Lars Niléhn 54 known documents in ecclesiastical history, yet they veryoften had a distinctly confessional purpose as well. They were the origin, however, of much collecting of historical material, which expanded over the boundaries of religious strife. Here one may see the wide-spread interest in Scandinavia for antiquities. One part of the learned and progressively secularized culture of the epoch was the writing of memoirs. Even if they cannot be regarded as historical writing in the sense used here, they did show a consciousness about the significance of their own epoch. This was the case of the historical writing that was initiated by princes and states. There existed a great interest, not to say a need, to justify or legitimate political action from a historical point of view and also to publish accounts of the near past. History, however, was not an autonomous branch of learning in the 17th century. The part of the study of the past which is the center of interest in this essay, the works of official historians in contemporary history, had a legal and juristic character.^ This was not surprising since the kind of justification of actions that princes demanded from historians, whether explicitly or not, simply had to be inviolable juristically and morally. Furthermore, one of the ways in which Roman lawwas reintroduced into jurisprudence, mos galliens, was closely connected to a critical study, and deeper understanding, of historical texts. Jean Bodin deserves to be mentioned here, since his philosophy represented an attempt to establish a universal law of history. At the German universities secular historical studies were primarily undertaken at the faculties of law. Thus it was jurists who wrote political history and who often became official historians. This was the case in Sweden with Johannes Loccenius and Johannes Schefferus, both of whom were born in Germany, even if they both taught at the faculty of arts at Uppsala for a long period. The jurist, Leonard Krieger writes, was also close to the political community. This is one reason why he, through his background in learning, was a logical proponent of humanistic historiography.® It must be said, however, that the law faculties of the German universities were not uniformin their teaching. Mos galliens, on the one hand, and, on the other, mos italiens, which did not have such a link to historical research, long enjoyed a parallel existence at these academies. In the mid-17th century nsns modernns began to spread and this, too, was closely connected to historical research." ® Leonard Krieger, The Politics of Discretion. Pufendorf and the Acceptance of Natural Law. Chicago 1965. p 172 f. 6 Ibid p 173. ’ Karl Schug, Zur Geschichte der juristischen Vorlesungen an den deutschen Universitäten bis 1800. (Diss., typescript) Miinchen 1942. p. 48 ff.
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