The Importance of the Invention of the Footnote

The Importance of the Invention of the Footnote

Introduction

The study of history has and will always be an everlasting continuum.

Throughout time, from Alexander the Great to Adolf Hitler, the study

of history and why we undertake it has changed. Be it through new

found articles, new technology, or new assumptions, the course of

history has and will continue to change. However is there something

that can add legitimacy to history? Something that can in a thousand

years convince our predecessors that what we have done today is

actually true. In short, no, as there will always be sceptics and

critics of old articles who point towards its spuriousness and

“realness”[1].

Leopold Van Ranke and Edward Gibbon will always be remembered as the

heroes of apparatus criticus, the men who founded the modern age of

historical writing. However through extensive research historians are

led back to less famous names in historiography, such as the Egyptian

priest Manetho and the Chaldean Berosus, cultural victims of Alexander

the Great. Their desire to prove the antiquity of their indigenous

traditions led them to scrabble among the stone documents of their

lands to produce extensively documented histories in the language of

their conqueror. Even before these paleosubalterns, Krateros and

Macedon visited Athenian archives and copied out inscriptions

recording the public decisions of the Athenian people.

But the real heroes of the footnote are the European humanists who

devised new standards of research and proof, men such as Jacques

Auguste de Thou, who wrote the history of Europe in his own day,

1544-1607. De Thou who enlisted a vast ec...

... middle of paper ...

...reader to understand. He describes he word as “simple

slang”

[2] - Extract from historical research website that gives explanations

on the major issues in history.

[3] - Adapted from History and Meaning course overview booklet.

Adapted from Lecture 5 reading by Jean Mabillon (1623-1707) On

Diplomats (1681).

[4] - Concluded after speaking to Rev. David Green of the St Stephens

Church, Balham, London. He is also a neighbour and a friend thus a

more accurate account of the New Testament is sure to be given. He is

also Catholic so no Protestant bias can be labelled against him.

[5] - The Historical Revolution – F. Smith Fussner; Routledge and

Kegan Paul

[6] - http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/jbalkin/articles/foot1.htm - article

by J Balkin explaining the problem with footnotes and their existence

in general