Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

From Note‐Taking to Data Banks: Personal and Institutional Information Management in Early Modern Europe

2010; Routledge; Volume: 20; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/17496977.2010.492615

1749-6985

Jacob Soll,

Historical Art and Culture Studies

Abstract Note‐takers in early modern Europe mixed a number of scribal practices. Not only did they write down extracts of texts, they also collected data from observation or from accounting. Practices such as commonplacing were part of sometimes communal, rather informal personal practices that laid the foundations for personal diaries. Other note‐taking was prescriptive, fact‐establishing technical data entry. Yet both the personal, sentimental and technical forms of note‐taking were interrelated. It was during this period that merchants, administrators, scholars and scientists sought methods to transform raw information such as notes into formalized knowledge for practical use. Notes had formed a part of larger writing and archival projects since the dawn of writing and literacy, but during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, figures such as Bacon, Boyle and Pepys not only mixed note‐taking practices from both scholarly and mercantile traditions; they also thought about the very act of note‐taking and how to transform it into a tool for the management of large‐scale government, industry and research. Most of all, in the seventeenth century, scholars, merchants and naturalists began thinking in formal terms about how to use notes as part of larger information systems which they called collections, compilations and even archives. Notes 1 PL 2866, 'Naval Minute‐book'. 2 On Samuel Pepys as database builder, see his elaborate method of cross‐referencing extracts from historical works: PL 2363, 'Collection of Naval Extracts', with English, Latin and French authors keyed to their order in Pepys's library. 3 On the rise of data, see Little Tools of Knowledge: Historical Essays on Academic and Bureaucratic Practices, edited by P. Becker and W. Clark (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001), 165–72. Also, see P. Burke, A Social History of Knowledge from Gutenberg to Diderot (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000). 4 B. Kafka, 'Paperwork: The State of the Discipline', Book History, 12 (2009), 340–53. 5 M. Poovey, A History of the Modern Fact: Problems of Knowledge in the Science and Wealth and Society (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1998), 98–9. 6 For more discussion of these terms, see Geoffrey Nunberg 'Farewell to the Information Age', in The Future of the Book, edited by Geoffrey Nunberg (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 103–38 and John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid, The Social Life of Information (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2000), 118–20. 7 J. Yates, Control Through Communication: The Rise of System in American Management (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), XII–XX. 8 M.T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: England, 1066–1307 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979), 2–87. 9 M.A. and R.H. Rouse, Authentic Witnesses: Approaches to Medieval Texts and Manuscripts (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991), chs 4–7; J. Hamesse, 'The Scholastic Model of Reading', in A History of Reading in the West, edited by G. Cavallo and R. Chartier, translated by L.G. Cochrane (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999), 103–19 (110). 