The Birth of the Archive: A History of Knowledge

297 Pages·2018·3.55 MB·English

by  Markus Friedrich

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The Birth of the Archive
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Cultures of Knowledge in the Early Modern World
Edited by Ann Blair, Anthony Grafton, and Jacob Soll
The series Cultures of Knowledge in the Early Modern World examines the
intersection of encyclopedic, natural, historical, and literary knowledge in the
early modern world, incorporating both theory (philosophies of knowledge and
authority) and practice (collection, observation, information handling, travel,
experiment, and their social and political contexts). Interdisciplinary in nature,
the goal of the series is to promote works that illustrate international and inter-
religious intellectual exchange and the intersections of different fields and tradi-
tions of knowledge.
Publishing The Prince: History, Reading, and the Birth of Political Criticism
Jacob Soll
History, Medicine, and the Traditions of Renaissance Learning
Nancy G. Siraisi
The Information Master: Jean-Baptiste Colbert’s Secret State Intelligence System
Jacob Soll
Printing and Prophecy: Prognostication and Media Change 1450–1550
Jonathan Green
The Strange and Terrible Visions of Wilhelm Friess
Jonathan Green
The Birth of the Archive: A History of Knowledge
Markus Friedrich; translated by John Noël Dillon
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The Birth of the Archive
A History of Knowledge
Markus Friedrich
Translated by John Noël Dillon
University of Michigan Press
Ann Arbor
Revised Pages
Copyright © by the University of Michigan 2018
All rights reserved
This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations,
in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the
U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without
written permission from the publisher.
Published in the United States of America by the
University of Michigan Press
Manufactured in the United States of America
c Printed on acid- free paper
2021 2020 2019 2018 4 3 2 1
A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Friedrich, Markus, author. | Dillon, John Noël, translator.
Title: The birth of the archive : a history of knowledge / Markus Friedrich ;
translated by John Noël Dillon.
Other titles: Geburt des Archivs. English
Description: Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, 2018. | Series: Cultures
of knowledge in the early modern world | Includes bibliographical references
and index.
Identifiers: lccn 2017043650 (print) | lccn 2017056144 (ebook) | isbn
9780472123551 (E- book) | isbn 9780472130689 (hardcover : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Archives—H istory.
Classification: LCC cd995 (ebook) | LCC cd995 .f7513 2018 (print) |
DDC 027.009— dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017043650
Cover illustration: Pieter Brueghel the Younger, The Village Lawyer,
The Burghley House Collection, Stamford, England.
First edition originally published in German as Die Geburt des Archivs: Eine
Wissensgeschichte by Markus Friedrich. Munich: Oldenbourg Verlag, 2013.
The translation of this work was funded by Geisteswissenschaften
International— Translation Funding for Work in the Humanities and Social
Sciences from Germany, a joint initiative of the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, the
German Federal Foreign Office, the collecting society VG WORT and the
Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels (German Publishers & Booksellers
Association).
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Acknowledgments
I paid visits to numerous archives while preparing this book: from
small city archives with the charm of improvisation to great national ar-
chives with sophisticated operations. Every time, I was fascinated anew by
the peculiar atmosphere of these places and institutions. Nothing compares
to the moment of anticipation and excitement when a fresh stack of old
papers arrives and one’s knowledge of their probable contents is mixed with
the hope for an unexpected surprise! The fact that I can look back fondly on
my visits to archives in Italy, Germany, and France as equally pleasant and
successful is due primarily to the unstinting helpfulness of almost all archi-
vists. Again and again, they gave me advice, helped me with problems, and
answered my questions. I sincerely thank them for their support!
While trips to visit archives are less complicated today than in the Early
Modern Period, they remain an expensive pleasure. It was my privilege to
enjoy the generous support of several institutions. The Max Weber Founda-
tion supported long stays in Rome and Paris with a Gerald D. Feldman
grant. I was able to finance other trips with the resources of the Deutsche
Forschungsgemeinschaft, which were made available to me in the context
