Historiography of Scotland

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The historiography of Scotland refers to the sources, critical methods and interpretive models used by scholars to come to an understanding of the history of Scotland.

Middle Ages and Renaissance

Scottish

Scottish Crown
, with unrivaled access to source materials, laid the foundations for modern historiography.

Reformation

The disputes of the

Lord Stair
- contributed to the development of modern Scottish historiography.

Enlightenment

The 18th century saw itself as the Age of Reason and in this climate of

Lord McAuley
wrote only a "History of England".

Nineteenth century

In contrast to the Enlightenment, many historians of the early nineteenth century rehabilitated large areas of Scottish history as suitable for serious study.[2] Lawyer and antiquarian Cosmo Innes, who produced works on Scotland in the Middle Ages (1860), and Sketches of Early Scottish History (1861), has been likened to the pioneering history of Georg Heinrich Pertz, one of the first writers to collate the major historical accounts of German history.[3] Patrick Fraser Tytler's nine-volume history of Scotland (1828–43), particularity his sympathetic view of Mary, Queen of Scots, have led to comparisons with Leopold von Ranke, considered the father of modern scientific historical writing.[3] Tytler was co-founder with Scott of the Bannatyne Society in 1823, which helped further the course of historical research in Scotland.[4] Thomas M'Crie's (1797–1875) biographies of John Knox and Andrew Melville, figures generally savaged in the Enlightenment, helped rehabilitate their reputations.[5] W. F. Skene's (1809–92) three part study of Celtic Scotland (1886–91) was the first serious investigation of the region and helped spawn the Scottish Celtic Revival.[5] Issues of race became important, with Pinkerton, James Sibbald (1745–1803) and John Jamieson (1758–1839) subscribing to a theory of Picto-Gothicism, which postulated a Germanic origin for the Picts and the Scots language.[6]

Thomas Carlyle, a major figure in Romantic historical writing

Among the most significant intellectual figures associated with Romanticism was

Goethe to the attention of a British audience.[7] An essayist and historian, he invented the phrase "hero-worship", lavishing largely uncritical praise on strong leaders such as Oliver Cromwell, Frederick the Great and Napoleon.[8] His The French Revolution: A History (1837) dramatised the plight of the French aristocracy, but stressed the inevitability of history as a force.[9] With French historian Jules Michelet, he is associated with the use of the "historical imagination".[10] In Romantic historiography this led to a tendency to emphasise sentiment and identification, inviting readers to sympathise with historical personages and even to imagine interactions with them.[11] In contrast to many continental Romantic historians, Carlyle remained largely pessimistic about human nature and events. He believed that history was a form of prophesy that could reveal patterns for the future. In the late nineteenth century he became one of a number of Victorian sage writers and social commentators.[12]

Romantic writers often reacted against the

Macaulay, and Ranke.[16]

Twentieth century

In the 1960s, with the expansion of

Higher Education, new Universities were established and with them new departments of history, some specialising in Scottish history. This allowed new attention to be paid to the particular geographic, demographic, governmental, legal and cultural structures of Scotland and to relate these to the wider European context, as well as those of Great Britain and its Empire
. The distinctiveness of Scottish historiography now lies in its object of study rather than its approaches - though no doubt earlier historians can be glimpsed looking over their shoulders to events in England.

Prominent historians

Historiographer Royal of Scotland

See also

References

  1. ^ T. M. Devine and J. Wormald, Introduction, in T. M. Devine and J. Wormald, The Oxford Handbook of Modern Scottish History (2012), pp. 2–3.
  2. ^ Devine and Wormald, Introduction, in Devine and Wormald, The Oxford Handbook of Modern Scottish History (2012), pp. 2–3.
  3. ^ , p. 206.
  4. , p. 195.
  5. ^ a b I. Brown, The Edinburgh History of Scottish Literature: Enlightenment, Britain and Empire (1707–1918) (Edinburgh University Press, 2007), p. 9.
  6. ^ C. Kidd, Subverting Scotland's Past: Scottish Whig Historians and the Creation of an Anglo-British Identity 1689–1830 (Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 251.
  7. ^ M. Cumming, The Carlyle Encyclopedia (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2004), pp. 200ff and 223.
  8. , p. 132.
  9. , pp. 7–9.
  10. , p. 195.
  11. , p. 101.
  12. , pp. xxii–xxiii.
  13. , pp. 33–4.
  14. , p. 148.
  15. , p. 265.
  16. , p. 122.

Further reading

  • Macinnes, A.I. et al. "Whither Scottish History?" Scottish Historical Review 73 (1994) 31–88. online
  • MacKenzie, John M. "Irish, Scottish, Welsh and English Worlds? A Four-Nation Approach to the History of the British Empire," History Compass (2008) 6#5, pp. 1244–1263
  • Morton, Graeme, and Trevor Griffiths. "Closing the Door on Modern Scotland's Gilded Cage," Scottish Historical Review (2013) Supplement, Vol. 92, pp. 49–69; on nationalism
  • Raffe, Alasdair. "1707, 2007, and the Unionist Turn in Scottish History," Historical Journal (2010), 53#4, pp. 1071–1083.
  • Raftery, Deirdre et al. "Social Change and Education in Ireland, Scotland and Wales: Historiography on Nineteenth-century Schooling," History of Education (2007) 36#4, pp. 447–463.
  • Smout, T. C. "Scottish History in the Universities since the 1950s", History Scotland Magazine (2007) 7#5, pp. 45–50.