Popular Autobiography in Early Modern Europe: many questions, a few answers

Resumen

This article deals with diverse aspects of what may be called a "second autobiographical revolution" -the rise of autobiography to the status of most favored source among historians. This new situation of privilege is due in large measure to the tendency to attribute to these sources the all too little discussed condition of "witness". Following some remarks on the work of Marc Bloch, a historian who devoted distinctive attention to the question of witness, it examines the specific case of artisans who wrote autobiographical texts during the early modern era. To that end it summarizes several strategies for the study of these documents, particularly those contextual approaches aimed at reconstructing the wide range of motivations of artisan autobiographers.