of a Heinz Maier- Leibnitz Prize. The luxurious working conditions of the
Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (Berlin) gave me the best
conceivable environment in which to write the first draft of the text in the
spring and summer of 2012. I sincerely thank all these institutions for their
special support.
Portions of this book were presented as talks given in Berlin, Chicago,
Essen, Frankfurt, Gotha, Hamburg, London, Los Angeles, Marburg, Paris,
and Rostock, among other places. On every occasion, I profited from critical
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vi ✦ Acknowledgments
questions and numerous suggestions from the audience. Many colleagues
have influenced my ideas in one way or another with discussion, debate, or
references: Rosemarie Barthel (Gotha), Annette Baumann (Gießen), Arndt
Brendecke (Munich), Peter Burke (Cambridge), Lorraine Daston (Berlin),
Randolph C. Head (Riverside), Françoise Hildesheimer (Paris), Karsten
Jedlitschka (Berlin), Christine Lebeau (Paris), Robert Meier (Wertheim),
Martin Mulsow (Gotha), Jake Soll (Los Angeles), Markus Völkel (Ros-
tock), and Thomas Wallnig (Vienna). Carla Meyer (Heidelberg), Christoph
Dartmann (Münster), and Helmut Zedelmaier (Munich) read the text and
significantly improved it. Helga Penz kindly made the photograph from
Salzburg available to me. In Hamburg, Christian Möllmann and especially
Sonja Döhring helped me prepare the text. My collaboration with Julia Sch-
reiner from Oldenbourg Verlag was fun, inspired new ideas, and gave me
many fresh impulses!
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Contents
Abbreviations xi
1 Stories and Histories of Archives: An Introduction 1
Archives as Places of Knowledge 5
Stories and Histories of Archives: In Praise of Praxis 6
Research Traditions 8
The “Archival Turn” in Cultural Studies 10
Why the Early Modern Period? Epochs of Archival History 12
About This Book 14
2 Documents: Filling Archives— A Prologue 16
The Origins of a Pragmatic Literacy 17
Preserving Documents with Cartularies and Registers 24
Franz Pehem in Altenburg, or: Pragmatic Literacy
at the Dawn of the Early Modern Period 28
3 Founding: Archives Become Institutions and Spread 30
Early Princely Archives in France and Germany 31
Archives Everywhere: Quantitative
and Geographic Expansion 35
Archives for Everyone: Corporations, Churches, Noblemen 37
Territorial Archival Policy between Center and Periphery 48
After Founding 51
Institutionalized Unusability: Joly de Fleury and Le Nain
in the Archive of the Parlement of Paris 53
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viii ✦ Contents
4 Projections: Archives in Early Modern Thought 59
Talking about Archives: Texts and Contexts 60
Purposes of Archives: Remembrance and Stabilization
across Social Orders 67
Useless and Disorienting, Surprising and
Unmanageable Archives 71
Early Modern Sketches of European Archival History 75
Oral and Written Archives in Europe and Abroad 78
Semantics and Metaphors: From Archive to “Archive” 79
5 People: Archives and Those Who Used Them 83
Archivists 85
The Illegible Archive: Practical Challenges 91
Are Archivists Scholars? 93
“Keep Calm!” Everyday Life in the Archives and the
Archivists’ Persona 96
Visitors and Visits 100
Private and Public Documents: Papers and Archives
as Private Property 103
Radical Personalizations: Theft and the Helplessness
of Archives 107
6. Places: Archives as Spatial Structures
and Documents as Movable Objects 111
Archive Rooms: Protective Shells for Fragile Contents 112
The Well- Ordered Archive as a Spatial Ideal 115
Suites and Surroundings: Archives as Parts of Buildings 116
The Creation of Order in Space: Archive Furniture 123
A “Ship Full of Documents,” or: The Mobility of Early
Modern Archives 135
7 Power(lessness): Archives as Resources,
Symbols, and Objects of Power 139
Princes’ Rights, or: Archives of Royal Laws 140
Subjects’ Obligations, or: Archives and Feudal Prerogatives 143
What to Do? or: Archives in Decision- Making Processes 148
Expert Reports, or: The Processed Archive 150
Partitioning and Regime Change: Archives between
Pragmatism and Symbolism 154
Archives in War and Peace 160
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Contents ✦ ix
8 Sources: Archives in Historiography and Genealogy 166
Before Historicism 167
Why Archival Research? 169
Fear of Historians: History between Politics and Scholarship 173
Secrecy as Project and Projection: The Possibilities
and Limitations of Scholarly Archive Access 176
Controlling Archival Work: Research Opportunities
and Limitations 182
Working in the Archives 185
Archival Trips and Transregional Collaboration 188
Aristocrats, Archives, Ancestors: Genealogy as a
Scholarly Practice 192
Talking about Archival Work, or: The Archive
as a Historiographical Narrative Topos 197
Epilogue: The Premodern and Modern Archive 201
Notes 205
Bibliography 247
Illustration Credits 275
Index 277