Charles Homer Haskins (December 21, 1870 – May 14, 1937) was a history professor at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

. He was an American historian of the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

, and advisor to U.S. President

Woodrow Wilson Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...

. He is widely recognized as the first academic medieval historian in the United States.

Biography

Haskins was born in

Meadville, Pennsylvania Meadville is a city in and the county seat of Crawford County, Pennsylvania. The city is within of Erie and within of Pittsburgh. It was the first permanent settlement in Northwestern Pennsylvania. The population was 13,388 at the 2010 ce ...

.Charles Homer Haskin
''The rise of universities''
Ithaca:

Cornell University Press The Cornell University Press is the university press of Cornell University; currently housed in Sage House, the former residence of Henry William Sage. It was first established in 1869, making it the first university publishing enterprise in ...

, 1923, 1957, p. v. He was a prodigy, fluent in both Latin and Greek while still a young boy, taught by his father. He graduated from

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consi ...

at the age of 16, and then studied in Paris and Berlin. He received a Ph.D. in history from

and began teaching there before the age of 20. In 1890, he was appointed instructor at the

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United Stat ...

, became a full professor in two years, and from 1892 to 1902 held the European history chair there.F. M. Powicke
"Charles Homer Haskins"
''

The English Historical Review ''The English Historical Review'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal that was established in 1886 and published by Oxford University Press (formerly Longman). It publishes articles on all aspects of history – British, European, and ...

'', vol. 52, no. 208 (Oct., 1937), p. 649. In 1902 he moved to

, where he taught until 1931. Haskins became politically involved enough to become a close advisor of U.S. President

, whom he had met at Johns Hopkins. When Wilson attended the

Paris Peace Conference of 1919 Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...

where the

Treaty of Versailles The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June 1 ...

was drawn up, he brought only three advisors including Haskins, who served as chief of the Western European division of the American commission. He died on May 14, 1937 in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...

. His widow died in 1970.

Legacy

He was primarily a historian of institutions, like medieval universities and governments. His works reflect the mostly twentieth-century optimistic, liberal view that progressive government by "the best and brightest" is the way to go. His histories of medieval Europe's institutions stress the efficiency and successes of their governing bureaucracies, implicitly analogous to those of modern

nation states A nation state is a political unit where the state and nation are congruent. It is a more precise concept than "country", since a country does not need to have a predominant ethnic group. A nation, in the sense of a common ethnicity, may ...

. Haskins's most well known pupil was medieval historian

Joseph Strayer Joseph Reese Strayer (1904–1987) was an American medievalist historian. He was a student of and mentored by Charles Homer Haskins, America's first prominent medievalist historian. Life Strayer taught at Princeton University for many decades, st ...

, who went on to teach many American medievalists of the next generation(s) at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

, some still active today. Other eminent medievalists trained by Haskins included Lynn White, Jr. (UCLA), Gaines Post (Wisconsin and Princeton), Carl Stephenson (Cornell), Edgar B. Graves (Hamilton College), and John R. Williams (Dartmouth). The Haskins Society, named in his honor was organized in 1982, a "Founding Father" being the late C. Warren Hollister. It publishes an annual ''Journal'' whose volume 11 (2003) reconsidered Haskins' magnum opus seventy years after its publication. From 1920 to 1926, he was also the first chairman of the

American Council of Learned Societies American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...

, which still offers a distinguished lecture series named after him. His son

George Haskins George Lee Haskins (February 13, 1915 – October 4, 1991) was an American legal scholar and the Algernon Sydney Biddle Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Biography Haskins was the son of medievalist Charles Homer Ha ...

was a

University of Pennsylvania Law School The University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School (also known as Penn Law or Penn Carey Law) is the law school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is among the most selective and oldes ...

professor.

''The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century''

Haskins' most famous work is ''The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century'' (1927). The word "Renaissance," even to historians in the early 20th century, meant the 15th-century

Italian Renaissance The Italian Renaissance ( it, Rinascimento ) was a period in Italian history covering the 15th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Europe and marked the trans ...

, as defined by 19th-century Swiss historian

Jakob Burckhardt Carl Jacob Christoph Burckhardt (25 May 1818 – 8 August 1897) was a Swiss historian of art and culture and an influential figure in the historiography of both fields. He is known as one of the major progenitors of cultural history. Sigf ...

in his ''The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy''. Haskins opened a broader view when he asserted, "The continuity of history rejects violent contrasts between successive periods, and modern research shows the Middle Ages less dark and less static, the Renaissance less bright and less sudden, than was once supposed. The Italian Renaissance was preceded by similar, if less wide-reaching, movements." Haskins' fresh assessment of a sort of pre-renaissance, ushering in the

High Middle Ages The High Middle Ages, or High Medieval Period, was the periodization, period of European history that lasted from AD 1000 to 1300. The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and were followed by the Late Middle Ages, which ended ...

around 1070, was resisted by some scholars at first. His approach was broader than a mere literary revival: he stated in his preface that he found that 12th-century Europe Haskins focused on high culture to prove that the 12th century was indeed a period of dynamic growth. He looked at the history of art and science, the universities, philosophy, architecture and literature, and provided a celebratory view of the period. More recent views of the renewal have expanded the focus.Robert L. Benson and

Giles Constable Giles Constable (1 June 1929 – 17 January 2021) was a historian of the Middle Ages. Constable was mainly interested in the religion and culture of the 11th and 12th centuries, in particular the abbey of Cluny and its abbot Peter the Vener ...

