History A–Z
History has its own working vocabulary, from the way archivists keep records together to the way scientists date a scrap of charcoal. This A–Z collects the terms you will meet across our guides to turning points, historical method and history myths, each explained in plain English. Where historians still disagree about a term or an event, we say so.
- Agricultural Revolution
- The long shift from hunting and gathering to farming and herding, sometimes called the Neolithic Revolution. It was not a single event: the Smithsonian's Human Origins Program dates fig cultivation in the Jordan Valley to about 11,200 years ago, rice in China to about 9,000 years ago and corn in North America to about 9,000 years ago, so it unfolded separately in several regions over thousands of years.
- Related:Turning pointRadiocarbon datingArtifact
- Anachronism
- Something placed in the wrong time period, such as a clock in a scene set in ancient Rome or a modern phrase in a supposedly medieval letter. Anachronisms are a common giveaway that a document is a later forgery or that a popular story has been embellished.
- Related:ForgeryPresentismHistorical myth
- Annales school
- A school of history established by Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre in France in the 1920s and named after the journal Annales, which grew out of the journal they founded together. Its historians pushed history beyond politics and battles toward social life, economics, geography and long-term change.
- Related:HistoriographyTurning pointGreat Man theory
- Anno Domini (AD)
- Latin for "in the year of the Lord," the year-numbering system devised by the monk Dionysius Exiguus in the sixth century (usually dated to 525, though some sources give a few years later) and based on his calculation of the year of Jesus's birth. It spread only gradually across Europe over the following centuries. It has no year zero: 1 BC is followed directly by AD 1. Modern scholars generally place Jesus's birth a few years earlier than Dionysius did.
- Related:BCE and CEJulian calendarRegnal year
- Apocryphal
- Describes a story or quotation that is widely repeated but of doubtful authenticity. Many famous one-liners attributed to historical figures cannot be traced to any record from their own lifetime, which is a common sign that a quote is apocryphal.
- Related:Historical mythLegendPrimary source
- Archive
- A collection of records kept because of their continuing value after they are no longer needed for day-to-day business, and also the institution or building that keeps them. Archives differ from libraries in that they mostly hold unique, unpublished material arranged by who created it.
- Related:ProvenanceFinding aidPrimary source
- Artifact
- A physical object made or modified by people, from a stone tool to a coin or a teacup. Artifacts are evidence in their own right and can reveal things written records never mention, especially about everyday life.
- Related:StratigraphyRadiocarbon datingPrimary source
- BCE and CE
- Before Common Era and Common Era, religiously neutral labels that many scholars use in place of BC and AD. The year numbers are identical (500 BCE is 500 BC), and, like the older system, there is no year zero.
- Related:Anno Domini (AD)Gregorian calendarCirca
- Black Death
- The plague pandemic that swept across western Eurasia, including Europe, in the mid-1300s, conventionally dated 1346 to 1353. It was caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Estimates of the death toll vary widely, but its demographic and social impact was profound and long-lasting.
- Related:Turning pointColumbian ExchangePrimary source
- Circa
- Latin for "about," used before a date that is approximate, as in "built circa 1350." It is usually abbreviated c. or ca.; archivists often prefer ca. to avoid confusion with c for copyright.
- Related:Terminus post quemRelative datingFinding aid
- Codex
- A book made of flat leaves hinged along one edge, like a modern book, as opposed to a scroll. The leaves may be parchment, papyrus, paper or other materials, and many surviving medieval manuscripts are codices.
- Related:ManuscriptParchmentPaleography
- Columbian Exchange
- The transfer of plants, animals, people and diseases between the Americas and the rest of the world after 1492. The historian Alfred W. Crosby popularized the term with his 1972 book The Columbian Exchange; maize and potatoes went east, while wheat, horses, cattle and Old World diseases such as smallpox went west.
