ABSTRACT
https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315018577/389c1d69-bf6d-4f43-8610-58d40a6d0a1a/content/Inline_1_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> The history of English historiography during the sixteenth century has not yet been written. Literary historians have in recent years made valuable contributions to a possible future synthesis by studying the work of individual writers such as Polydore Vergil, More, Halle, Bacon, and Raleigh, but the task is hardly begun. I can, therefore, try here only to illustrate and not to summarize the English reception of the Renaissance and Reformation theories. I have, however, read a large number of the prefaces to the translations of foreign histories, ancient and modern, and I have studied many of the histories written in England to determine the purposes they served and the methods they employed. I have also consulted books written during this period which were only partially or incidentally concerned with history to find what was said on the subject. The instances which I offer as illustrative are chosen because I believe them to be representative. First, in this chapter, I propose to cite typical statements of historical theory devised in England or adopted from continental writers, and in the next chapter to discuss the actual writing of English history during the period.