10 See A. Grafton, 'Teacher, Text and Pupil in the Renaissance Class‐room: A Case Study from a Parisian College', History of Universities, 1 (1981), 37–70; Hamesse, 'The Scholastic Model of Reading', in Cavallo and Chartier, A History of Reading in the West, 103–19 (104–6); Annotation and Its Texts, edited by S.A. Barney (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991); B.M. Benedict, Making the Modern Reader: Cultural Mediation in Early Modern Literary Anthologies (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996); J. Soll, Publishing The Prince: History, Reading, and the Birth of Political Criticism (Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 2005), 93. 11 D. Kelley, Foundations of Modern Historical Scholarship: Language, Law, and History in the French Renaissance (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970), 24–5. 12 For a general study of annotation see the essays in Barney, Annotation and Its Texts. 13 D. Kelley, 'Jean Du Tillet, Archivist and Antiquary', Journal of Modern History, 38 (1966), 337–54; E.A.R. Brown, 'Jean Du Tillet et les archives de France', Histoire et Archives, 2 (1997), 29–63. 14 E. Le Roy Ladurie, Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error, translated by B. Bray (New York: George Braziller, 1978). For humanist versions of court notes turned into narratives, see the famous example from the trial of Martin Guerre: Jean de Coras, Arrest Mémorable (Lyon: Antoine Vincent, 1565). 15 J. Soll, 'Healing the Body Politic: French Royal Doctors, History and the Birth of a Nation 1560–1634', Renaissance Quarterly, 55 (2002), 1259–86, and 'The Uses of Historical Evidence in Early Modern Europe', Journal of the History of Ideas, 64:2 (2003), 149–57. 16 On medical histories, see N. Siraisi, History, Medicine and the Traditions of Renaissance Learning (Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 2008). 17 P. Grendler, 'Learning the ABCs with Hornbook and Primer', in his Schooling in Renaissance Italy: Literacy and Learning 1300–1600 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), ch. 6. 18 A. Grafton, 'Teacher, Text and Pupil in the Renaissance Class‐room'. 19 On the general concept of the commonplace, see A. Moss, Printed Commonplace‐books and the Structuring of Renaissance Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 7; and F. Goyet, Le Sublime du 'Lieu Commun'. L'invention rhétorique dans l'Antiquité et à la Renaissance (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1996). Soll, 'Amelot de La Houssaie (1634–1706) Annotates Tacitus', Journal of the History of Ideas, 61 (2000), 167–87, 169–78. 20 A. Grafton, 'The Humanist as Reader', in Cavallo and Chartier, A History of Reading in the West, 179–211 (199). 21 P. Burke, 'Tacitism, Scepticisim and Reason of State', in The Cambridge History of Political Thought, edited by J.H. Burns and M. Goldie (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 479–98; A. Grafton and L. Jardine, 'Studied for Action: How Gabriel Harvey Read His Livy', Past and Present, 129 (1991), 30–78; J. Soll, 'The Hand‐Annotated Copy of the Histoire du gouvernement de Venise, or How Amelot de La Houssaie Wrote his History', Bulletin du Bibliophile, 2 (1995), 279–93; J. Soll, 'Amelot de La Houssaie and the Tacitean Tradition in France', Translation and Literature, 6 (1997), 186–202; Soll, 'Amelot de La Houssaie'; and J. Waszink, 'Inventio in the Politica: Commonplace‐books and the Shape of Political Theory', in Lipsius in Leiden: Studies in the Life and Works of a Great Humanist, edited by K. Enenkel and C. Heesakkers (Voorthuizen: Florivallis, 1997), 141–62. 22 Soll, 'The Uses of Historical Evidence'. 23 F. Sacchini, Moyens de lire avec fruit (La Haye, 1786). 24 Sacchini, Moyens de lire avec fruit, 45. 25 Sacchini, Moyens de lire avec fruit, 48. 26 A. Grafton, 'Printers' Correctors and the Publication of Classical Texts', in A. Grafton, Bring Out Your Dead: The Past as Revelation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 141–55 (154). 27 Cited by A. Grafton in 'Humanists with Inky Fingers: The Culture of Correction in the Early Modern Printing House', forthcoming. 28 See the Cambridge University Library edition with Clusius's notes: Garcia da Orta, Collóquios dos simples e drogas he cousas medicinais da India (Goa: Jan van Enden, 1563). 