- Related:Turning pointBlack DeathAgricultural Revolution
- Counterfactual history
- Reasoning about what might have happened if one factor had been different, such as "what if a battle had gone the other way?" Historians use counterfactual reasoning, often implicitly, whenever they argue that a cause was necessary for an outcome, though full what-if narratives are speculative by nature.
- Related:Turning pointHistoriographyGreat Man theory
- Dendrochronology
- The dating and study of the annual growth rings of trees. By matching ring-width patterns across many samples, a process called crossdating, specialists can assign each ring to an exact calendar year, which can date a building's beams or a ship's planks, sometimes to the very year the tree was felled.
- Related:Radiocarbon datingRelative datingArtifact
- Diplomatics
- The study of how records were created, formatted and transmitted, used above all to judge whether a document is authentic or a forgery. Its founding work is Jean Mabillon's De Re Diplomatica (1681).
- Related:PaleographyForgeryProvenance
- Domesday Book
- The great survey of English land and property carried out in 1086 for William the Conqueror. For each holding it recorded who held the land and what it was worth before 1066, after the Norman Conquest, and in 1086.
- Related:Primary sourceArchiveTurning point
- Enlightenment
- An intellectual and social movement centered on eighteenth-century Europe and America that prized reason, science and the belief that intellectual progress could improve human life. It had no single end date; the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy notes that the French Revolution's descent into the Terror in the 1790s and the rise of Romanticism can serve as a convenient marker.
- Related:Scientific RevolutionRenaissanceTurning point
- Finding aid
- A guide that describes an archival collection, typically explaining who created it, how it is arranged, and what boxes and folders it contains. It is the first thing to read before requesting material in an archive.
- Related:ArchiveProvenanceOriginal order
- Flat Earth myth
- The false belief that medieval Europeans thought the Earth was flat. The historian Jeffrey Burton Russell traced the idea largely to the nineteenth century, including Washington Irving's 1828 history of Columbus with its invented scene of flat-Earth scholars at Salamanca; educated people had accepted a spherical Earth since ancient Greece.
- Related:Historical mythWhig historyPrimary source
- Forgery
- A document or object made to pass as something it is not, with intent to deceive. Historians catch forgeries through diplomatics, paleography, physical tests and telltale anachronisms in language or content.
- Related:DiplomaticsAnachronismProvenance
- Great Man theory
- The view that history is driven mainly by exceptional individuals. It is associated with Thomas Carlyle, who said in his 1840 lectures On Heroes that "The History of the world is but the Biography of great men." Most historians today also weigh social, economic and environmental forces.
- Related:Annales schoolWhig historyHistoriography
- Gregorian calendar
- The calendar most of the world uses today, introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in a papal bull of February 1582, known as Inter gravissimas, to correct the drift of the Julian calendar. It drops three leap years every 400 years, and at launch ten days were skipped, so the day after October 4, 1582 became October 15. Countries adopted it at different times: Britain and its American colonies switched in 1752, when the gap had grown to eleven days and September 2 was followed by September 14.
- Related:Julian calendarOld Style and New StyleAnno Domini (AD)
- Historical myth
- A widely believed story about the past that the evidence does not support, or that distorts a real event. Myths often persist because they are memorable, flatter a later audience, or get repeated in textbooks long after historians have corrected them.
- Related:Flat Earth mythApocryphalInvented tradition
- Historiography
- The study of how history has been written: the methods, evidence and assumptions historians use, and how those have changed over time. It also refers to the body of writing on a topic, as in "the historiography of the Reformation."
- Related:Annales schoolWhig historySecondary source
- Industrial Revolution
- The transformation, beginning in Britain, in which new technology, education and growing capital turned England into "the workshop of the world" between roughly 1760 and 1860 and later spread across the Western world. Historians agree on its importance but still debate how it affected ordinary workers' living standards, with so-called optimists and pessimists reading the evidence differently.
