文艺复兴时期，许多欧洲人被古代世界深深吸引，所谓的古代世界就是古希腊罗马文明。在许多欧洲城市，古典建筑保存下来并继续激发人们的好奇心。在整个中世纪，关于这些文明的意识一直存在，是因为那些物质的遗存、公众的记忆与古代作者留下的作品还存在。不过，直到文艺复兴时期古代世界的研究才焕发出新的活力。这场广泛的文化运动的先锋是人文主义者、艺术家和博学好古研究者。这场文化运动将古代世界视为文明的顶点，而将中世纪世界视为野蛮的黑暗时代。就是这些运动先锋在努力恢复古代世界的光辉。

在15世纪，“博学好古研究者”的意思是“带着重塑古代生活的观点来研究古代物品、风俗和制度的人”。文艺复兴时期的博学好古研究与历史学依然泾渭分明。博学好古研究有一个非常重要的特征，这一特征把它与历史区分开来，并将决定博学好古研究的未来，这就是专题性的系统研究方法。但博学好古研究不适合编年结构，它是系统的描述，而不是按年代先后顺序来说明。因为一般政治、军事事件的时间是广为人知或有文字记载的，而制度、宗教、神话等的起源时间，或全然不知，或难以考证。在研究这些主题时，很难完全做到按编年顺序处理。当然，在编年顺序容易确定，或者编年本身是他们研究的目标时，博学好古研究者也不反对按编年顺序来处理，在书写地方史或做年代学研究时就是如此。总之，时间因素在博学好古研究中的作用不如在政治史中那么重要。正因为博学好古研究在方法上的系统特征与哲学研究方法相契合，又加之它的研究内容为哲学家分析人性和文明提供了资料，所以，从一开始哲学家与博学好古研究者就联系紧密。

本书的研究对象是博学好古与民族史书写的关系。空间的限定主要是英格兰，兼及威尔士、苏格兰和爱尔兰，在需要的时候会提到欧洲大陆等地区；所涉及的时间主要是16—17世纪（文艺复兴传播到英国时期至英国本土文艺复兴的兴盛期）。在都铎早期，英国的民族史书写的模式突出地表现为一种对当时英国文化的、爱国的和宗教的趋势的衡量，也是一个对英国人吸收更先进的、发展更成熟的意大利文艺复兴历史编纂方法的程度的考察。当时，虽然文艺复兴文化在各个方面开始影响英国智识生活，但并未在历史学或改进民族史编纂方法上激发出广泛的兴趣。在16世纪30年代之前，无论是写当代史抑或是对一本中世纪原著进行修订和改进，编年史几乎是唯一民族史书写类型；并且在大体上，那种对过去权威的非批判性依赖的传统结构（除了一些编年史家的作品中分散的几处而外）仍然保持不变。

本书第一章论述从文艺复兴运动时期到启蒙运动时期，欧洲范围内的学术背景与英国民族史学的关系。文艺复兴运动时期人文主义者的好古情结，欧洲学者对文本批评的重视，经验主义对知识结构，特别是历史学知识结构的影响，文艺复兴时期的历史哲学“历史艺术”，上述主题都是此章将重点关注的学术思想史事件。此章还将追溯文艺复兴时期英国的民族史书写的过去，考察它对自意大利传来的人文主义的影响，试图分析人文主义如何使英国民族史书写发生变化，从而使博学好古研究方法在英国的土壤得到孕育。

第二章至第五章探讨博学好古研究与同时代民族史书写与研究的关系。首先在第二章，本书将回顾渊源于古希腊的博学好古研究，这种体裁如何经历文艺复兴时期人文主义者的“再发现”；当文艺复兴运动传播到意大利以北地区时，又如何在其他国家繁荣兴盛的。本书希望通过第二章的论述，使意大利、法国和英国三个地区的博学好古研究各自的特征得以明晰化。第二章还希望通过对重点人物研究工作的简述和对学术思想的基础（团体、机构和交流方式）的介绍，思考关于英国之所以形成自身研究特色的原因。

第三章探讨当时的英国学者在论述罗马征服之前的时期时，如何徘徊在传说与出土资料之间，而在论述罗马征服时期的历史时，又如何在赞扬罗马文明的辉煌与赞赏古布列吞人的纯洁的英勇气质之间摇摆不定。如何定义“外来者”在英国古史上的地位，对于英国本民族历史的塑造起了关键作用。实际上，不同英国人所站的各自的政治立场在很大程度上决定了他们关于民族起源的论述。但随着博学好古研究的进步，独立于“外来者”的英国民族政治史与民族教会史将最终占据主导地位。

