WHAT IS ANTIQUARIAN HISTORY? - HISTORY - 2025

The antiquarian history is defined as the selection and data collection and historical facts that can subsequently be preserved by historiography. It is a characteristic of the story, equal to a scientifically demanding narrative, bordering on an exemplary intellectual narrative.

Nietzsche was a physician of culture offering a critique of historicism (which he called the historical movement, the historical trend, or the historical consciousness). He believed that people suffered from a "malignant historical fever."

For Nietzsche, there was a proper sphere of history and this approach contained a kind of balance between three types of history that can serve life:

• Monumental - These were models of greatness, great men, and great events.
• Antiquarian: includes a healthy love of tradition.
• Criticism: Obsolete aspects of the past would be brought to the bar of judgment for conviction.

Thus, in effect, an antiquarian history is one that preserves some of the models or traditions to remind us of our past.

Some examples of this can be found in rituals performed at a religious service or in Army traditions. People may not know why they are doing them, but they are still important.

Bases and perspectives of antiquarian history: antiquarians versus historians

The antiquarian has always been closely related to history, especially since it is both disciplines that are mainly concerned with the dissertation on the ancient.

Historians, however, generally do not use the word "antiquarian" in a positive sense. If a text is described as "antiquarian" the implication is that its focus is narrow; Which is full of details; But you don't see the "big picture."

Objectives comparison

Antiquarian scholarship can be meticulously investigated, but there is often an assumption that the subject is remote, of little benefit to none except the expert, and that amid unscientific details the argument is lost.

Instead, history seeks to investigate, understand, and manifest the ancient. She is interested in both doctrines and artifacts, and meditates on both the general and the specific. It is an interpretation of the past rather than a strict recognition of actual analysis.

Historical Expression by John Earle on Antiquarian History

There is a great legend of this negative perception of the antiquarian with respect to history. In fact, during the period 1700-1800 the profile of antiquarians was ridiculed by the following expression:

“A strangely thirsty man from the past time, and an enemy indeed, where he gets many things from when now they are all rotten and stinking. He is the one who has that unnatural disease of being in love with old age and wrinkles, and loves all things (as the Dutch love cheese) that are moldy and worm-eaten. "

This image of the antiquarian suggests an unhealthy pathological obsession with the old, which values ​​objects indiscriminately for their state and waste of decadence, rather than for their meaning or significance.

John Earle's criticism is cruelly witty, but it offers little information about the activities of antiquarians today.

Antiquarian societies and their activities

Given the negative associations of the word "antiquarian," it is not surprising that few people now define themselves primarily as such.

There is, however, a large and flourishing society of antique dealers that was established in 1707 and has a current membership of over 2,000 people.

Similarly, there are numerous regional and local societies that make use of the term "antiquarian" in their label, such as the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, the Halifax Antiquarian Society, the Bradford Historical and Antiquarian Society, or the Philadelphia Numismatic and Antiquarian Society.

Members of the London Antiquarian Society include archaeologists, art analysts, architecture analysts, historians with expertise in any period of archaic chronology, archivists and experts involved in inheritance and maintenance.

Much of the members, however, deal with certain aspects of the material residues of bygone times, whether through archeology, artwork, scrolls and books, or built structures.

Archaeological researchers outnumber the other experts within the London Antiquarian Society. And although the recent exhibition celebrating the history of the Society of Antiquities was called "making history," there was an undeniable emphasis on the contribution of the Society and its membership to the development of archeology as a profession and discipline.

Therefore, antiquarians today are still associated with an object-oriented approach to the past and with the excavation and preservation of their material remains.

What does the antiquarian offer to history?

Traditionally, antiquarian history was viewed as the 'servant girl', providing the raw materials from which an authentic narrative could be constructed and proving historical events with corroborative material derived from evidence of, for example, coins and inscriptions.

But this understanding of the nature of the relationship between the antiquarian and history was articulated at a time when the writing of history was basically a literary action, rather than a task of exploration as we would understand it today.

There was great effort on the part of the historian to write a narrative that was elegant in tone and edifying in content.

The intention of writing the historical events was to provide a pattern of action for the present. For his part, the antiquarian was simply concerned with recovering the empirical detail of the past.

However, the dense reference monograph that is based on detailed archival research diligently evades the cause implicit in so many historical writings of the past.

It has more in common with the antiquarian scholarship of earlier times than with much of what was considered true historical writing.

Antiquarian societies pride themselves on avoiding guesswork, fantasy, distortion, and exaggeration.

While the chroniclers write seeking controversial outcomes, to test a moral, social or political ideology, the antiquarian exhibits the events merely as they occurred. The antiquarian is carefully impartial.

References

1. John Earle. (1897). Micro-cosmographie, Or, A Piece of the World Discovered in Essays and Characters. Google Books: W. Crofton Hemmons.
2. David Starkey, David Gaimster, Bernard Nurse. (Nov 1, 2007). Making History: Antiquaries in Britain, 1707-2007. Google Books: Harry N. Abrams.
3. Susan M. Pearce, Society of Antiquaries of London. (2007). Visions of Antiquity: The Society of Antiquaries of London, 1707-2007. Google Books: Society of Antiquaries of London.
4. Michael Hewson Crawford, CR Ligota. (nineteen ninety five). Ancient History and the Antiquarian: Essays in Memory of Arnaldo Momigliano. Google Books: Warburg Institute.
5. Sir Richard Colt Hoare. (1975). The Ancient History of Wiltshire, Volume 2. Google Books: EP Publishing Wiltshire County Library.
6. Rosemary Sweet. (May 28, 2004). Antiquaries: The Discovery of the Past in Eighteenth-Century Britain. Google Books: A&C Black.
7. Momigliano, A. (1950). Ancient History and the Antiquarian. Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 13 (3/4), 285-315. doi: 10.2307 / 750215.