Abstract
In the second, revised edition of the work, Alsted offered his reader a Treasury of chronology, in which the whole series of times and histories . . . is placed before the eyes, so that the foundations of chronology can be unearthed from sacred letters and astronomical calculations.’ This emphasis on astronomical calculations is also reflected in five new preliminary chapters which outline the technical framework of historical chronology, survey ancient epochs and calendrical systems, and present evidence gathered from historical eclipses, which Alsted calls ‘the incomparable treasures of chronology and astronomy, inasmuch as they are the natural and thus infallible bases and characters of time.’2 The greatest chronological innovation of the immediately preceding period had been the application of the increased accuracy of modern astronomical calculations and observations to establish the dates of the eclipses recorded in ancient sources. Mathematics and philology, science and humanism were thus fused in the best Renaissance tradition to create a polyhistori-cal discipline par excellence exemplified above all by the greatest humanist scholar of the day, Joseph Scaliger.3 It was only natural that an encyclopedist should emphasise the contribution of this fascinating new science to establishing the foundations of his system of historical and prophetic chronology.
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References
Thesaurus chronologiae in quo universa temporum et historiarum series in omni vitae genere ita poni tur ob oculos, ut fundamenta Chronologiae ex S. Uteris et calcul o astronomico eruantur (Herborn, 1628).
Ibid., p. 53: ‘Eclipses, et observationes astronomicae sunt incomparabilis thesaurus astronomiae et chronologiae; utpote bases et characteres temporis naturales, eoque infallibiles.’
On this topic, see Anthony Grafton, ‘Joseph Scaliger and Historical Chronology’, History and Theory, 14 (1975), 156–85; id., Joseph Scaliger: a Study in the History of Classical Scholarship (2 vols., Oxford, 1983–93), esp. ii., ch. 1.
Thesaurus chronologiae (1628), p. 61.
Ibid, p. 54 (AM 3235).
Ibid, p. 54: ‘An. M. 3180.... in ipso ferme capite draconis. Fuit ergo admodum horribilis. . . . Hoc tempore Romulus et Remus sunt concepti, cùm Ilia, sive Rhea, Numitoris filia, per vim comprimeretur. Nono deinde mense sunt nati, sole perambulante extremam partem Capricorni.’
Reimman, Versuch einer Einleitung in die Historiam Literariam Insgemein und derer Teuischen insoderheit (7 vols., Halle, 1713), Sectio 3, Buch 1, Nr. 54; Bd. III, Teil 2, Sectio 3, Nr. 158.
Gundling, Historie der Gelehrtheit (Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig, 1734), pp. 1697, 1717; cf. also p. 4989.
Morhof, Polyhistor, literarius, philosophicus etpracticus (4th ed., Lübeck, 1747), Tomus I, lib. iii, cap. xiii, § 31, pp. 708, 709. Cf. also Tomus III, lib. iv, §11.
Ency., pp. 105.b-106.b.
The four basic constituents of Alsted’s encyclopedic method of exposition — precognita, lexica, systemata, and gymnasia — will be considered in Howard Hotson, Between Ramus and Comenius: Encyclopedic Learning in Reformed Central Europe c. 1569–1630 (Oxford: forthcoming). See meanwhile the brief discussion in Hotson, Alsted, pp. 31–4.
Ency., p. 106.b.8: ‘Et in his [i.e. locis communibus historicis] quoque servari volumus ordinem disciplinarum; quia nempe omnes disciplinae habent historias, suaque exempla.’
Bodin, Methodus adfacilem historiarum cognitionem (Paris, 1566), ch. 1.
Cursus, i. 2812.1 (= Ency., p. 1983.b.2): ‘Principio historiae lectio ordienda est a brevissima chronicis, ita ut historia universalis imprimatur memoriae, ut habeamus exemplar aliquod et ideam, ad cuius locos communes, titulos et subitulos queat aptari quidquid deinceps occurrit. Atque hie est index, hie thesaurus historicus, hoc perpetuae lectionis domicilium.’ This idea is present as early as the Theatrum scholasticum (Herborn, 1610), pp. 49–50.
