirkung seiner ideengeschichtlichen Werke und mit seiner für die republikanische deutsche Entwicklung aufgeschlossenen politischen Haltung hängt sie natürlich zusammen, aber sie geht in ihrer wissenschaftlichen und menschlichen Eigenbedeutung darüber hinaus. Meinecke hatte viele Schüler, gründete jedoch keine Schule. Felix Gilbert nannte ihn “a great teacher because he urged his students to find their own way, the way most appropriate to their personality” (29). Der Band behandelt diejenigen, deren eigener Weg nach 1933 tiefgreifend gestört und verändert wurde: zehn Historiker und zwei Historikerinnen, die aus rassistischen Gründen emigrieren mu‚ ten. Fast alle waren jüdischer Herkunft und christlich getauft, auch später kaum an dieser Herkunft oder an Israel interessiert (am ehesten noch am Antisemitismus, den sie erlebt hatten). Sie blieben mit deutscher Wissenschaft und Kultur verbunden. Fast alle kamen in die USA, nur nicht Hedwig Hintze, die sich in Holland im Juli 1942 in aussichtsloser Lage das Leben nahm, und Gustav Mayer, der mit Meinecke befreundete und von ihm unterstützte Historiker des Sozialismus, der in England blieb und übrigens als einziger in seinen Briefen von Auschwitz und dem «breiten Blutstrom» sprach, der ihn von Deutschland trenne. Aber auch jeder, der nach Amerika kam, ist eigentlich ein besonderer Fall, schon durch das ungleich verteilte Glück, eine neue akademische Stelle zu finden, aber auch durch das unterschiedliche Verhalten gegenüber dem neuen und dem alten Land und die davon abhängige wissenschaftliche Weiterarbeit. Nur stichwortartig sei hierfür aus Ritters instruktiven Kurzbiographien referiert. 145


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BOOK REVIEWS

Hans Rothfels blieb auf die deutsche Geschichte bezogen, würdigte 1948 The German Opposition to Hitler, kehrte als einziger auf einen deutschen Lehrstuhl zurück und etablierte hier die Zeitgeschichte. Gerhard Masur, der konservativste, setzte die Geistesgeschichte seines Lehrers im europäischen Rahmen fort, wurde aber durch seinen anfänglichen Aufenthalt in Kolumbien auch angeregt, ein Buch über Simon Bolivar und die Befreiung Südamerikas zu schreiben. Dietrich Gerhard trieb vergleichende Verfassungsgeschichte in der Nachfolge Otto Hintzes und vermochte dadurch Alte und Neue Welt am glücklichsten zu verbinden; 1955-61 hatte er eine Professur für Amerikawissenschaft in Köln. Hajo Holborn, schon in der Weimarer Zeit demokratisch und westlich ausgerichtet, war für die amerikanische Deutschlandpolitik tätig, etablierte in Yale mit gro‚ em Erfolg die kritische Erforschung der deutschen Geschichte und schrieb die für Amerika ma‚ gebende dreibändige History of Modern Germany. Noch kritischer und mit wirtschafts- und sozialgeschichtlichen Methoden befassten sich Eckart Kehr und Hans Rosenberg mit der deutschen Geschichte. Kehr starb schon 1933 und konnte nur postum in der Bundesrepublik wirken. Rosenberg kam mit seiner desillusionierenden Darstellung von Junkertum und Bürokratie in Preu‚ en nur in Amerika zur Geltung, wurde aber mit seinem Buch Gro‚ e Depression und Bismarckzeit (1967) zum Vorbild für die moderne kritische Sozialgeschichte in der Bundesrepublik, erreichte also hier eine Wirkung, die nur mit der von Rothfels für die Zeitgeschichte verglichen werden kann. Mit Felix Gilbert und Hans Baron wurde weitgehend die deutsche Renaissance- und Humanismusforschung nach Amerika weiterführt (nachdem sie schon 1933 mit dem Warburg Institut nach England transportiert worden war); beide waren zurückhaltend hinsichtlich der Wiederbegegnung mit Deutschland. Ähnlich war es bei der Mediävistin Helene Wieruszowski und bei Hanns Gunther Reissner, dem Biographen von Eduard Gans. So verschieden sie sich zu Deutschland nach 1945 verhielten: alle - au‚ er Hans Baron, der an Walter Goetz schrieb - nahmen damals wieder brieflichen Kontakt mit Meineckes auf (Holborn, der am stärksten amerikanisierte, zunächst in englischer Sprache.) Sie schickten Care-Pakete mit Lebensmitteln und Tabak und freuten sich in oft ergreifender Weise, dass es das alte Ehepaar und damit ein positives Stück ihrer deutschen Vergangenheit noch gab. Damit war auch Dankbarkeit verbunden, denn Meinecke hatte ihnen in ihrer letzten schwierigen deutschen Zeit soviel wie moglich zu helfen gesucht. Auch das zeigen die Briefe. Sie reichen au‚ erdem zurück bis in die Anfänge der Verbindungen, sodass man eindrücklich verfolgen kann, wie sich Rothfels 1927-30 über die politischwissenschaftliche Distanz seines alten Lehrers ihm gegenüber empörte, oder mit welchem emotionellen Einsatz Rosenberg zunächst (1924-27) geistesgeschichtlich arbeiten wollte. Ein eminent wichtiges Kapitel deutscher, aber auch amerikanischer Geschichtswissenschaft wird in dieser sehr angemessenen Form der Gruppenbiographie durch Briefe und andere Dokumente sichtbar gemacht. In den letzten Jahren haben jüngere Autoren, also solche, die nicht mehr mit diesen 146


