Historiography: Difference between revisions - Wikipedia

m

Line 81:

Writing history was popular among Christian monks and clergy in the [[Middle Ages]]. They wrote about the history of Jesus Christ, that of the Church and that of their patrons, the dynastic history of the local rulers. In the [[early medieval|Early Middle Ages]] historical writing often took the form of [[annals]] or [[chronicle]]s recording events year by year, but this style tended to hamper the analysis of events and causes.<ref>Warren, John (1998). ''The past and its presenters: an introduction to issues in historiography'', Hodder & Stoughton, {{ISBN|0-340-67934-4}}, pp. 78–79.</ref> An example of this type of writing is the ''[[Anglo-Saxon Chronicle]]'', which was the work of several different writers: it was started during the reign of [[Alfred the Great]] in the late 9th&nbsp;century, but one copy was still being updated in 1154. Some writers in the period did construct a more [[narrative]] form of history. These included [[Gregory of Tours]] and more successfully [[Bede]], who wrote both [[secular]] and [[ecclesiastical]] history and who is known for writing the ''[[Ecclesiastical History of the English People]]''.<ref name="sxixkf"/>

Outside of Europe and West Asia, Christian historiography also existed in Africa. For instance, [[Augustine of Hippo]], the [[Berber]] theologian and bishop of [[Hippo Regius]] in [[Numidia (Roman province)|Numidia]] ([[Roman North Africa]]), wrote a multiple volume autobiography called ''[[Confessions (Augustine)|Confessions]]'' between 397 to 400 AD.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Chadwick|first1=Henry|title=St. Augustine, Confessions| orig-year =1992|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn= 978-0-19953782-2|page=xxix| year =2008}}</ref> While earlier pagan rulers of the [[Kingdom of Aksum]] produced autobiographical style [[Epigraphy|epigraphic]] texts in locations spanning [[Ethiopia]], [[Eritrea]], and [[Sudan]] and in either Greek or the native [[Ge'ez script]],<ref>{{cite book|last=De Lorenzi|first=James|title=Guardians of the Tradition: Historians and Historical Writing in Ethiopia and Eritrea|location=Rochester|publisher=[[University of Rochester Press]]|year=2015|pages=14–15|isbn=978-1-58046-519-9|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=c1WECgAAQBAJ| postscript = .}}</ref> the 4th century AD [[Ezana Stone]] commemorating [[Ezana of Axum]]'s conquest of the [[Kingdom of Kush]] in [[Nubia]] also emphasized his [[conversion to Christianity]] (the first indigenous African head of state to do so).<ref>{{cite book|last=Robin|first=Christian Julien|title=The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity|chapter=Arabia and Ethiopia|location=Oxford|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2012|isbn=978-0-19-533693-1|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KEYSDAAAQBAJ|editor-last=Johnson|editor-first=Scott Fitzgerald|page=276|translator=Arietta Papaconstantinou|postscript = .}}</ref> Aksumite manuscripts from the 5th to 7th centuries AD chronicling the [[diocese]]s and [[episcopal sees]] of the [[Coptic Orthodox Church]] demonstrate not only an adherence to Christian chronology but also influences from the non-Christian Kingdom of Kush, the [[Ptolemaic dynasty]] of [[Hellenistic Egypt]], and the [[Yemenite Jews]] of the [[Himyarite Kingdom]].<ref>{{cite book|last=De Lorenzi|first=James|title=Guardians of the Tradition: Historians and Historical Writing in Ethiopia and Eritrea|location=Rochester|publisher=[[University of Rochester Press]]|year=2015|pages=15–16|isbn=978-1-58046-519-9|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=c1WECgAAQBAJ| postscript = .}}</ref> The tradition of [[Ethiopian historiography]] evolved into a matured form during the [[Solomonic dynasty]]. Though works such as the 13th century ''[[Kebra Nagast]]'' blended [[Christian mythology]] with historical events in its narrative, the first proper biographical chronicle on an [[Emperor of Ethiopia]] was made for [[Amda Seyon I]] (r. 1314–1344), depicted as a Christian savior of his nation in conflicts with the Islamic [[Ifat Sultanate]].<ref>{{cite book|last=De Lorenzi|first=James|title=Guardians of the Tradition: Historians and Historical Writing in Ethiopia and Eritrea|location=Rochester|publisher=[[University of Rochester Press]]|year=2015|pages=17–18|isbn=978-1-58046-519-9|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=c1WECgAAQBAJ| postscript = .}}</ref>

During the [[Renaissance]], history was written about states or nations. The study of history changed during the [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] and [[Romanticism]]. [[Voltaire]] described the history of certain ages that he considered important, rather than describing events in chronological order. History became an independent discipline. It was not called ''philosophia historiae'' anymore, but merely history (''historia'').