29 Soll, 'The Hand‐annotated Copy of the Histoire du gouvernement de Venise', 279–93. 30 A. Johns, The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 100–2; A. Goldgar, Impolite Learning: Conduct and Community in the Republic of Letters 1680–1750 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 55–65. 31 On the annotation and commentary of printers' manuscript secret catalogues, see J. Soll, The Information Master: Jean‐Baptiste Colbert's Secret State Intelligence System (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2009), 135. 32 A. Blair, 'Humanist Methods in Natural Philosophy: The Commonplace Book', Journal of the History of Ideas, 53 (1992), 541–51; and Richard Yeo, Encyclopaedic Visions: Scientific Dictionaries and Enlightenment Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); A. Blair, 'Annotating and Indexing Natural Philosophy', in Books and the Sciences in History, edited by M. Frasca‐Spada and Nick Jardine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 70–89; Reworking the Bench: Research Notebooks in the History of Science, edited by F.L. Holmes, J. Renn and H.‐J. Rheinberger (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2003); and A. te Heesen, 'Accounting for the Natural World: Double‐entry Bookkeeping in the Field', in Colonial Botany: Science, Commerce, and Politics in the Early Modern World, edited by L. Schiebinger and C. Swan (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005), 237–51. 33 L. Daston, 'Taking Note(s)', Isis, 3 (2004), 443–8 (445–6); and Poovey, A History of the Modern Fact, 128–9. Also, see T. Porter, 'Modern Facts and Post‐modern Interpretations', Annals of Science, 58 (2001), 417–22. 34 B. Ogilvie, The Science of Describing: Natural History in Renaissance Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 174–8. 35 Ogilvie, The Science of Describing, 175. 36 M.A. Meadow, 'Merchants and Marvels: Hans Jacob Fugger and the Origins of the Wunderkammer', in Merchants and Marvels: Commerce, Science, and Art in Early Modern Europe, edited by P.H. Smith and P. Findlen (London and New York: Routledge, 2002), 182–200. 37 A. Blair, 'Reading Strategies for Coping with Information Overload ca. 1550–1700', Journal of the History of Ideas, 64 (2003), 11–28, (25); and Too Much To Know: Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age, forthcoming (Yale University Press). 38 Blair, 'Note‐Taking as an Art of Transmissions', Critical Inquiry, 31:1 (2004), 85–107, and R. Yeo, 'The Best Book in the Universe', Journal of the History of Ideas, 64 (2003), 61–72. 39 Blair, 'Reading Strategies for Coping with Information Overload', 20. 40 Poovey, A History of the Modern Fact, 98–101. 41 A. Vine, 'Commercial Commonplacing: Francis Bacon, the Waste‐Book, and the Ledger', English Manuscript Studies 1100–1700 (2010), forthcoming. 42 Vine, 'Commercial Commonplacing', 2. F. Bacon, Of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning, edited by Michael Kiernan, The Oxford Francis Bacon IV (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 118. P. Beal, 'Notions in Garrison: The Seventeenth‐century Commonplace Book', in New Ways of Looking at Old Texts: Papers of the Renaissance English Text Society, edited by W. Speed Hill (Binghamton: The Renaissance English Text Society, 1993), 131–47 (138). 43 Vine, 'Commercial Commonplacing', 10. F. Bacon, Instauratio magna, part 2, in Novum Organum and Associated Texts, edited by Graham Rees with Maria Wakely, The Oxford Francis Bacon XI (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 153–61. 44 Vine 'Commercial Commonplacing', 11. 45 Seckendorff's personal library catalogue and pasted account books are found in the Staatsarchiv Gotha, Geheimes Archiv, M3 III, Nr. 1, volumen 4 and 2–7a. 46 See A.D. Aczel's informal study, Descartes's Secret Notebook: A True Tale of Mathematics, Mysticism, and the Quest to Understand the Universe (New York: Broadway Books, 2005). 