A New Exploration To Formation Of Principle Of Provenance

The historic research on the principle of provenance,which is both the most prominent theory of archival science and well known method in archival practice,matters very much to the theoretic foundation and the prospective development of archives.The topic academically started in 1930's and in subsequent a couple of years,the academia widely accepted the statement that,the principle comes from the 1841 respect desfonds in the very beginning,then goes further with principle of Registratur in 1880's and eventually,obtains its recognition through Manual for the arrangement and description of archives(Dutch Manual).However,more and more scholars attempted to challenge the statement mentioned before with a lot of convincing findings,by addressing that the classification by institutional provenance had came into occurrence far way before respect des fonds and the origin of the principle could thus be rooted in earlier history period.Nevertheless,this kind of research is still lack of sufficient authority on account of both shortcomings common seen in its research methods and the incoherence of outcomes among varied researches.Therefore,this thesis studies the history of archival classification before Dutch Manual on the basis of both comprehensive review of existed researches and careful analysis of relevant historical evidence,aims to re-address the path by which the principle went through the historical evaluation of archival classification and came to its final existence,by pointing out that 1)classification by institutional provenance has its long history in human archival practice,which were not be first mentioned by respect des fonds or the principle of provenance and 2),as one specific the historical event,the formation of the principle did not follow the time line from respect des fonds,to the principle of Registratur and to Dutch Manual.It is one new kind of archival theory originally launched by Dutch Manual through integrating parts of respect des fonds and the principle of Registratur.Specifically,in the beginning,the first chapter systematically reviews existed researches,summarized up their drawbacks including wrong conclusions,improper reference works and inappropriate research methods.And hence,contents and routes of thesis are determined on the basis of literature review.The second chapter respectively analyzes archival classification of Mesopotamia,ancient Athens and ancient Rome,to illustrate that in the one hand,classification by institutional provenance used to be employed by ancient archivists and in the other hand,due to characteristic social context,classification by date or by functional provenance led to very similar outcomes compared to classification by institutional provenance,thus it could be critical to carefully distinguish different classifications to reach appropriate conclusions of ancient archives history.The third chapter notes the history of archival classification before 17th century by further studying relevant practice of Republic of Venice and House of Habsburg,points out that even though administrative system had got developed as well as to be the foundation of employment of classification by institutional provenance,classifications by subject,date or functional provenance still played the substantial roles in archival practice.However,the documentation revolution put forward by House of Habsburg came to be the start point of the principle of Registratur.The fourth chapter attempts to describe the significant turn point of archival classification after 17th century,through deeply analyzing Diplomatics established by Jean Mabillon and ius archivi launched by German jurists.Archival thinking of this period in some sense shared the very similar character with the principle of provenance in regarding all relevant archival materials as one indivisible whole,which even though could be based on varied conditions.Nevertheless,as the consequent of particular historical context,Diplomatics or ius archivi did ultimately result to the wide employment of classification by subject rather than classification by institutional provenance itself.However,ius archivi led straight to the well developed system of Registratur,which offered the critical basis to the principle of Registratur subsequently.As the most significant part of thesis,the fifth chapter respectively studies the historical background and formation of respect des fonds,principle of Registratur and Dutch Manual to mention that 1)respect des fonds came with the very special political target of proving the legitimacy of July Monarchy,instead of briefly aiming to improve matters caused by classification by subject at that time.And what is more,respect des fonds in fact did lead to the classification by date or by subject eventually rather than classification by institutional provenance,which thus made respect des fonds so distinguished with the principle of provenance.2)Even though the principle of Registratur had its solid ground through German documentation which had endured for past centuries,its existence was actually contributed by particular interests of history research rather than archival thinking itself.Hence,although the principle of Registratur seems to be almost same to the principle of provenance,German archivists did not sum up their experiences to ultimately demonstrate the prospective new theory.However,meanwhile,considering the differences existed in both historical background and actual content,it has been definitely inappropriate to state that the principle of Registratur was influenced by respect des fonds and 3),even though French and German archivists did not launched the principle of provenance by themselves own,they indeed devoted a lot to the Dutch Manual and thus ultimate recognition of the principle of provenance,which has been proved by varied historical evidence and consequently,the principle of provenance,which was the result of the comprehensive combination of respect des fonds and the principle of Registratur,became the very novel theory and method of archival science,which was so much varied from existed ones.Finally,the six chapter briefly reviews the main findings of thesis and offers the perspective of subsequent research,and ultimately address the conclusion of thesis,namely Dutch Scholars took the perspective of revival of archive classification which is based on institutional provenance,employed some of respect desfonds,and originally brought forward the principle of provenance in Dutch Manual.