The Practice of Philology in the Nineteenth Century Netherlands

Dutch scholarship has a long and important tradition in scholarly philology dating back to the early days of Leiden University. ?Philology”, or the critical examination of classical texts, was regarded as an important new development, with far-reaching implications for disciplines such as theology, chronology, astronomy, history, law and other demarcated bodies of knowledge identified as a separate science. Regardless of the exact field of inquiry, philologists as protectors and teachers of the written heritage played a pivotal role in the formation of the cultural repertoire of the educated public. As men of learning and high esteem, philologists also exerted influence outside the cultural sphere, especially in politics and religion.
The nineteenth century witnessed a radical evolution of the landscape of philology. New boundaries became apparent and existing ones were questioned or redrawn. Philology underwent an accelerated process of differentiation and professionalization. Philology demarcated its own more or less independent sphere, with a specific authority. Subfields such as linguistics and history grew into new, more or less independent disciplines, while scientific methods such as stemmatology and comparative approaches were introduced in the humanities.

Huib Zuidervaart and Ton van Kalmthout are senior researchers at the Huygens Institute of the Royal Dutch Academy of Arts and Sciences in The Hague.