The ways of life and customs of peoples inhabiting the northern regions of Europe concerned even the earliest historiographers, such as Herodotos (c. 484–between 430 and 420 BCE) and Tacitus (c. 55–120 CE). Nevertheless, the first genuinely valid data regarding peoples of the Finno-Ugric language family can be found only much later, in the works of writers living from the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries: Mathias de Miechow, Sigismundus Herberstein, Olaus Magnus (1490–1557), Michael Agricola (1508–1557), Alessandro Guagnino, Nicolaes Witsen (1641–1717), Johannes Schefferus (1621–1679), Nicolaie Spataru (1663–1708), and Adam Olearius (1603–1671), among others. The information conveyed by these writers in their religious, geographical, ethnographical, or historical texts has proved to be a valuable contribution not only to social history and ethnography, but to the history of their religion(s) as well.

Foundations of Eighteenth-Century Study

The eighteenth century was a time of great journeys and discoveries as well as the publication of travel literature...