Thursday, July 07, 2011

Henri Pirenne, Sedulius de Liège

"l'ultima monografia affidabile su Sedulio è quella del 1882 di Henri Pirenne." Michael Lapidge, 'L'Irlanda e gli Irlandesi nell'alto medioevo', L'Irlanda e gli Irlandesi nell'alto medioevo. Atti del convegno: Spoleto, 16-21 aprile 2009, Settimane di studio della Fondazione Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo (Spoleto, 2010),  pp. 1-32, at 30. 
A work of scholarship informed at least in part by civic pride - its subject, the Irish pereginus Sedulius Scottus, and its locally-born author were both scholarly sons of Liège - Pirenne's 70-page work was written in the course of his studies with Godefroid Kurth. It seems to have been the result of a rare moment when the interests of student and teacher overlapped. Born in 1862, Pirenne was only nineteen when it was published. Shortly after Professor Collard of the University of Louvain reviewed the work in the 'bibliographie philologique' section of Louvain's own Revue des sciences et des lettres I.1 (1882). He was stirred: "M. Henri Pirenne a fait un beau travail qui l'honore autant que son maître. Nous espérons bien qu'il n'en restera pas là: il est encore tant de pages de notre histoire nationale qui ont besoin d'être éclaircies! Que les élèves studieux de nos Universités y mettent la main, guides par les sages conseils d'habiles et infatigables professeurs!" Pirenne would, of course, do much of the work Collard called for himself, not least in his seven volume Histoire de Belgique (1899-1932). A wry and knowing review can be found in the Dublin Review for 1883 here. (It is anonymous and too early to be by Mario Esposito ...). For Pirenne, Kurth and Sedulius: B.D. Lyon, Henri Pirenne: a biographical and intellectual study (Ghent, 1974), pp. 34-6, 40-6. 

H. Pirenne, Sedulius de LiègeMémoires couronnés publiés par l'Académie royale de Belgique 33.4 (1882), pp. 3-73.

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