Referring to a book by A. Eriksen (Oslo 2007) the author discusses the development of the Norwegian historiography of the 17th–18th centuries and attempts to determine the role played by the so called “topographers”, who represented the antiquarian and/or erudite approach to historical writing.

The main topic of this paper focuses on the interdependencies between the 16th century historian’s craft and the legendary origo gentis. Two specific examples would be analysed: Marcin Kromer’s Sarmatian origine of the Poles and Nicolaus Petreius’s Cimbrian origine of the Danes. The general presentation of non‑political and non‑ideological presumptions for accepting the mythical past known from the medieval texts delivers the background on which it can be grasped, how Early Modern historians treated that tradition. The analysis of the working methods would be also preceeded by showing the variety of approaches observed in terms of the topic: when dealing with the ethogenetic theories, the historians decided to use polemical oration/treatise as the main form. Another form: the legendary history was applied for presenting the past “before” and “after” the process of shaping the nation/state. The scholarly methods used by both historians included both tradition and novelty: ethymological deductions, endorsment of the classical authorities (and obviously, the Bible), forgery, but at the same time impressive erudition and attempts to addopt some historical criticism.

This paper focuses on the development of critical methods and the growth of the erudite school in 18th-century Denmark-Norway. It shows how Hans Gram, Andreas Hojer and Jacob Langebek contributed to modernizing the study of history, turning it into a branch of science