Camden as Antiquarian

In developing this comic vision Camden circumvents traditional narrative techniques and works consistently to establish different ways of speaking of the past. With gratulatory verses from Edward Grant, headmaster of Westminster, George Buck, Master of Revels, friend and librarian to the Palatine in Heidelberg, Janus Gruterus, and German scholar, Caspar Dorn, the Britannia identifies its international readership and its local coterie. What we have had to say about Westminster and Burghley is confirmed in the work's dedication to him, where he is praised as patron of the “bonae litterae” and (in an important conjunction) also of Westminster College, as though the latter were the nursery of the former. In this chapter I want to explore some of the particulars of Camden's methods of writing about the past.

The oft-quoted reference to Abraham Ortelius is very specific in defining Camden's project and what it entails: “to acquaint the World with the ancient State of Britain, that is, to restore Britain to Antiquity, and Antiquity to Britain … illustrate what was obscure, and settle what was doubtful; and upon the whole, to recover (as much as possible) a Certainty in our Affairs” (Preface). In one respect, the enterprise is one of international public relations – to provide the world with a coherent collection of British antiquities, to put together the oldest of what is known of Britain.