Markus Friedrich, The Birth of the Archive: A History of Knowledge, trans. John Noël Dillon. [Review]

Abstract

Markus Friedrich’s volume illustrates the diversity of archival practices in late medieval and early modern Europe. Large institutions associated with royal courts served as models, but archives “had a variety of local . . . causes and manifestations” affecting an increasingly large proportion of the population “on multiple political and social levels” (p. 48). Merchants and municipalities, churches and monasteries, and corporations and rulers all maintained records. The Birth of the Archive is a praxis-oriented study of the history of European archives circa 1200 to 1800, concentrating on developments in Italy, France, and various German-speaking principalities. It looks at how archives in those regions adapted to different contexts and how they functioned over time. Markus Friedrich, a professor of early modern history at Hamburg University, indicates that although a comparative, worldwide study of archival history would be highly desirable, his current investigations do not extend beyond Europe.