Auxiliary sciences of history

{{short description|Scholarly disciplines in historical research}}

{{Redirect|Auxiliary science of history|other uses|Historical science (disambiguation)}}

Auxiliary (or ancillary) sciences of history are scholarly disciplines which help evaluate and use historical sources and are seen as auxiliary for historical research.{{cite book |last = Drake|first = Miriam A. |title = Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science |volume = 3|publisher = CRC Press|year = 2003|series = Dekker Encyclopedias Series|isbn = 0-8247-2079-2}}{{page needed|date=July 2019}}{{page needed|date=July 2019}} Many of these areas of study, classification and analysis were originally developed between the 16th and 19th centuries by antiquaries, and would then have been regarded as falling under the broad heading of antiquarianism.{{Cite book |first=Rosemary |last=Sweet |title=Antiquaries: the discovery of the past in eighteenth-century Britain |year=2004 |location=London |publisher=Hambledon & London |isbn=1-85285-309-3 |page=xiv}} "History" was at that time regarded as a largely literary skill. However, with the spread of the principles of empirical source-based history championed by the Göttingen school of history in the late 18th century{{cite book|last=Ranke|first=Leopold von|title=The Theory and Practice of History |editor-first=Georg G. |editor-last=Iggers|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GjRZBwAAQBAJ&pg=PR19|date=2011|publisher=Routledge |place=Abingdon |isbn=978-0-415-78032-2|page=xix}} and later by Leopold von Ranke from the mid-19th century onwards, they have been increasingly regarded as falling within the skill-set of the trained historian.{{cite book |title=The Houses of History: A Critical Reader in Twentieth-Century History and Theory |editor-last=Green |editor-first=Anna |editor2=Troup, Kathleen |year=1999 |publisher=Manchester University Press|isbn=978-0-7190-5255-2 |page=2}}{{cite book |title=The Varieties of History: From Voltaire to the Present |edition=2nd |editor=Stern, Fritz |year=1972 |publisher=Vintage Books |location=New York |isbn=0-394-71962-X |page=54}}