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BOOK REVIEWS

«Vorgängern» persönlich verbunden sind, umfangreiche Einzelbiographien über deutsche Historiker des 20. Jahrhunderts veröffentlicht, und weitere sind zu erwarten. Ausserdem gibt es inzwischen zusammenfassende Darstellungen unter wissenschaftsgeschichtlichen Fragestellungen oder solchen nach der politischen Haltung der Historiker. Da ist es dankbar zu begrüssen, dass ein nun alt gewordener Historiker, der Meinecke noch gekannt hat und der (wie viele seiner Generation) von dessen emigrierten Schülern wissenschaftlich geprägt worden ist, diese ungewöhnliche, in schwerer Zeit entstandene, erfreuliche Tradition so lebendig dargestellt und dokumentiert hat. Ernst Schulin

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Sophia Menache is a professor of medieval history in the University of Haifa, Israel, and currently also secretary of the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East. Among her many books, The Vox Dei: Communication in the Middle Ages (Oxford U.P., 1990), Clement V (Cambridge U.P., 1998), and many articles on medieval Jewish history, the Military Orders in medieval Christendom, the Crusades, and medieval attitudes to the animal world, with special emphasis on dogs and religious taboos. Olivier Ferret is a lecturer in French eighteenth-century literature at the University of Lyon 2 and a member of the Institut universitaire de France. His most recent book deals with the pamphlet exchanges between French ‘philosophes’ and their adversaries (La Fureur de nuire: échanges pamphlétaires entre philosophes et antiphilosophes, 1750-1770, Oxford, Voltaire Foundation, SVEC 2007:03). He is currently working on Voltaire’s polemical and historical texts for the Complete works of Voltaire (Oxford, Voltaire Foundation) and on D’Alembert’s eulogies of French academicians for the Complete works of D’Alembert (Paris, CNRS Editions); he is also studying the relations between Voltaire’s Questions sur l’Encyclopédie and the Encyclopédie of Diderot and D’Alembert. Henning Trüper is completing his doctoral dissertation - about the everyday scholarly life, historical method and writing practice of the Belgian mediaevalist François Louis Ganshof - at the European University Institute in Florence. He has published Die «Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte» und ihr Herausgeber Hermann Aubin im Nationalsozialismus (Stuttgart 2005) and «Das Klein-Klein der Arbeit. Die Notizführung des Historikers François Louis Ganshof», Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft, 18, (2007), no. 2: 82-104. Niklas Olsen is a PhD Researcher at the European University Institute, Florence, Italy. He has studied history at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and at the University of Los Angeles, California, USA. He has also been a visiting researcher at the Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut in Essen, Germany. Besides working on the dissertation “Studies in German Historical Writing in the Aftermath of World War II: The Case of Reinhart Koselleck”, he has published (in Danish) on issues related to German intellectuals and “1968”, and most recently he has co-edited a translation of a collection of essays by Reinhart Koselleck into Danish. Thomas Etzemüller, Assistant Professor at the University of Oldenburg, Current History of Germany and Sweden, History and Theory of Historiography. Ph.D. 2001 (University of Tübingen). Current research projects: Social engineering in 20th century Europe; Alva and Gunnar Myrdal: A micro study in swedish social engineering 148


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Jo Tollebeek is professor of cultural history at the University of Leuven, Belgium. He published widely on the history of historiography and historical culture in the nineteenth and twentieth century, most recently Fredericq & Zonen. Een antropologie van de moderne geschiedwetenschap (Amsterdam, 2008). With Ilaria Porciani he is preparing a volume of collected essays on the institutions, networks and communities of national historiography in Europe. Jeppe Nevers, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Southern Denmark, is working on the theory and history of historical scholarship as well as modern Danish and European history with special emphasis on the evolution of political concepts and rationalities. His work on methodological discussions in Danish academic history was published as Kildekritikkens begrebshistorie in 2005. Patricia Chiantera-Stutte teaches History of Political Thought at the faculty of Political Sciences (University of Bari). Her research themes are: the history of Jungkonservativen between the two world wars, the right-wing political thought and parties, fascism and nationalsocialism. She pursued her researches in Italy (at the Scuola Alti Studi and the ITC in Trient) and Germany (in Saarbruecken and Koeln) and was supported by many academic institutions (DAAD, Jean-Monnet Fellowship, CNR and ITC grant). She edited with Renata Brandimarte and others: Lessico di biopolitica, Manifestolibri, 2006. She wrote: Res nostra agitur. Il pensiero di Delio Cantimori (1928-1937), Palomar, Bari, 2005; Von der Avantgarde zum Traditionalismus. Die radikalen Intellektuellen im Italienischen Faschismus, Campus Frankfurt 2003, Julius Evola. Dal dadaismo alla rivoluzione conservatrice, Aracne, Roma, 2001 Marnix Beyen is assistant Professor at History Department of the University of Antwerp, where he also directs the research group on Political History. His research deals with the historical, literary and scientific representation of nations and with parliamentary culture in Western Europe during the late nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century. Currently, he is finishing a general synthesis of the history of Belgium since 1970.

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151-152 Abbonamento (n. 53)

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