Chronological Writing

Its Concepts and Development

Bibliographic Data

ID4496687
AuthorsJames William Johnson (corresponding author)
Year1962
Volume2
Issue2
Pages124
Publication date1962-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueHistory and Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0018-2656 • E-ISSN: 1468-2303
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/2504459
OpenAlexW2326009010
LanguageEN
Citations received7

The eighteenth century, commonly hailed as the era of the birth of modern historiography, is less noted as the age also of the demise of chronology as a traditional historical form. In the past two hundred years, the modern theory of historiography has so firmly established itself that it has virtually obliterated the ancient historical techniques and assumptions of chronology and has relegated most chronological writing to the musty pigeonholes of theogony and antiquarianism.' In the very period of its decline, however the pre-Gibbonian decades of the eighteenth century and afterward chronology was so lively an invalid as to give the appearance of perfect health; its NeoClassical supporters little imagined that the kind of historical outlook they termed universal and the form of writing they called true history were in their last throes. The widespread interest in chronology during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries may be traced from Archbishop Ussher to Hales, Marsham, Pezron, Bossuet, Chevreau, Jackson, Kennedy and scores of others who published chronologies.2 And the genre was praised by such illustrious men as Isaac Newton, Christopher Wren, Lord Clarendon, Joseph Addison, Jonathan Swift, and William Congreve. John Locke, in Some Thoughts Concerning Reading and Study, recommended chronology as the proper for gentlemen wishing to improve their minds and understanding. Lord Chesterfield later urged his son to study and benefit from the pages of chronology. Dr. Samuel Johnson, the literary and moral goliath of the last half of the eighteenth century, not only praised the advantages of a factual

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