- Related:Turning pointEnlightenmentScientific Revolution
- Invented tradition
- A custom or ceremony presented as ancient that was actually created or formalized fairly recently. The phrase was popularized by The Invention of Tradition (1983), a collection edited by the historians Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger.
- Related:Historical mythLegendAnachronism
- Julian calendar
- The calendar established by Julius Caesar as a reform of the Roman calendar, with a leap year every four years. To bring the calendar back in line with the seasons, the year 46 BCE was stretched to 445 days, and the new calendar took effect on January 1, 45 BCE. Because it made the year slightly too long, it drifted by roughly eight days every thousand years against the seasons, which led to the Gregorian reform of 1582.
- Related:Gregorian calendarOld Style and New StyleBCE and CE
- Legend
- A traditional story about the past, often attached to a real person or place, that is told as true but cannot be verified and usually grows in the retelling. Historians treat legends as evidence of what people believed, not of what happened.
- Related:Historical mythApocryphalOral history
- Magna Carta
- The charter King John sealed at Runnymede on June 15, 1215, under pressure from rebellious barons. Pope Innocent III annulled it about ten weeks later, but it was reissued several times, and principles such as the rule that no free man be imprisoned except by lawful judgment still resonate today.
- Related:Turning pointPrimary sourceArchive
- Manuscript
- A handwritten document, from a medieval book to a letter or diary. Archivists also use the word for unpublished papers in general, and abbreviate it ms. (plural mss.).
- Related:CodexPaleographyArchive
- Old Style and New Style
- Labels that tell you which dating convention a date follows. Most often, Old Style (O.S.) marks a date in the Julian calendar and New Style (N.S.) the same day in the Gregorian calendar; a double date such as 23/13 December 1688 gives both. In English records the labels also flag the start of the year: until 1752, when January 1 became the first day of the civil year in England and Wales, the civil year began on March 25 (Lady Day). So a document dated 4 February 1660 under the old year-start falls in 1661 by modern reckoning, which historians often write as 4 February 1660/1.
- Related:Julian calendarGregorian calendarRegnal year
- Oral history
- A recorded interview capturing a person's recollections of their life and of historical events, along with the recordings and transcripts that result. Oral history preserves voices that rarely appear in official records, though memories, like any source, need to be checked against other evidence.
- Related:Primary sourceLegendArchive
- Original order
- The archival principle of keeping records in the sequence and arrangement their creator gave them. That order is itself evidence of how a person or office worked, so archivists avoid reshuffling it.
- Related:ProvenanceArchiveFinding aid
- Paleography
- The study of old handwriting: reading historical scripts and using letter forms to work out when and where a document was written. Paleography is a core skill for anyone working with medieval or early modern manuscripts.
- Related:DiplomaticsManuscriptCodex
- Palimpsest
- A writing surface, usually parchment, that was scraped or washed and reused, sometimes leaving traces of the earlier text beneath. The word comes from Greek roots meaning "rub away again."
- Related:ParchmentManuscriptCodex
- Parchment
- A writing material made from stretched and scraped animal skin, traditionally sheep or goat. Vellum, often used as a near synonym, traditionally means fine calfskin; both were the main medieval writing surfaces before paper became common.
- Related:PalimpsestCodexManuscript
- Presentism
- Judging or interpreting the past by the values and assumptions of the present. Historians try to understand people on their own terms first, while also debating how far present-day questions should shape what we ask of the past.
- Related:AnachronismWhig historyHistoriography
- Primary source
- Material created at the time of an event or later recalled by an eyewitness, such as letters, diaries, government records, photographs and artifacts. Primary sources are the raw evidence of history, but each reflects its creator's viewpoint and must be read critically.
- Related:Secondary sourceTertiary sourceArchive
- Printing press
- In Europe, the press using individual pieces of metal type developed by Johann Gutenberg in Mainz, whose workshop printed the Latin Gutenberg Bible in the mid-1450s. Printing changed how information traveled in Europe and later the world, although books continued to be written by hand for centuries.
