The research problem the PhD candidate seeks to solve is the hypothetical historicity of a school of early modern historical studies developing approximately between 1949 and 1963 at the University of Cambridge due to the impact of Herbert Butterfield’s books. Butterfield’s impact may be said to come down to a ‘dramatic moment’, i.e. the atmospheric diffusion of an historical sensibility unmistakably literary. Through memorable pieces such as The Whig Interpretation of History (1931), Butterfield posited a most personal worldview within which the world is seen as a stage, human beings as actors, historians as the audience, histories as plots, History as a drama, the God of Christianity as the Playwright, and the subject-matter as the real experience of men made of flesh and blood. According to our working hypothesis, the ‘dramatic moment’ unfolded itself into being through the proliferation of three kinds of historical texts —religious and ecclesiastical histories, histories of historiography, generalnarrative histories—, in correspondence with the three pillars of Butterfield’s historical thought: dramatico-religious centredness, concern with the historical development of historical curiosity, patronage of the English historiographical tradition. At Cambridge, the impact of Butterfield most clearly resonates acrossthe field of early modern historicalstudies. The project’s most important sources are therefore Butterfield’s published works as well as those of a nuclear circle of pupils interested in the history of the period: Helmut G. Koenigsberger (1918-2014), J.G.A. Pocock (1924-2023), Maurice Cowling (1926-2005), John H. Elliott (1930-2022).

Besides resolving the identified research problem, it is hoped this project may contribute to the growth of the general and academic sensibility concerning the importance of studying a branch of historical research usually disregarded: the history of historiography. In particular, the PhD candidate wishes to stress the relevance of examining the history of early modern historical studies as a prerequisite to historical research into the early modern era (c. 1500-1750). In addition, he intends to shed some light on a relevant chapter in the history of British historiography in one of its ‘Golden Ages’ (D. Cannadine). In this vein, it may be underlined that the history of Butterfield’s impact exhibits very notable a degree of Hispanism, chiefly condensed in the works of John Elliott and Helmut Koenigsberger, which are so largely responsible for the development in Spain of early modern historical studies: works which it will now be possible to reassess through a hitherto unavailable prism.