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English county histories

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I offer unto you my noble countriemen, as the most proper persons to whom it can be presented wherein you will see very much of your worthy ancestors, to whose memory I have erected it as a monumentall pillar and to shew in what honour they lived in those flourishing ages past. In this kind, or not much different, have divers persons in forrein parts very learnedly written; some whereof I have noted in my preface: and I could wish that there were more that would adventure in the like manner for the rest of the counties of this nation, considering how acceptable those are, which others have already performed

Thus his work was designed primarily to be read by his fellow county gentry of Warwickshire, whose public lives and marriages were largely confined within their own county of residence, which they administered as Justices of the Peace and Sheriffs, and represented in Parliament. The genealogical and heraldic tradition continues with the series of Victoria County Histories commenced in the late 19th century.

Other forms recorded archaeological sites. A closely related genre, which emerged in the second half of the 17th century, was the county "Natural History", which focused on the county's flora, fauna and natural phenomena, but which also often included chapters on antiquities. The best known examples were Robert Plot's two volumes on Oxfordshire (1677) and Staffordshire (1686); and John Aubrey's unpublished work on Wiltshire.

Development

Continental models

Dugdale quotes as his foreign models César de Nostredame (1553–1629), historian of Provence in France, author of Rerum antiquarum et nobiliorum Provinciae, written c.1560, published 1615; Ottavio Rossi, historian of Brescia in Italy, author of Memorie Bresciane, Opera Historica, E Simbolica (1626); Guillaume Catel (1560–1626), historian of Languedoc in France, author of Mémoires sur l'histoire du Languedoc (1633); Samuel Guichenon (1607–1664), historian of Bresse in France, author of Histoire de la Bresse et du Bugey (1650) and Antonius Sanderus (1586–1664), historian of Flanders, author of Flandria Illustrata (1641).

English pioneers

William Lambarde's Perambulation of Kent (completed 1570; published 1576) is generally acknowledged as the first example of the genre in England. It was followed by Richard Carew's Survey of Cornwall (1602), and William Burton's Description of Leicester Shire (1622), as well as a number of other projects (such as those of Sir William Pole, Thomas Westcote, and Tristram Risdon in Devon, and Sampson Erdeswicke in Staffordshire) which, although they sometimes circulated in manuscript, did not come to completion or publication. Following the appearance of William Dugdale's Antiquities of Warwickshire (1656), a pattern was set. In the nineteenth century John Bowyer Nichols followed the line of a history of Leicestershire compiled by his father John Nichols, and saw numerous counties histories through the press at his printing firm. The scope of county histories varied, but the titles became quite standard: "Antiquities of", "Worthies of", "Geological survey", "Description of", later "Directory of", all could indicate the intention of producing a "history", a term that only in later times acquired the narrower meaning it carries today. Chorography, topography and toponymy might all be involved. Materials and collections for their counties were made by antiquaries, but publication might await sponsorship or enough subscriptions, as well as a capable author who would make a readable book, perhaps of multiple volumes, from notes.

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