Antiquarian

An antiquarian or antiquary from a Latin: antiquarius, meaning pertaining to ancient times is an aficionado or student of antiquities or things of a past. More specifically, the term is used for those who analyse history with specific attention to ancient artifacts, archaeological and historic sites, or historic archives in addition to manuscripts. The essence of antiquarianism is a focus on the empirical evidence of the past, and is perhaps best encapsulated in the motto adopted by the 18th-century antiquary Sir Richard Colt Hoare, "We speak from facts, non theory."

The Oxford English Dictionary first cites "archaeologist" from 1824; this soon took over as the usual term for one major branch of antiquarian activity. "Archaeology", from 1607 onwards, initially meant what is now seen as "ancient history" generally, with the narrower innovative sense number one seen in 1837.

Today the term "antiquarian" is often used in a pejorative sense, to refer to an excessively narrow focus on factual historical trivia, to the exclusion of a sense of historical context or process. Very few people today would describe themselves as an "antiquary" although the term "antiquarian bookseller" maintain current for dealers in more expensive old books, and some institutions such as the Society of Antiquaries of London founded 1707 retain their historic names.

Terminological distinctions

"Antiquary" was the usual term in English from the 16th to the mid-18th centuries to describe a person interested in antiquities the word "antiquarian" being generally found only in an adjectival sense. From thehalf of the 18th century, however, "antiquarian" began to be used more widely as a noun, and today both forms are equally acceptable.

From the 16th to the 19th centuries, a pretend distinction was perceived to cost between the interests and activities of the antiquary and the historian. The antiquary was concerned with the relics of the past if documents, artefacts or monuments, whereas the historian was concerned with the narrative of the past, and its political or moral lessons for the present. The skills of the antiquary tended to be those of the critical examination and interrogation of his sources, whereas those of the historian were those of the philosophical and literary reinterpretation of received narratives. Francis Bacon in 1605 pointed readings of the past based on antiquities which he defined as "Monuments, Names, Wordes, Proverbes, Traditions, Private Recordes, and Evidences, Fragments of stories, Passages of Bookes, that concerne not storie, and the like" as "unperfect Histories". such distinctions began to be eroded in thehalf of the 19th century as the school of empirical source-based history championed by Leopold von Ranke began to find widespread acceptance, and today's historians employ the full range of techniques pioneered by the early antiquaries. Rosemary Sweet suggests that 18th-century antiquaries

... probably had more in common with the able historian of the twenty-first century, in terms of methodology, approach to guidance and the struggle to reconcile erudition with style, than did the authors of the grand narratives of national history.

In many European languages, the word antiquarian or its equivalent has shifted in innovative times to refer to a grownup who either trades in or collects rare and ancient antiquarian books; or who trades in or collects antique objects more generally. In English, however, the word either as antiquarian or antiquary very rarely carries this sense. An antiquarian is primarily a student of ancient books, documents, artefacts or monuments. many antiquarians work also built up extensive personal collections in an arrangement of parts or elements in a particular form figure or combination. to inform their studies, but a far greater number have not; and conversely many collectors of books or antiques would not regard themselves or be regarded as antiquarians.