47 D. Harkness, The Jewel House: Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 196. 48 R. Yeo, 'John Locke's "New Method" of Commonplacing: Managing Memory and Information', Eighteenth‐Century Thought, 2 (2004), 1–38. 49 R. Yeo, 'Loose Notes and Capacious Memory: Robert Boyle's Note‐Taking and its Rationale', Intellectual History Review, this issue. 50 Yeo, 'Loose Notes'. 51 Soll, The Information Master, 107–8. 52 Soll, The Information Master, 1–15. 53 Soll, The Information Master, 103. 54 Richelet's 1686 Dictionary defines portfolio, or portefeuille: 'C'est un ouvrage de Relieur, composé de deux ais de carton, couverts de parchemin, de veau, de mouton, ou de maroquin, avec quelques enjolivements de doreur sur la couverture'. Register, or registre, is defined as 'un livre qui n'est pas pas imprimé, où sont enregistrez les actes publics & autres choses. Coucher sur le registre. C'est‐à‐dire, écrire sur le registre. Tenir le registre. Garder le registre.' 55 J.‐B. Colbert, Lettres, instructions et mémoires, edited by Pierre Clément, 7 vols (Paris: Imprimerie Impériale, 1861–70), vol. 7, 71. The current bound folios were organized in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but appear to correspond to Colbert's original thematic portfolios. 56 For an example, see B.N. Ms. Mélanges Colbert 33, fol. 5. 57 I have not been able to ascertain to what extent he removed documents from these notebooks. 58 J. Stagl, A History of Curiosity: The Theory of Travel 1550–1800 (Chur, Switzerland: Harwood, 1995). 59 P. Dover, 'Deciphering the Diplomatic Archives of Fifteenth‐century Italy', Archival Science, 7 (2007), 297–316 (298–9); D.E. Queller, 'The Development of Ambassadorial Relazioni', in Renaissance Venice, edited by John R. Hale (London: Faber, 1974), 174–96. The great collection of relazioni is in Relazioni Ambasciatori Veneti, edited by L. Firpo (Turin: Fondazione L. Firpo, 1975); also see Filippo de Vivo, Information and Communication in Early Modern Venice: Rethinking Early Modern Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). 60 B. Dooley, The Social History of Skepticism: Experience and Doubt in Early Modern Culture (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), 71. 61 H.M. Solomon, Public Welfare, Science and Propaganda in Seventeenth‐century France: The Innovations of Théophraste Renaudot (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972); and P. Clair, 'L'Information au quotidien. Discours politique et vision du monde dans le Mercure François et quelques autres gazettes', in L'État Baroque. Regards sur la pensée politique de la France du premier XVIIe siècle, edited by H. Méchoulan (Paris: Vrin, 1985), 301–33. 62 The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, edited by R. Gold Thwaites, 73 vols (Cleveland: 1896–1901). On Jesuit relations from the New World and the role of P. Lejeune, see M. Lauzon, Signs of Light: French and British Theories of Linguistic Communication 1648–1789 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, forthcoming), ch. 3; see also The Jesuit Relations: Natives and Missionaries in Seventeenth‐century North America, edited by A. Greer (London: Bedford/St Martin's Press, 2000). On the proliferation of literary knowledge genres, such as the relation, see B.J. Shapiro, A Culture of Fact: England, 1550–1720 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000), 63–85. 63 M. Friedrich, 'Government and Information‐Management in Early Modern Europe. The Case of the Society of Jesus (1540–1773)', Journal of Early Modern History, 12 (2008), 539–63. 64 P. Findlen, Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Europe (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 100, 157, 276. 65 Andrea Mattioli, Les Commentaires de M. P. Matthiolus sur les six livres de Pedacius Dioscoride, translated by Anthoine du Pinet (Lyon: Claude Rigaud & Claude Obert, 1627), 54. 