Periodizalion allempts to mpan oigii o the passage of tine in history by identitying and

ordering chronological sequences (periods). As praeticed by historians. il has a long and varied
history; as a subject of study. it commands ncither a fornmal body of knowledge nor systematic
instruction. To the historian, although not to the archeologist or anthropologist. periodization
serves no accepted theorctical lunction. For unlike the concept of period in theearth sciences or
of periodicity in the physical scicnces. the concept ol historical period depends more on
mOdern philosophers of
stipulation than on inlerence lrom comnonly Icceptedevidence. As to
inclined haave denicd that historical
history. both the nominalistically and the neoidealistically
cannol be said to exist in tie sense in which a
periods àre "real: the lormer because a period
see all ordering ol historical materials as
historical event or person exIsts: the latter because they
Croce [1917] 1960, chapter 7).
a function ofthe individual historian's mind (Collingwood 1927;
Periodization lends itsell' to broad typology. In the lollow ing account ol some of the principal
others, are distinguished.
periodization schemes in Western history. tno major types. among
are significant as nanifesting the
They may be conveniently labeled lrlike (historical periods
and peclugugic (historical periods are
operation of a cosmic. divine. bioloyical. or social force) forces being minimized or
significant as didactic or heuristic devices. the concepl underlying
of
ignored).

Early History lawlike periodization. specifically at the

Mythopeic and religious thought stand at the origin of
The biological birth-death cycle and
origin of the idea that terrestrial events follow time cycles.
the seasonal cycles of sun and moon vere related to cosmic cycles of redemptive signif+cance.
Middle Eastern and Far Easternworld
Cyclical paradigms are found in virtually every ancient
view (Cairns 1962). Thus. alongside calendrical and astronomical periods, variety ofcosmic
a or

of varying duration
divine periods were devised: the great cosmic year or divine year was a cycle
and transformed
from 3,000 to 36,000 years. Classical antiquity and early Christianity adopted
some of these and other mythical time divisions, thereby laying the foundation for \Western

thought.
In classical antiquity. the ancienl myh of four metallic ages (gold. silver, bronze, and iron) was

reinterpreted for the Grecks by Hesiod (c. cighth century B.C..) and popularized for the Romans
in the poetry of Ovid and Vergil. The cycle itselliperiodes, Gr.: periodus, L.) figured more in
philosophy and cosmology than in history. Bul at least one historian. through whom eyclical
notions came to be transmitted to Machiavelli and other classically intluenced writers. uilized
the idea of the eycle: Polybius (c. 203-c. 120 B.C.). Oher intluential classical conceptions
attempted to connect mythical ages to caleulable chronologies. The Roman Varro (| 16-27 B.C.)
created a tripartite scheme: the obscure. the fabulous. and the historical periods - the last-named

commeneing with the lirst Olympiad 1776 13.C.).

The two principal Christian periodizations. designating terrestrial events as successive stages ofa
divinely ordained rhythm, were as follows: (1) The interpretation of Darniel's dreams of four
kingdoms (Daniel 2.31 T. 7.17 11.). whose contenis resembled the Hesiodie myth. as four
successive empires or monarehies. The idea of four monarchies Babylonian. Medo-Persian.
Macedonizan, and Roman dominate historiography until al least the sixteenth century.
The Roinan Empire. having been designated as lasting to the end of the world, was necessarily
secn as continued by the Bytiantine and Frankish emperors. lHence the emphasis on dating
 periodswithin the fourth andfinalempire by
dynasties and individlual rulers. a chain of dating
which is still routine claSSroom
periodization for much of luropean history. (2) Saint
Augustine's addition of three periods to the tdree 11-gcneration periods from Abraham to C'hrist
which are laid doun in the Bible (Matthen 1.17).
Augustine made it six ages in all.
corresponding to the six days of creation-- five ages from Adanm to Christ and the sixth from
Christ to the end of time. The seventh to come was the Sabbath day or millennium. This scheme
not only influenced Christian chronographers and chroniclers and. since each age came to be
reckoned at 1.000 years. cnabled caleulation ofthe end of the norld: it also produced the modern
conventions of dating. The oldest and longest-lived was by years A.M. (anni mumdi). since the
creation: years A.D. (unni fab incurnationef Domini) appeared in the sixtlh century and years
B.C. (ani cnte Christann [naltm/) in at lcast two works published in the fifteenth century. The
currently widespread belicf that years B.C. first appeared in the eighteenth century is
demonstrably wrong. but it was probably not much before 1700 that the idea of pure
chronological reckoning. or dating by years. emaneipated itself from the periodization schemes
which it subserved in the Christian West.

