How Thomas Bartholin the Younger Read His Rudbeck : A Forgotten Debate on Historical Method in Seventeenth-century Scandinavia
(2025) In Erudition and the Republic of Letters 10(1). p.1-24- Abstract
- In 1689 the Danish royal antiquary Thomas Bartholin the Younger (1659–1690) published a celebrated antiquarian work on the attitudes, customs, and rituals of the pagan inhabitants of Scandinavia. It has been deemed significant both for influencing the development of the historical conception of the ‘Viking Age’ in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and for introducing a rigorous source-critical methodology to Scandinavian historiography, inspired by the French Benedictine scholar Jean Mabillon, and foreshadowing the scientific history of the coming centuries. Yet modern assessments of the work have rarely questioned the consistency with which Bartholin applied his principles to solve historical problems, and have never made note of... (More)
- In 1689 the Danish royal antiquary Thomas Bartholin the Younger (1659–1690) published a celebrated antiquarian work on the attitudes, customs, and rituals of the pagan inhabitants of Scandinavia. It has been deemed significant both for influencing the development of the historical conception of the ‘Viking Age’ in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and for introducing a rigorous source-critical methodology to Scandinavian historiography, inspired by the French Benedictine scholar Jean Mabillon, and foreshadowing the scientific history of the coming centuries. Yet modern assessments of the work have rarely questioned the consistency with which Bartholin applied his principles to solve historical problems, and have never made note of the fact that he framed his methodological reform as a bitter critique of contemporary Swedish scholarship. Exploring the overlooked debate generated by Bartholin’s book, this article shows that it accentuated an internal friction in late seventeenth-century historiography between opposing views concerning historical evidence. (Less)
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- author
- Norris, Matthew LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2025
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- in
- Erudition and the Republic of Letters
- volume
- 10
- issue
- 1
- pages
- 24 pages
- publisher
- Brill
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:105002322070
- ISSN
- 2405-5069
- DOI
- 10.1163/24055069-10010001
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 159f730c-09ae-4c2c-9dbd-060eff5e54d1
- date added to LUP
- 2024-04-22 14:53:46
- date last changed
- 2025-07-15 04:01:58
@article{159f730c-09ae-4c2c-9dbd-060eff5e54d1,
abstract = {{In 1689 the Danish royal antiquary Thomas Bartholin the Younger (1659–1690) published a celebrated antiquarian work on the attitudes, customs, and rituals of the pagan inhabitants of Scandinavia. It has been deemed significant both for influencing the development of the historical conception of the ‘Viking Age’ in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and for introducing a rigorous source-critical methodology to Scandinavian historiography, inspired by the French Benedictine scholar Jean Mabillon, and foreshadowing the scientific history of the coming centuries. Yet modern assessments of the work have rarely questioned the consistency with which Bartholin applied his principles to solve historical problems, and have never made note of the fact that he framed his methodological reform as a bitter critique of contemporary Swedish scholarship. Exploring the overlooked debate generated by Bartholin’s book, this article shows that it accentuated an internal friction in late seventeenth-century historiography between opposing views concerning historical evidence.}},
author = {{Norris, Matthew}},
issn = {{2405-5069}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{1}},
pages = {{1--24}},
publisher = {{Brill}},
series = {{Erudition and the Republic of Letters}},
title = {{How Thomas Bartholin the Younger Read His Rudbeck : A Forgotten Debate on Historical Method in Seventeenth-century Scandinavia}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/24055069-10010001}},
doi = {{10.1163/24055069-10010001}},
volume = {{10}},
year = {{2025}},
}