Abstract
The years around 1800 have often been regarded as being a fundamental epoch in European historiography, marking the point when history began to emerge as a modern professional discipline. In particular, the increasing accessibility of archives to historians has been regarded as allowing a more scientific historical methodology to develop. Yet archives have never been fully rational institutions or uncomplicated sites of knowledge, and in order to understand how they influenced historical writing it is necessary to study the practices of historians and other users, as well as the custodians and owners of archives. The articles in this themed issue all discuss the practices carried out by historians, researchers, and archivists in archives and libraries. In doing so, they reveal that there was a considerable continuity of practices that transcend the supposed divide of 1800.