bought in 1816 by Lord Yarborough to stop its walls being quarried for the
building of a road, was opened to visitors two decades later (Gerrard 2003: 31,
36). This interest in the medieval period also had an impact in the creation
of university chairs such as that of Johann Gustav Gottlieb Bu ̈sching
(1783–1820), who had a chair for History of Medieval Art and Diplomacy
in Breslau (Sommer & Struwe 2006: 25). It also explains how others with
chairs aimed at the study of classical archaeology also include in their teaching
national archaeology. An example of this is that of the Dutch Caspar
J. Reuvens (1793–1835), appointed in 1818 (Brongers 2002).
THE REVOLUTION OF THE HISTORICAL METHOD
AND OF HIGHER EDUCATIONThe interest in the national past as opposed to that of the Great Civilizations
became important not only to the groups mentioned in the previous sec-
tion—individuals in the arts, antiquarians and tourists—but also to those
who worked in universities or other higher education institutions. In the
latter, the impact of the French Revolution was also important. In Prussia and
the other German principalities the ensuing political events produced alarm,
leading to the growth among the intellectuals of a pan-German feeling of
nationalism. Thus, if the German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder
(1744–1803) had argued in hisReXections on the Philosophy of the History of
Mankind(1784–91) that the Volk, the people, should be the basis of historical
analysis, the French threat convinced him that the time had come for the
German people to feel like a nation. SigniWcantly, he did not allude to the
Great Civilizations, but to the national past when he said in 1793 that
I do not believe that the Germans have less feeling than other nations for the merits of
their ancestors. I think I see a time coming when we shall return more seriously to
their achievements and learn to value our old gold.
(in Bentley 1999: 18).Herder would be a key precursor of this shift towards growing interest in the
national past in contrast to that of the Great Civilizations. He postulated a
unique human race divided into nations, each with its own character. ‘Every
nation’, he observed, ‘is one people, having its own national form, as well as its
own language’ (Herder 1784–97 (1999): 49). He became involved not only in the
search for early German culture, but was highly interested in Slavic, Hebrew,
Celtic and other primitive nations. He believed past and present were
connected. Thus, he argued in relation to the Germans that their character
The Early Search (1789–1820) 331