66 Colbert to M. de Guilleragues, ambassador to Constantinople, 4 April 1680, in Lettres, 7, 104. 67 Soll, The Information Master, 105–6. 68 Soll, The Information Master, 61: 'Il remarquera tout ce qui peut entrer dans la composition de l'histoire naturelle de chaque pays, comme des animaux de toutes espèces, des minéraux et des marcassite, particulièrement de ceux qui ont quelque chose d'extraordinaire, des fonteynes minéralles et autres eaux, des plantes et fruits, tant de la campagne que de celles qui se cultivent dans les jardins, observant ce qui croît plus facilement en un pays qu'un autre.' 69 Stagl, A History of Curiosity, 111–12. 70 Stagl, A History of Curiosity, 113. 71 P.N. Miller, Peiresc's Europe: Learning and Virtue in the Seventeenth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), Figures 9a and b. 72 P.N. Miller, 'The Ancient Constitution and the Genealogist: Momigliano, Pocock, and Peiresc's Origines Murensis Monasterii (1618)', Republics of Letters: A Journal for the Study of Knowledge, Politics, and the Arts, 1:1 (1 May 2009), http://rofl.stanford.edu/node/37. 73 See K. Thomas, 'Numeracy in Early Modern England', Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 37 (1987), 103–32. 74 Michael E. Hobart and Zachary S. Schiffman, Information Ages: Literacy, Numeracy, and the Computer Revolution (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1998), 178. 75 Maria Rosa Antognazza, Leibniz: An Intellectual Biography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 169–71. 76 Wilhelm Gottfried von Leibniz, 'Suggestions for the Perfection and Extension of the Far‐famed Library at Wolfenbuttel', in L.M. Newman, Leibniz (1646–1716) and the German Library Scene (London: Library Association, 1966); A.L. Clarke, 'Leibniz as a Librarian', The Library, 3 (1914), 140–54. 77 Newman, Leibniz (1646–1716), 145. Leibniz's notes were notoriously messy; see J. O'Hara '"A chaos of jottings that I do not have the leisure to arrange and mark with headings": Leibniz's Manuscript Papers and Their Repository', in Archives of the Scientific Revolution: The Formation and Exchange of Ideas in Seventeenth‐century Europe, edited by M. Hunter (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 1998), 159–70, 160. 78 M. Roinila, 'Leibniz's Models of Rational Decision', in Leibniz: What Kind of Rationalist?, edited by M. Dascal (New York: Springer, 2008), 357–70. 80 A research team led by Peter Stallybrass and Roger Chartier has found several of them. See the study of erasable tables and notebooks by P. Stallybrass, R. Chartier, J. Franklin Mowery and H. Wolfe, 'Hamlet's Tables and the Technologies of Writing in Renaissance England', Shakespeare Quarterly, 55:4 (2004), 379–419 (385). 79 Thomas, 'Numeracy in Early Modern England', 115. 81 Stallybrass et al., 'Hamlet's Tables', 390. 83 Pacioli, Summa, 39. 82 Luca Pacioli, Summa in Ancient Double‐Entry Bookkeeping, edited by J.B. Geijsbeek (Denver, 1914), 89. 85 Pacioli, Summa, 41. 84 Pacioli, Summa, 40. 87 The notebook in question is a personal, manuscript journal, or agenda found in the Rare Books Collection of the University of Pennsylvania, Ms. Codex 207, R. Williams, 'Notes Concerning Trade 1632–1654'. Special thanks to Peter Stallybrass who helped me to decipher this list. 86 On the practices of the ars mercatoria, see F. Braudel, Civilisation materielle, économie et capitalisme, XV–XVIIIe siècle, 3 vols (Paris: Armand Colin, 1979), 2, 80. W.D. Smith, 'The Function of Commercial Centers in the Modernization of European Capitalism: Amsterdam as an Information Exchange in the Seventeenth Century', Journal of Economic History, 154 (1984), 985–1005 (986); Ars Mercatoria: Handbücher und Traktate für den Gebrauch des Kaufmanns, 1470–1820, edited by J. Hoock and P. Jeannin (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1991). On merchant culture, see Culture et formation négociantes dans l'Europe moderne, edited by D. Roche and F. Angiolini (Paris: Éditions E.H.E.S.S., 1995). 