- Related:Turning pointReformationRenaissance
- Provenance
- The origin of something and the history of who has owned or held it. In archives, the principle of provenance means records from one creator are kept together and not mixed with others; for objects, a documented ownership history is part of the evidence for authenticity.
- Related:Original orderArchiveForgery
- Radiocarbon dating
- A method of dating once-living material, such as bone, wood, charcoal or parchment, by measuring how much carbon-14 (half-life about 5,730 years) remains; it works back to about 50,000 years and dates when the organism was alive, not when the object was used. Raw results must be calibrated because atmospheric carbon-14 has varied over time. Willard Libby won the 1960 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing the method.
- Related:DendrochronologyStratigraphyRelative dating
- Reformation
- The sixteenth-century religious movement that split Western Christianity and created Protestant churches. It is conventionally dated from Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses against indulgences, dated October 31, 1517; Luther was excommunicated in 1521.
- Related:Printing pressRenaissanceTurning point
- Regnal year
- A way of dating by the year of a monarch's reign, counted from the date of accession. For example, Henry V came to the throne on March 21, 1413, so a deed dated 2 May in "5 Henry V" was written in 1417. Reference handbooks list accession dates so researchers can convert.
- Related:Old Style and New StyleAnno Domini (AD)Primary source
- Relative dating
- Working out the order in which things happened or were made, older or younger than each other, without fixing an exact year. It contrasts with absolute dating methods, such as radiocarbon dating, that produce an age in years.
- Related:StratigraphyRadiocarbon datingTerminus post quem
- Renaissance
- French for "rebirth," the name for the revival of ancient Greek and Roman learning, art and literature that took shape in the cities of Italy, especially Florence, and spread across Europe. Historians still debate how sharply it broke from the Middle Ages and when it began and ended.
- Related:EnlightenmentPrinting pressReformation
- Scientific Revolution
- The label for the transformation of ideas about nature in early modern Europe, often traced from Copernicus to Newton. Herbert Butterfield's 1949 The Origins of Modern Science helped popularize the idea of a single revolution, but whether it was one revolution or a longer process is debated.
- Related:EnlightenmentRenaissanceWhig history
- Secondary source
- A work that interprets or analyzes primary sources rather than coming from the event itself, such as a history book, biography or scholarly article. Good secondary sources show their evidence so readers can check it.
- Related:Primary sourceTertiary sourceHistoriography
- Stratigraphy
- The study of layers, or strata, of soil and rock to work out the order in which they formed. Under the principle of superposition, first set out by Nicolaus Steno in 1669, lower layers are generally older than those above them, which lets archaeologists put finds in sequence.
- Related:Relative datingArtifactRadiocarbon dating
- Terminus post quem
- Latin, roughly "limit after which": the earliest date at which something could have been made or written. A watermark dated 1690 in a letter's paper, for example, means the letter can be no earlier than 1690. Its partner, terminus ante quem, is the latest possible date.
- Related:WatermarkRelative datingCirca
- Tertiary source
- A reference work that summarizes primary and secondary sources, such as an encyclopedia, textbook or this glossary. Tertiary sources are good starting points but should not be the final word.
- Related:Secondary sourcePrimary sourceHistoriography
- Turning point
- A moment or development after which the course of events changes direction in a lasting way. Historians often debate whether a so-called turning point was truly decisive or simply the most visible part of a longer change.
- Related:Counterfactual historyGreat Man theoryIndustrial Revolution
- Watermark
- A design in a sheet of paper, formed by differences in the thickness of the fibers, that shows when held up to light. Because watermark designs changed over time and some carry dates, they help date undated documents.
- Related:Terminus post quemForgeryPaleography
- Whig history
- Writing the past as a story of steady progress leading to the present. Herbert Butterfield gave the classic critique of it in The Whig Interpretation of History (1931), describing a tendency to produce a story which is "the ratification if not the glorification of the present."
- Related:PresentismHistoriographyGreat Man theory