在第四章中，本书通过对考察英国人结合了博学好古方法的中古研究，揭示出英国民族史上的盎格鲁-撒克逊时期得到了同时代学者正面的评价。对于民族史而言，盎格鲁-撒克逊时期将为英国的封建制度和议会制度证明其连续性与一致性。对于推动民族史学发展的作用而言，对盎格鲁-撒克逊及其后中世纪的博学好古研究，建立了英国自己的古代语言文字学。由于罗马的政治和宗教影响在文艺复兴时期一直被刻意地排除，因而古代英语和更古的盎格鲁-撒克逊语的地位较之拉丁语得以上升。英国民族史书写借助这方面的研究抹去了中世纪的“黑暗”，这里被抹去的，一方面是中世纪落后的假象，另一方面则是缺乏历史事实的贫瘠性。

第五章中，本书拟从基督教思想与基督教古物两个方面来论述基督教研究中的博学好古研究。第五章首先回顾文艺复兴使基督教产生的基督教人文主义对民族史书写产生的影响，其次考察英国的宗教史和教会史在博学好古研究者笔下呈现的面貌，最后对英国教堂和修道院古物的研究同样体现了博学好古研究的英国特征。

在结论部分，本书拟从整体上探讨博学好古研究对英国民族史学以及西方民族史学的推动作用。博学好古研究首先在社会上造成了一种理性地看待古代历史和古代遗存的精神风气，只有在这种时代精神的指引下，博学好古研究所带动的民族史学的辅助学科才能够兴起。在经过了启蒙思想家的质疑以后，学者们认识到了博学好古研究与民族史学区隔开来的弊端，因此逐渐学会像吉本那样在自己的研究中注意两者的融合。博学好古研究的停滞并没有使古典主义民族史书写东山再起，而是让历史学家意识到，只有充分认识并运用博学好古对待史料的方法，拓宽史料的范围，并吸收辅助学科的成果，才能够让民族史从“民族史书写”发展到“民族史学”。

