The Birth of the Archive: A History of Knowledge by Markus Friedrich (review)

The Birth of the Archive is a delightfully engaging and erudite monograph. At times it reads like a who-done-it of the documentary evidence world from the late Middle Ages through the Early Modern period. The book begins dramatically with the story of a Parisian break-in at the Chambre des Comptes archives in May 1682. The theft was not, however, motivated by the value of the manuscripts, but by the resale of the parchment.

Markus Friedrich has filled the book with such incidents too numerous to mention. There is a parade of kings, religious figures, minor civil servants, and archivists all vying for the right to control, catalogue, and safekeep the written word. As Friedrich notes early on, whoever controls the archive has a singular access to memory and social history, to not only write history but to shape it. One of the joys of this book is Friedrich's ability to traverse centuries, making archival history relevant and offering precedents for today's practice.

What one learns from this impressive volume is just how fragile the documentary record has always been. This fragility is not due simply to the elements, such as fire and water, but to a growing realization in the Early Modern period that the written word is a source of power. King Philip II of France travelled with his archive — even into battle. This was an unfortunate decision when in 1194 his entire baggage train was captured by Richard the Lionheart's troops and carted away, along with the state secrets it held.

The Birth of the Archive is excellent at storytelling: dramatic yet scholarly, and full of detail about the birth of individual archives throughout central Europe. Yet Friedrich does not lose sight of the bigger narrative: "the need to preserve the memory of past things in a generally credible way" (67). For those in power, archives reinforced their claim to power, be it social, legal, political, or religious. Laws could only be upheld if they were written down and legal disputes could only be solved upon examination of the written record. Archives upheld the social order, or so the ruling establishment thought (and expected).

By 1600 archives were recognized as key elements of control and authority which were as important as arsenals and granaries. They underpinned society and were as powerful as armies and navies. Friedrich makes the point that it is almost taken for granted today that "the gathering of knowledge for administrative and political purposes is an expression of a specific form of power" (139), with the beginnings of that understanding emerging during the centuries covered in this volume.

And it was not just jurisprudence that owed its birth to the archive, but cartography. Those who controlled the maps controlled the territory. Maps and words became the new technologies of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. Archives could become the bridge between knowledge and power, not simply by their existence, but through what Friedrich terms a complex "activation" process that could be abused and misused, especially through the "ploys of power-hungry early modern princes" (140). Pierre Camille Moine's attempt in 1765 to explain the role and use of archives makes clear the significance that archives held in the delicate balance of power that the elite were fighting a rearguard action to defend:

Since parishes and whole communities rebelled against their lords and refused to pay dues [and since] inferior groups, casting off the yoke of subordination, attempted to subvert the old regime […] then, to defend one's demesnes, it was necessary to rummage through the archives, leaf through cartularies, registers, and disturb old papers that had long been buried in dust.

(143)

Some twenty years prior to the French Revolution, this passage is of its time. By 1789 the old order in France and Germany had collapsed and the archive took on a new...