A Longue Durée of Urban Historiography? Peter Ochs's History of Basel (1786–1822) From a Long-Term Perspective, in: History of Humanities 2 (2017), S. 101–130 (original) (raw)

Based around a discussion of the History of the Town and Territory of Basel (1786–1822) by Peter Ochs, the article argues for a longue durée of conditions and practices of urban historical research before and after 1800. First, in Basel as in many other towns there can be observed a longue durée of the elites’ engagement with the town’s history. Second, private collections and a rich manuscript culture can be considered as important long-term characteristics of urban historiography from the late Middle Ages onward. Handwriting remained important right up until the twentieth century. There were lots of handwritten records that did not originate from the official sphere of government but from decentralized contexts. Third, as archival practices are determined by social and political contexts, a change can be observed in the role of the archive when it was first used for historical research at the end of the eighteenth century. Daniel Bruckner and Peter Ochs were the first to use archive records for research, which finally led to the new conceptualization of Peter Ochs’s History of Basel. However, the municipal archivist as a true town chronicler did not emerge before the end of the nineteenth century.