ABSTRACT
It is in early modern Europe, between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, that the figure of 'the archivist' starts to emerge with increasing frequency in both secular and ecclesiastical contexts. This chapter looks at some of these individuals and, in particular, those who were also authors of significant work such as manuals and who consequently influenced the development of the archival discipline through dissemination of their theories and working methods. Throughout Europe, chanceries and archives started to divide into separate entities, the former creating the records and the latter keeping them. The development is seen particularly clearly in the case of Poland, for example. There was an archivist at Gdansk by the first half of the seventeenth century, and at Lublin and Przemysl in the eighteenth. The archival role was, widespread, and commonplace not just in institutional settings, but within private families.
