Enlightenment in the Archive

This chapter highlights the foundational role of the French textual scholar Jean Mabillon in setting the agenda for the study of medieval Scotland in the archive during the same period. From the first adoption of Mabillon’s methods by Scottish scholars to the triumphant 1739 publication of James Anderson’s Thesaurus—a Scottish response to Mabillon’s De re diplomatica—these methodologies went from being peripheral to axiomatic in Scottish historical studies, fundamentally transforming scholars’ engagement with the archive and its documents. Key figures discussed include, as well as Anderson, the historians Patrick Abercromby and Robert Keith and the forger and archival scholar Marianus Brockie.