89 Littleton, 'Evolution of the Journal Entry', 229. 88 A.C. Littleton, 'Evolution of the Journal Entry', in A.C. Littleton and B.S. Yamey, Studies in the History of Accounting (New York: Arno Press, 1978), 223–35 (234). 90 Littleton, 'Evolution of the Journal Entry', 232. 91 D. Defoe, The Compleate English Tradesman, 2 vols (1727), ch. 20. 92 J.A. Aho, Confession and Bookkeeping: The Religious, Moral, and Rhetorical Roots of Modern Accounting (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005). 93 Friedrich, 'Government and Information Management'. 94 P. Quattrone, 'Accounting for God: Accounting and Accountability Practices in the Society of Jesus (Italy, XVI–XVII Centuries)', Accounting, Organizations and Society, 29 (2004), 647–83. 95 Quattrone, 'Accounting for God', 657. 96 Quattrone, 'Accounting for God'. 97 L. Zan, 'Accounting and Management Discourse in Proto‐Industrial Settings: The Venice Arsenale in the Turn of the Sixteenth Century', Accounting and Business Research, 32 (2004), 145–75 (149). 98 On the rise of information culture in the sphere of merchant, church and state culture, see, in general, Burke, A Social History of Knowledge. On naval information, see R. Mémain, La marine de guerre sous Louis XIV. Le matériel. Rochefort, arsenal modèle de Colbert (Paris, 1937), 502–13. 99 Colbert, 'Mémoire sur le règlement à faire pour la police générale des arsenaux de marine', 287: 'Le garde‐magasin doit avoir le soin de tous les magasins généraux et particuliers, et avoir des écrivains sous luy qui soyent chargés envers luy de tous les magasins particuliers de chacun vaisseau, ensemble des magasins à poudre, de la corderie, estuve, fonderie, voilerie, fustailles et généralement de tout ce qu'il ne pourra pas faire par luy‐mesme. Et les écrivains qui luy seront nécessaires pour toutes ces fonctions doivent tenir des livres qui ayant rapport à son grand livre de raison en partie double.' 100 Mémain, La marine de guerre, 506–7. 101 Such responsibility led to cases of corruption amongst the 'writers'. Mémain, La marine de guerre, 511. 102 Mémain, La marine de guerre, 509. 103 Samuel Pepys, 'Rule Orders and Instruction for the Future Government of the Office of the Ordnance', Pepys Library, Ms. 2827. Thanks to Margaret Schotte for these references from the Pepys Library. Also see PL 2363, 'Collection of Naval Extracts'. 104 F. Hosier, 'Method of Balancing Storekeeper's Accounts', with Pepys's annotations, 1668, Ms, Pepys Library, 1788, 101, 1–3. 105 A.C. Littleton, Accounting Evolution to 1900 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama, 1933), 17–18. 106 For an excellent pan‐European description of the evolution of logbooks from the Renaissance to the eighteenth century, with facsimile examples, see R. Garcia‐Herrera, C. Wilkinson, F.B. Koek, M.R. Prieto, N. Calvo and E. Hernández, 'Description and General Background to Ships' Logbooks as a Source of Climatic Data', Climate Change, 73 (2005), 13–36 (21). 107 Garcia‐Herrera et al., 'Description and General Background to Ships' Logbooks', 21. Also, see A History of Accounting and Accountants, edited by R. Brown (New York: Augustus Kelley, 1905), 258; J. Carswell, The South Sea Bubble (London: Alan Sutton, 1960), 12–18. 109 Beaglehole, 'Textual Introduction', cxciv. 108 J.C. Beaglehole, 'Textual Introduction', in The Journals of Captin James Cook on His Voyages of Discovery, edited by J.C. Beaglehole, 5 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press/ The Hakluyt Society, 1955), 1, cxciii–cclxxxiv. 110 Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record, 2–87. 111 R.‐H. Bautier, 'Chancellerie et culture au moyen age', in his Chartes, sceaux et chancelleries: Études de diplomatique et de sigillographie médiévales, 2 vols (Paris: École des Chartes, 1990), 1, 47–75. 112 R.W. Southern, Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages (London: Penguin, 1970), 98–169. 