During the Renaissance, many Europeans were fascinated by the ancient world, which was the Greco-Roman civilization. In many European cities, classical architecture has survived and continues to inspire curiosity. Throughout the Middle Ages, consciousness of these civilizations persisted because the material remains, the public memory, and the works left by ancient authors still exist. However, it was not until the Renaissance that the study of the ancient world took on new vitality. The spearhead of this broad cultural movement were humanists, artists, and learned paleographers. This cultural movement saw the ancient world as the culmination of civilization and the medieval world as a barbaric dark age. It was these pioneers of the movement who strove to restore the glory of the ancient world. In the 15th century, "learned good paleo researcher" meant "a person who studied ancient objects, customs, and institutions from the perspective of reshaping ancient life." The erudite ancient studies of the Renaissance and the study of history are still clearly distinguished. There is a very important feature of erudite good archaic research that distinguishes it from history and will determine the future of erudite good ancient research, which is the thematic systematic research method. But erudite and good archaic research does not fit into a chronological structure, it is a systematic description, not an chronological explanation. Because the time of general political and military events is widely known or recorded, and the origin time of institutions, religions, myths, etc., is either completely unknown or difficult to verify. When studying these topics, it is difficult to deal with them entirely in chronological order. Of course, when the chronology is easy to determine, or when the chronicle itself is the object of their research, the erudite paleographer is not averse to treating it in chronological order, as is the case when writing local histories or doing chronological research. In short, the role of the time factor in erudite ancient studies is less important than in political history. It is precisely because the systematic characteristics of the method of erudite ancient research are consistent with the methods of philosophical research, and its research content provides information for philosophers to analyze human nature and civilization, so philosophers and erudite ancient researchers have been closely related from the beginning. The object of this book is the relationship between erudition and good antiquity and the writing of national history. The limited space is mainly England, but also Wales, Scotland and Ireland, and when necessary, the European continent and other regions will be mentioned; The period covered is mainly the 16th and 17th centuries (the Renaissance spread to the British period to the flourishing period of the native Renaissance). In the early Tudor period, the pattern of national history writing in England was prominently expressed as a measure of the cultural, patriotic, and religious trends of the time, and an examination of the extent to which the British absorbed the more advanced and well-developed methods of Italian Renaissance historiography. At that time, although Renaissance culture began to influence British intellectual life in various aspects, it did not arouse widespread interest in historiography or in improving the methods of national historiography. Before the 30s of the 16th century, whether writing contemporary history or revising and improving a medieval original, the chronicle was almost the only type of national history writing; And, by and large, the traditional structure of non-critical reliance on past authority (with the exception of a few scattered in the work of some chroniclers) remains unchanged. The first chapter of the book deals with the relationship between the European academic background and British ethnohistoriography from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment. The good antiquity of the humanists of the Renaissance movement, the emphasis of European scholars on textual criticism, the influence of empiricism on the structure of knowledge, especially historiography, and the historical philosophy of the Renaissance "historical art", are all of the academic intellectual historical events that will be the focus of this chapter. The chapter will also trace the past of national history writing in Renaissance England, examine its influence on humanism from Italy, and attempt to analyze how humanism transformed the writing of English national history, so that erudite and good ancient research methods were nurtured on British soil. Chapters 2 to 5 explore the relationship between erudite and ancient studies and the writing and study of contemporary national history. First, in the second chapter, the book will review the erudite study of ancient Greece, how this genre underwent the "rediscovery" of the Renaissance humanists; When the Renaissance spread north of Italy, how did it flourish in other countries? Through the discussion in Chapter 2, this book hopes to clarify the characteristics of the erudite ancient studies of Italy, France, and England. Chapter 2 also seeks to reflect on the reasons why the UK has developed its own research identity through a brief description of the research work of key figures and an introduction to the foundations of academic thought (groups, institutions and modes of communication). Chapter 3 examines how British scholars of the time oscillated between legends and excavated sources when discussing the period before the Roman Conquest, and how they oscillated between praising the splendor of Roman civilization and appreciating the pure heroism of the ancient Brethons when discussing the history of the Roman Conquest. How to define the status of "outsiders" in British ancient history played a key role in shaping the history of Britain itself. In fact, the respective political positions of the different Britons largely determine their discourse on the origin of the nation. But with the advancement of erudite and ancient studies, the history of British national politics and the history of the national church, independent of the "outsiders", will eventually dominate. In the fourth chapter, the book reveals that the Anglo-Saxon period in British national history has received positive comments from contemporary scholars through a medieval study of the British combined with erudite and ancient methods. For national history, the Anglo-Saxon period will prove the continuity and consistency of the feudal and parliamentary systems of Britain. For the role of promoting the development of ethnohistoriography, the erudite study of Anglo-Saxon and the post-Middle Ages established Britain's own ancient language philology. Because Roman political and religious influence was deliberately excluded during the Renaissance, ancient English and older Anglo-Saxon rose over Latin. The writing of British national history erased the "darkness" of the Middle Ages with the help of this research, and what was erased here was the illusion of medieval backwardness on the one hand, and the barrenness of lack of historical facts on the other. In Chapter 5, this book intends to discuss the erudite and ancient study of Christian studies from two aspects: Christian thought and Christian antiquities. Chapter 5 begins by reviewing the influence of Christian humanism on the writing of national history as a result of the Renaissance, secondly examining the history of religion and church in England in the pen of erudite and good ancient researchers, and finally the study of English churches and monasteries that also reflects the British character of erudite good antiquity studies. In conclusion, this book intends to explore the role of erudite and ancient studies in promoting British ethnography and Western ethnohistoriography as a whole. The study of erudite and ancient studies first created a spiritual atmosphere in society of rational view of ancient history and ancient remains, and only under the guidance of this spirit of the times can the auxiliary discipline of ethnohistory driven by the Institute of Erudite Good Antichaos rise. After being questioned by Enlightenment thinkers, scholars recognized the drawbacks of separating erudite and ancient studies from ethnohistoriography, and gradually learned to pay attention to the fusion of the two in their own research, as Gibbon did. The stagnation of erudite and good ancient research has not made a comeback in classicist national history writing, but has made historians realize that only by fully understanding and applying the method of erudite and good ancient treatment of historical materials, broadening the scope of historical materials, and absorbing the results of auxiliary disciplines can national history develop from "national history writing" to "ethnic historiography".（AI翻译）