Cursus, i. 2810 (= Ency., p. 1982.b): ‘Ordo lectionis ille probatur, quo quis incipit à scriptoribus historiae universalis, et ita pergit ad historiae particularis lectionem, ut primo cognoscat historiam sacram et naturalem; dehinc politicam, eamque secundum quatuor monar-chias, ... : denique historias variarum gentium, hominum, familiarum, et civitatum, in Europa, Asia, Africa, novo orbe, variisque insulis.’
Cursus, i. 2826.2 (= Ency., p. 1990.b.2): ‘Historiae commendantur memoriae per indicem chronologicum, .... Index chronologicus continebit res praecipuas, quas vocant KeF)aÀxxia, juxta seriem temporis. Keoa?aia ista erunt tituli generales, ad quos revocare licebit quidquid est historiarum particularium.’
The left-hand column in Figure 2 is derived from the general structure of the treatise on history outlined in the Cursus, especially i. 2810–57, 3039–40. In the 1628 and subsequent editions of the Thesaurus, five new, introductory chapters are added outlining the technical basis of scientific chronology, namely: Chronologiae 1. Funda-mentae, 2. Epocharum, 3. Intervallorum, 4. Eclipsium, 5. Kalendariorum Jubilaeorum. Two of the previous chronologies are expanded: nos. 18–20 become chronologies nos. 24–6. regnorum hodie florentium heroum et heroinarum and no. 27. dispersionis populorum cui additur catalogus linquarum. Finally, at the end of the volume four contemporary chronologies are added, all of which are up-dated (by an unknown hand) in the 1636 and 1650 editions of the work, namely: Chronologiae 57. Genealogiarum, 58. Religionis ab anno 1517 ad annum 1628, 59. Belli Belgici, 60. Belli Bohemo-Germanici. As in the case of Alsted’s expansion of the Cursus philosophici encyclopaedia into the mature Encyclopaedia, these additions tend to obscure the original system of organisation: cf. Hotson, Between Ramus and Comenius, ch. 4.iii.
The chronology of universities in the Cursus, i. 2723–6, laid the foundation for the ‘chronologia scholarum’ in the Thesaurus chronologiae (1624), pp. 137–44. Virtually the whole of the ‘Prolegomenon’ added to the second edition of the Theologia polemica (1627), pp. 2–62, is taken verbatim from selected theological chapters of the Thesaurus (1624). Four of the five preliminary books added to the 1628 edition of the Thesaurus are included in the Encyclopaedia of 1630: Thesaurus chronologiae (1628): lib. I, no. i-xxxvi (pp. 7–24) lib. I, no. i-xxv (pp. 25–30) lib. II, sectio prima (pp. 31–36) lib. II, sectio secunda (pp. 37–44) lib. Ill (pp. 45–53)* lib. V (pp. 77–81) Encyclopaedia (1630): lib. XXXII, cap. iii, reg. 3, no. i-xxxvi lib. XXXII, cap. iv, reg. 34 lib. XXXII, cap. iv, reg. 32 lib. XXXII, cap. iv, reg. 33 lib. XXXII, cap. vi, reg. 2, nos. 1–7 lib. XVII, pars III, cap. viii, reg. 1 *(less the ‘Collatio Epocharum’, pp. 48–9) Cf. also the chronological sections in Theologia prophetica (1622), pp. 341–51, 843–63; and Triumphus Bibliorum (1625), pp. 460–495.
Emil Clemens Scherer, Geschichte und Kirchengeschichte an den deutschen Universitäten, ihre Anfänge im Zeitalter des Humanismus und ihre Ausbildung zu selbständigen Disziplinen (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1927).
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Hotson, H. (2000). Volumen historicum seu experimentalis: encyclopedic chronology. In: Paradise Postponed. Archives Internationales D’histoire des Idées / International Archives of the History of Ideas, vol 172. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9494-3_2
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