113 R. Kagan, 'Arcana Imperii: Mapas, Sabiduría, y Poder a la corte de Felipe IV', in El atlas del Rey Planeta, edited by F. Marías and F. Pereda (Madrid: Editorial Nerea, 2002), 49–70; A. Brendecke, Imperium und Empirie: Funktionen des Wissens in der spanischen Kolonialherrschaft (Cologne: Böhlau, 2009). 114 Soll, The Information Master, 67–83. 115 E. Esmonin, Études sur la France des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1964), 25; L. Trénard, 'Les enquêtes statistiques au XVIIe siècle origine de L'Enquête des Intendants', in Les Mémoires des Intendants pour l'Instruction du Duc de Bourgogne (1698), edited by L. Trénard (Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, 1975), 11–66 (12). 116 D. Nordman and J. Revel, 'La formation de l'espace français', in Histoire de La France, edited by André Burguière and Jacques Revel, 5 vols (Paris: Seuil, 1989), 1, 39–209 (108). 117 Colbert, 'Instruction pour les maîtres des requêtes, commissaires départis dans les provinces', in Lettres, 4, 27–43. On the transformation of Intendants from tax collectors to state observers, see Esmonin, Études sur la France, 25; and Trénard, 'Les enquêtes statistiques', 11–66 at 12. It was rumoured by Jacques Savary that Colbert had learned of the enquête formularies in the papers he confiscated from Fouquet. See L. Rothkrug, Opposition to Louis XIV: The Political and Social Origins of the French Enlightenment (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965), 160–1, n. 45. This seems unlikely in the face of Colbert's early knowledge of state paperwork and correspondence with maîtres des requêtes. 118 Esmonin, Études sur la France, 28. On the relationship of the royal map maker with the Intendants, see J.W. Konvitz, Cartography in France 1660–1848: Science, Engineering and Statecraft (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), 2. 119 J. Brewer, The Sinews of Power: War, Money and the English State, 1688–1783 (New York: Knopf, 1989), 78–87. 120 N. Hans, New Trends in Education in the Eighteenth Century (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1951), 136–60; A. Heal, The English Writing‐masters and Their Copy‐books 1570–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1931), xi–xviii; and J.R. Edwards, 'A Commercial Education for the "Middling Sort of People" in Mercantilist Britain', Cardiff Working Papers in Accounting and Finance, 3 (2009), 1–35. 121 M. Morineau, 'Or brésilien et gazettes hollandaises', Revue d'Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine, 25 (1978), 3–30; W.D. Smith, 'The Function of Commercial Centers in the Modernization of European Capitalism: Amsterdam as an Information Exchange in the Seventeenth Century', Journal of Economic History, 154 (1984), 985–1005 122 S.E. Howard, 'Public Rules for Private Accounting in France, 1673 and 1807', The Accounting Review, 2 (June 1932), 91–102. 123 Hans, New Trends in Education, 136–60. 124 J. Bland, An Essay in Writing Exemplified in the Several Hands, and Forms of Business (London, 1730), 1–3 of Preface. 125 Bland, An Essay, 8. 126 Edwards, 'A Commercial Education', 20. 127 Soll, The Information Master, 147–52. 128 'The Will of Samuel Pepys', in Samuel Pepys, Diary, edited by H.B. Wheatley, 9 vols (London: Georg Bell & Sons, 1899), 9, 239–56 (251–2). 130 Alexander Pope, The Poetical Works, edited by A.W. Ward (London: Macmillan & Co., 1907), book 1, v. 280, 374. 129 R.D. Lund, 'The Eel of Science: Index Learning, Scriblerian Satire, and the Rise of Information Culture', Eighteenth‐century Life, 2 (1998), 18–42. 131 Saint‐Just, 'Report to the Convention on Behalf of the Committee of Public Safety, October 10th, 1793', translated by C. Ford and K.M. Baker, in The Old Regime and the French Revolution, edited by K.M. Baker (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 354–62 at 360–1. Also, see B. Kafka, 'The Demon of Writing: Paperwork, Public Safety, and the Reign of Terror', Representations, Spring (2007), 1–24 (3).