Archives – XLI, 2011, 3-4

Marc Boone, Claire Billen & Sarah Keymeulen [eds.]
Henri Pirenne (1862-1935): a Belgian historian and the development of social and historical sciences

Sarah Keymeulen, Introduction. [287-293]

The Socio-economic Historian

Martha Howell, Pirenne, commerce, and capitalism: the missing parts. [297-322]

This essay argues that although Pirenne ignored consumption and gender in his account of the origins of capitalism and its links to commerce, his emphasis on the political tensions born of long-distance commerce and his studies of the late medieval textile industry point to the connections between capitalism, consumption, and gender.

Erik Thoen & Eric Vanhaute, Pirenne and economic and social theory: influences, methods and reception. [323-353]

This article examines the origins and the originality of the ideas and the methodology in the economic writings of Henri Pirenne, and analyses the impact of his work on economic history up to the present day.

Kaat Wils, Everyman his own sociologist. Henri Pirenne and disciplinary boundaries around 1900. [355-380]

Henri Pirenne witnessed early on in his career the attempts to gain academic acceptance and visibility for the new field of sociology. He understood it presented challenges to history. The kind of social and economic history he envisaged came very close in its content to this early sociology, and was often associated with it. This did not imply a very open attitude, however. For Pirenne, sociology as a discipline was essentially a promise that, at least in concrete terms, remained unfulfilled. The high intellectual visibility of sociology did, however, encourage him to clearly define the specific character of his own discipline.

The Modern Historian

Jo Tollebeek, Pirenne and Fredericq. Historiographical ambitions around 1900. [383-409]

For almost four decades, Paul Fredericq and Henri Pirenne shared their lives, first in the small academic community of the university of Ghent, later – in the Great War – as prisoners of the German occupiers. In this article, both historians are considered as the personifications of the new historiographical ambitions which were taking hold around 1900.

Jean-Louis Kupper, Godefroid Kurth and Henri Pirenne. An improbable friendship. [411-426]

The friendship between Kurth and Pirenne was not only scientific but also sentimental. Kurth is partly the source of inspiration of Pirenne's work Mahomet and Charlemagne.

Geneviève Warland, Henri Pirenne and Karl Lamprecht's Kulturgeschichte. Intellectual transfer or théorie fumeuse? [427-455]

The first part of the article focuses on Lamprecht's and Pirenne's eagerness to develop a professional and international historical science. The second part analyses the actual impact of Lamprecht's Kulturgeschichte on Pirenne's Histoire de Belgique. This impact was selective and partial like most cases of cultural transfer.

The Community Builder

Claire Billen & Marc Boone, Pirenne in Brussels before 1930. Guillaume Des Marez and the relationship between a master and his student. [459-485]

Guillaume Des Marez was Pirenne's preferred student. In order to assure his student and friend Des Marez of a strong academic and professional position, Pirenne mobilised all of his networks. Both their relationship and Des Marez' career illustrate in an outspoken way which social transformations were, at the start of the 20th century, at work in the academic and scientific world.

Christophe Verbruggen & Lewis Pyenson, History and the history of science in the work of Hendrik De Man. [487-511]

Hendrik De Man, politician and political theorist in the Marxist tradition, was one of the principal advocates of technocratic central planning in the 1930s. The essay examines De Man's earlier intellectual and social affinity with historian Henri Pirenne and historian of science George Sarton (1884-1956).

The National Historian

Philippe Raxhon, History and commemorations: the Pirenne agenda. [515-531]

From the very start of his career Henri Pirenne enjoyed an important public recognition. After the Great War he even became a national icon. Although he was very often asked to address the public at specific commemorative occasions or to contribute in writing to a book of remembrance, he has been reluctant to reach out to the general public. What he preferred was a more general almost theoretical reflection, bypassing the concrete circumstance. To safeguard his stance as a historian and of a man of science, without denying his patriotic ideals was in his eyes of the greatest importance.

Sophie De Schaepdrijver, "That Theory of Races". Henri Pirenne on the unfinished business of the Great War. [533-552]

In November 1919, the Belgian medievalist Henri Pirenne interpreted wartime Germany as an empire led astray by a "pernicious race theory," which continued to sway postwar German perspectives. This article argues that Pirenne was correct in criticising Weimar-era essentialism and links the völkisch perspective to the German military occupations of the First World War.

Walter Prevenier, "Ceci n'est pas un historien". Construction and deconstruction of Henri Pirenne. [553-573]

Several images of Pirenne should be critically deconstructed: founding father of the Ghent historical school, icon of the nation-state Belgium, talent for combination of suggestive synthesis and classical erudition, impact of liberal and democratic ideology.

Sarah Keymeulen, Conclusion: Towards a new intellectual biography of Pirenne. [575-581]

Doctorale proefschriften – Thèses de doctorat. [583-610]

K. AERTS, "Repressie zonder maat of einde?" De juridische re-integratie van incivieken in de Belgische Staat na de Tweede Wereldoorlog. [583] W. RONSIJN, Commerce and the countryside. The role of urban weekly markets in Flemish rural society. [598]