Historical Figures Codexery

Georges Duby

French medieval historian and public intellectual.

Georges Duby, a historian of the Middle Ages focusing on social and economic aspects, was born on 7 October 1919.[1] The Bibliothèque de la Pléiade released a collection of his writings in 2019.[2]

Quick Facts

Born
7 October 1919
Birthplace
Paris, France
Died
3 December 1996
Place of death
Le Tholonet, France
Fields
Social and economic history of the Middle Ages
Education
University of Lyon; University of Paris Faculty of Humanities

Facts from the source article.

Life and work

His reputation as a scholar is attached to his first monograph, La société aux XIe et XIIe siècles dans la région mâconnaise, published from his 1952 doctoral thesis.[3] That work placed the study of medieval feudal society on an entirely new footing.[3] Duby formulated a famous theory that the Crusades attracted iuvenes, young knights with little prospect of becoming lords, seeking fortunes abroad.[4] In 1942, he obtained a bachelor's degree in Lyon, and in 1952, under the supervision of Charles-Edmond Perrin, he finished his doctoral dissertation at the Sorbonne.[5]

Duby believed historians should be public figures, making history engaging and meaningful for contemporary audiences.[6]

What the cited sources add

The Collège de France website notes that Duby’s inaugural lecture on 4 December 1970 outlined a method seeking "l’homme vivant sous la poussière des archives et dans le silence des musées"[7] He paid particular attention to kinship relations and matrimonial practices to illustrate the "vie privée" of medieval people and the place of women.[7] A France Culture broadcast reports that Duby described his teaching as "l’accablant fardeau" that provoked anxiety but also the obligation to constantly surpass himself.[8] The same source notes that Duby "soigne son écriture non pas pour enjoliver sa prose, mais bien pour circonscrire au plus près de cette intelligibilité historienne"[8]

The Académie française records that Duby studied history and geography at the faculty of letters in Lyon.[9] On 18 June 1987, he was elected to the Académie française, taking the seat previously held by Marcel Arland.[9]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Georges Duby" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Abels, "The Historiography of a Construct: 'Feudalism' and the Medieval Historian", History Compass, 2009, p. 1018 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Georges Duby" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Patrick Boucheron, « Georges Duby est (encore) un collègue », L'Histoire, No 467, janvier 2020, p. 18-19 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Georges Duby" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Au grand soleil de l'historien Georges Duby", La Croix, 3 October 2019 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "Georges Duby" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Kostick, "The Social Structure of the First Crusade", Brill, 2008, p. 289–300 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Georges Duby" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Les agrégés de l'enseignement secondaire. Répertoire 1809–1960 Ressources numériques en histoire de l'éducation", rhe.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr; Revue historique, no 209, 1953, p. 209-212 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Georges Duby" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Duby, "History Continues", University of Chicago Press, 1997, p. 89 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  7. "Georges Duby – Histoire des sociétés médiévales", www.college-de-france.fr, 11 April 2022. facts only, no text reused. college-de-france.fr
  8. "Les Cours du Collège de France : Lundi 25 décembre 2017 : épisode 11/8 du podcast (Huit leçons lues)", France Culture, 25 December 2017. facts only, no text reused. franceculture.fr
  9. "Georges DUBY Académie française", www.academie-francaise.fr. facts only, no text reused. academie-francaise.fr

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Georges Duby (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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