Historical auxiliary sciences

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The historical auxiliary sciences (also historical basic sciences or historical auxiliary sciences [GHW]; in Switzerland historical special sciences ) are a sub-discipline of historical studies that focuses on preparing historical sources . The extensive range of subjects with partially independent methods is by no means closed.

The term auxiliary sciences can be interpreted as derogatory, so that Karl Brandi proposed the term basic sciences in 1939. He wanted to point out that the research results and competencies of the auxiliary scientists are indispensable for historical work. The discussion has been taken up again and again without reaching a result.

history

Daniel Papebroch and Jean Mabillon laid the foundations of the scientific document criticism and thus of the historical auxiliary sciences in the 17th century. The term did not appear until the 18th century as elementa et adiumenta historica ( Tübingen 1734), Auxilia historica ( Regensburg 1741) or subsidia historica ( Marburg 1785). The German term "historical auxiliary sciences" first appeared in 1761 in Johann Christoph Gatterer's handbook on universal history . In the 19th century they become part of the university education and core of the training of archivists, for example at the École nationale des chartes in Paris or the Institute for Austrian Historical Research in Vienna .

Field of work

The canon of historical auxiliary sciences combines disciplines that deal with the direct understanding of historical sources :

Central to the historical auxiliary sciences is the work with written documents that have arisen from administrative activities, in particular the documents ( diplomats ).

Initially developed as instruments for the criticism of documents , the written ( palaeography ), the seal ( sphragistics ) and the historical theory of time calculation ( chronology ) have become independent. The paleography studied mainly medieval literary nowadays manuscripts , the chronology is also dedicated to Komputistik and social importance of dating styles. For the administrative sources of the late Middle Ages and the early modern period, the special disciplines of file and document studies and official library studies have developed since the middle of the 20th century .

With the expansion of the sources used by historical studies since the 1980s, objective (realism) and visual sources come to the fore.

Historical auxiliary sciences are one of the foundations of materiality research .

Characteristic

The historical auxiliary sciences often have a strong object reference. The material form of the historical sources comes to the fore over their content. Books as objects are the subject of manuscript studies ( codicology ) and book history , coins are the subject of numismatics , sovereign insignia and everyday objects are the subject of insignia and realism , inscriptions are the subject of epigraphy , old maps are the subject of the history of cartography .

The canon of subjects also has in common the principle of determining the formal characteristics of the sources: the external and internal characteristics of the documents are indications of the authenticity of the pieces, writings should be assigned to places of writing or writers, etc. Historical IT is based on this methodological commonality and searches for it formalizable (and thus expressible in algorithms ) methods of historical sciences, especially when dealing with sources.

The most important commonality of the disciplines, however, is that knowledge of the respective sub-disciplines is indispensable for dealing with the original sources. Historical geography tries to determine geographic features of the past so that, for example, a place name can be identified in a medieval document. Metrology tries to dissolve historical measurements in order to give the historian a picture of the weight, volume or extent of the source content. So that conveys Archivkunde knowledge about the organization of the archives , in order to facilitate access to classified information held in them materials. The genealogy tries to unravel the relationships of the past in order to classify historical events into personal relationships.

Science policy situation

Around 2000, the auxiliary sciences in Germany were institutionally scaled back, which is due to the debate about the self-definition of historical studies. The “ linguistic turn ” and the relativization of historical facticity, which is usually associated with the name Hayden White , has focused the attention of the historical scientific community on areas of research that are devoted to the possibilities of interpreting historical knowledge and putting the construction of historical knowledge on hold . The research assistants try to counter this pressure by emphasizing traditional research achievements as well as by integrating their research into overarching research topics ( e.g. written form and oral form , digital edition ). Due to a training that is increasingly geared towards archive management, the archivists also rarely undertake the formal analysis of the archive material, although a continuation of the history of files into the 19th and 20th centuries could pose as urgent research tasks as an in-depth palaeography of the modern era could provide useful aids for archive users.

German university policy classifies historical auxiliary sciences as a minor subject (see also the list of minor subjects ). A Germany-wide mapping of the professorships can be found at the Small Subjects Unit. As a main subject, historical auxiliary sciences can only be studied at very few universities. Overall, the precarious situation of the historical auxiliary sciences is deplored.

See also

Further historical auxiliary sciences:

Other sciences can function as auxiliary sciences, but they are not included in the canon, for example:

The following disciplines are not counted in the canon of auxiliary sciences, as they are closely related to sciences that do not see themselves as exclusively historical:

literature

  • Ahasver von Brandt : tool of the historian. An introduction to the historical auxiliary sciences (= Kohlhammer-Urban-Taschenbücher. Vol. 33). 18th edition. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2012, ISBN 978-3-17-022245-8 .
  • Robert Delort : Introduction aux sciences auxiliaires de l'histoire (= Collection U - Série Histoire médiévale ). Colin, Paris 1969.
  • Toni Diederich , Joachim Oepen (Hrsg.): Historical auxiliary sciences. Status and prospects of research. Böhlau, Cologne et al. 2005, ISBN 3-412-12205-X (only diplomacy, sphragistics, heraldry, genealogy, numismatics).
  • Eckart Henning : Auxilia historica. Contributions to the historical auxiliary sciences and their interrelations. 2nd, greatly expanded edition. Böhlau, Cologne et al. 2004, ISBN 3-412-12104-5 .
  • Hiram Kümper: Materials Science Medieval Studies. An introduction to the historical auxiliary sciences (= UTB. Vol. 8605). Schöningh, Paderborn 2014, ISBN 978-3-8252-8605-7 .
  • Monika Lücke : Historical auxiliary sciences in the present. Requirements and Perspectives. Prof. Dr. Walter Zöllner on his 65th birthday (= Halle contributions to the historical auxiliary sciences. Vol. 1). Institute for History of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle 1998.
  • Christian Rohr : Historical auxiliary sciences. An introduction (= UTB. Vol. 3755). Böhlau, Vienna et al. 2015, ISBN 978-3-8252-3755-4 .
  • Peter Rück : Historical auxiliary sciences after 1945. In: Peter Rück (Hrsg.): Mabillons track. Twenty-two miscells from the field of historical auxiliary sciences at the Philipps University of Marburg. For Walter Heinemeyer's 80th birthday. Institute for Historical Auxiliary Sciences, Marburg an der Lahn 1992, ISBN 3-8185-0121-1 , pp. 1-20.

Web links

Wikisource: Basic Historical Sciences  - Sources and Full Texts

Remarks

  1. ^ Karl Brandi : The care of the historical auxiliary sciences in Germany. In: Geistige Arbeit 6 (1939), No. 2.
  2. ^ Last Eckart Henning : term plea for the historical "auxiliary" sciences. In: Eckart Henning: Auxilia Historica. Contributions to the historical auxiliary sciences and their interrelations. Neustadt an der Aisch 2000, pp. 3–16.
  3. ↑ Small subjects: Historical auxiliary sciences on the Kleine Fächer portal , accessed on April 23, 2019.
  4. ↑ Eckart Henning: Signatures of the time. On the precarious situation of the historical auxiliary sciences. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . November 18, 2015, p. N4.