at the University of Berlin from 1824. More than anybody else, Ranke is the
scholar who has been identiWed by later historiography—especially that pro-
duced by modern historians—as the main protagonist of the renewal of histor-
ical method. The admiration awakened by his thorough treatment of primary
sources represented a revolution in the historical method and this gained him
many followers. He also inaugurated the practice of the seminar in which
students critically studied historical sources under the supervision of a tutor.
Ranke’s history tried to narrate events ‘Wie es eigentlich gewesen’, that is,
showing how history really was. Yet, despite his empiricism and scientiWc
approach to documentation, national history was his aim. Ranke’s object of
study was the history of the nations—France, England or Prussia—and of their
national spirit. Ranke considered each event unique and maintained that no
universal laws were able to explain events.
Whereas the Prussian revolution in higher education took place in the
universities, in France the preferred option was the creation of specialized
colleges or schools, although in neither institution (universities or colleges)
did the archaeology of the national past become successfully integrated until
the 1840s. Without this development, however, the institutionalization of the
teaching of archaeology would have been diYcult. In France the school
founded for historical study was the E ́cole de Chartes, opened in Paris in
- It focused on teaching the use of primary sources for historical inves-
tigation. Its founder, the baron Joseph-Marie de Ge ́rando (1772–1842), was a
savant with many interests, ranging from languages to the study of primitive
customs and history and archaeology. During a stay in Rome in 1810, he had
been one of the creators of the Free Roman Academy of Archaeology
(Libera Accademia Romana di Archeologia). Despite this, in the E ́cole de
Chartes, the subject of archaeology was initially considered as of secondary
importance. In an address made to theWrst students, the director of the Royal
Archives stated:
Gentlemen, the documents that will be the object of your studies are justly seen as the
torch which lights up chronology and history. They supply the information that coins,
inscriptions and other similar monuments do not provide. Without the documents,
everything is dark, all is doubt about the Middle Ages. Without them, the genealogies
are no more than problems and fables. Without them, the origins of our main
institutions could not be but wrapped in darkness. In a word, every historian, every
chronologist who does not use documents as a guide throughout the labyrinth of
ancient times risks getting lost.
(in Berce ́1997: 25).The purpose of the school was to teach students to handle ancient French
documents as a means to recover the national historical and philological past.
334 National Archaeology in Europe