The monograph is devoted to the evolution of Western European historiography in the XVI-XVII centuries. and a comprehensive cultural and historical analysis of the phenomena that determined the development of historical knowledge in this period. It is based on a comparative analysis of the processes of formation of regional schools of historiography (English antiquaries and French polymaths) and their subsequent transformation, which ended by the end of the 17th century with the formation of national historiographic traditions. The context that determines the semantic unity of the monograph is the process of the formation of national states in England and France, which dictated a stable demand for strengthening nationally oriented discourses not only in the field of historical knowledge, but also in the legal and political thought of the era.