Modern History
The renascence and development of secular learning from the fifteenth to the eighteenth
centuries. in particular the emergence of history as a discipline very nearly independent of moral
philosophy and rhetoric, produced new concepts of periodization. First, contemporary
scholarship in law, language, and letters created an awareness of the discontinuities in the
etemal Roman Empire: postclassical Latin, for example. was obviously unlike classical Latin. A
second period. a medium aevmm, originally a theological notion. was posited. Christophonus
Cellarius, 1634-1707, though not the lirst to conceive of it (Pot 1951, pp. 113-122: Bernheim
I889. vol. I p. 77,in the 1908 cdition). enunciated the division of history into ancient history (lo
A.D. 31), medieval history (to 1453), and modern history. Despite continuing ditferences about
boundary dates (A.D. 476 for 311: 1485, 1492. or 1517 for 1453), C'ellarius' tripartite division
became, and has remained, the principal accepted periodization for Western history. This is
undoubtedly so because historians have come to regard its significance as pedagogic. as oflering
easily con veyed. broad characterizations of culluraldifferentiation. void of metaphysical and
pseudoscientific speculation. A second product of the revival of secular learning was the
occasional substitution of classical ideas of the mutability of fortune for the Christian ethic.
Aristotelian and Polybian in origin. this notion involved concepts of cyclical revolutions and
Successions of states: being alnost exclusively confined to political philosophy, its impact on

historiography was More persistent was nunericeal periodization. the search for cardinal
slight.
numbers whose recurrence explained the number of years intervening between signiticant
historical events or thieir duration. Partly of Platonic and Pythagorean origin, it was revived by
the political philosopher Jean Bodin, among others. In his Methoaul for the Easy Comprehension
(1 566), he showed the duration of lives of lamous be mult ples of 7 ànd 9, and
men to
of listory
elsewhere he used numerology to establish the likely duration of states (496 years). Numerical
als0 had sanetion: counting the numbers ot
Biblical generations to obtain
periodizalion
chronological divisors goes back to the Old Testamen.

By the eighteenth century, the new had prepared the ground for periodizations as
scholarship
lawlike as those of their Ch1risti an and classical predecessors but explicitly secular and socially
about the
oriented. Under the iniluence of scientific and geographic discovers. of the quarrel
superiority of the moderns over the ancients. and of the spread ol antiabsolutist ideas in politics
and in philosophy. a ariety of lorward looking dotines had conie into being. ThUse are
be a
COnveentt summed up the idea of progress. listory past. present. and future vas to
as
the large accrelions
mirror of the working out olf the successive stages of this idea. ('onversely.manifestations ol the
ot nistorical materials coming to hand were held to be intclligible only
as
doctrines.
perodic and progressive development of one or nore of the new. enlightened
histories which rose above the purely
hroughout the eightecnth and nincteenth centuries.
narrative or factuual level tended o be written on that principle. Its earliest significant
combined the older, cyclical
representative wasthe Italian Giambattista Vico, 1668-4744. He
higher-level cyclical
model with the newer. ,progressive-stage model by positing
a

the ages ol gods.

recurrence (ricorso) of his three-period cycle
(corso). That cycle consisted of
the literary. legal. linguistic. religious. and
heroes. and men. cach age being characterized by which
behavioral developments appropriale to it:
lor example. he development ol thought,
lorms of sensation, imagination, and rationality.
underlay the whole scheme, took the successive

schemes by extending the intellectual

Progressive French thinkers elaborated periodization
their
disdain for the
vOcabulary of progress lo the idea of perfectibility. by showing a Voltairean
a socioeconomic Utopia as the
final
unenlightened Middle. Ages, and sometimes by predicting
and Saint-Simon. 1760-1825. produced three-stage
period. Along these lines Turgot, 1727-1781,
influence. Condorcel sSketch. . .of the Progress of
periodizations of considerable subsequent
the progress of knowledge: significant
the Human Mind (1795) divided history in terins of
culural inventions determined successive stagesfor example, the fourth stage of Condorcet's
and the eighth with printing. In
len-stageperiodization begins with the invention of the alphabet
and Fichte. The climax was
Germany, progressive themes were adumbrated by Kant, Herder, its
reached in the four-stage periodization scheme of Hegel's Philosophy of Histon (1837). In
details-how the embodiment of the idea of the so-called world spitit.
reason.
specific
and the Germanic worlds- the
successively realized itself in the Oriental, the Gréek. the Roman.
French
scheme has not survived its author"'s fame. (That wvas also the fate of its greal
which divided history into a
counterpart. Auguste Comte's Positive Philosophr |18301842].
theological. a metaplhysical, and a scientific period: this was done according to positivist beliets
totally unlike those of the idcalist Hegel. of whose work Comte deelared deliberate ignorance.)
However, Hegel's basic thesis. that di flering historical periods represent successive realizations
of an identical principle, so that meaningless chronological suceession has been subjected to
meaningful logical (dialectical) order. is still with us. Especially in its materialist version, ivith
economic forces in place of the world spirit (as in Marxisnm). it is the only species ol lawIIKe
periodization continuing to make an impact on social seience.