, eds., ''Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century'' Once the ice had been broken, other scholars concentrated on an earlier, more constrained revival of learning in some circles under the patronage of

Charlemagne Charlemagne ( , ) or Charles the Great ( la, Carolus Magnus; german: Karl der Große; 2 April 747 – 28 January 814), a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the first E ...

, and began talking and thinking of a "

Carolingian Renaissance The Carolingian Renaissance was the first of three medieval renaissances, a period of cultural activity in the Carolingian Empire. It occurred from the late 8th century to the 9th century, taking inspiration from the Christian Roman Empire of t ...

" of the ninth century. By 1960,

Erwin Panofsky Erwin Panofsky (March 30, 1892 in Hannover – March 14, 1968 in Princeton, New Jersey) was a German-Jewish art historian, whose academic career was pursued mostly in the U.S. after the rise of the Nazi regime. Panofsky's work represents a high ...

could write of ''Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art''. Less wide-ranging was Haskins' earlier study of the

Normans The Normans ( Norman: ''Normaunds''; french: Normands; la, Nortmanni/Normanni) were a population arising in the medieval Duchy of Normandy from the intermingling between Norse Viking settlers and indigenous West Franks and Gallo-Romans. ...

, ''Norman Institutions'' (1918), which still forms the basis of current scholarly understanding of how medieval Normandy functioned. He also wrote the more popular book ''The Normans in European History'' (1915).

Works

''The Yazoo Land Companies.''
New York: The Knickerbocker Press, 1891.
''A History of Higher Education in Pennsylvania.''
Washington: Government Printing Office, 1902 (with William I. Hull).
''The Normans in European History.''
Boston: Houghton, Mifflin Company, 1915.
''Norman Institutions.''
Harvard University Press, 1918.
''Some Problems of the Peace Conference.''
Harvard University Press, 1920 (with Robert Howard Lord).

New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1923.
''Studies in the History of Mediæval Science.''
Harvard University Press, 1924. * ''The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century.'' Harvard University Press, 1927.
''Studies in Mediaeval Culture.''
New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1958 (1st Pub. 1929).

Selected articles

"The Vatican Archives,"
''The American Historical Review'', Vol. 2, No. 1, 1896.
"The Life of Medieval Students as Illustrated by their Letters,"
''The American Historical Review'', Vol. 3, No. 2, 1898.
"Opportunities for American Students of History at Paris,"
''The American Historical Review'', Vol. 3, No. 3, 1898.
"Robert Le Bougre and the Beginnings of the Inquisition in Northern France,"Part II
''The American Historical Review'', Vol. 7, No. 3/4, 1902.
"The Early Norman Jury,"
''The American Historical Review'', Vol. 8, No. 4, 1903.
"The University of Paris in the Sermons of the Thirteenth Century,"
''The American Historical Review'', Vol. 10, No. 1, 1904.
"The Sources for the History of the Papal Penitentiary,"
''The American Journal of Theology'', Vol. 9, No. 3, 1905.
"Normandy Under William The Conqueror,"
''The American Historical Review'', Vol. 14, No. 3, 1909.
"A List of Text-Books from the Close of the Twelfth Century,"
''Harvard Studies in Classical Philology'', Vol. 20, 1909.
"The Sicilian Translators of the Twelfth Century and the First Latin Version of Ptolemy's Almagest,"
''Harvard Studies in Classical Philology'', Vol. 21, 1910.
"A Canterbury Monk at Constantinople, c. 1090,"
''The English Historical Magazine'', Vol. 25, 1910.
"Adelard of Bath,"
''The English Historical Review,'' Vol. 26, 1911.
"England and Sicily in the Twelfth Century,"Part II
''The English Historical Review,'' Vol. 26, 1911.
"The Inquest of 1171 in the Avranchin,"
''The English Historical Review,'' Vol. 26, 1911.
"Further Notes on Sicilian Translations of the Twelfth Century,"
''Harvard Studies in Classical Philology'', Vol. 23, 1912.
"The Government of Normandy Under Henry II,"
''The American Historical Review'', Vol. 20, No. 1, 1914.
"Mediaeval Versions of the Posterior Analytics,"
''Harvard Studies in Classical Philology'', Vol. 25, 1914.
"The Government of Normandy Under Henry II,"
''The American Historical Review'', Vol. 20, No. 2, 1915.
"The Reception of Arabic Science in England,"
''The English Historical Review'', Vol. 30, 1915.
"Charles Gross: From the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for December, 1915,"
Boston, 1916.
"The Materials for the History of Robert I of Normandy,"
''The English Historical Review'', Vol. 31, 1916.
"A Charter of Canute for Fécamp,"
''The English Historical Review'', Vol. 33, 1918.
"Leo Tuscus,"
''The English Historical Review'', Vol. 33, 1918.
"The Greek Element in the Renaissance of the Twelfth Century,"
''The American Historical Review'', Vol. 25, No. 4, 1920.
"The 'De Arte Venandi Cum Avibus' of the Emperor Frederick II,"
''The English Historical Review,'' Vol. 36, 1921.
"Science at the Court of the Emperor Frederick II,"
''The American Historical Review'', Vol. 27, No. 4, 1922.
"The Saar Territory as It Is Today,"
''Foreign Affairs'', Vol. 1, No. 2, 1922.

Notes

External links

* *
"Charles Homer Haskins"
In ''

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'' Online.
A brief analysis of Haskins, ''Renaissance of the Twelfth Century''Haskins Society webpageACLS Charles Homer Haskins lecture seriesNorman Institutions (1918)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Haskins, Charles H. 1870 births 1937 deaths American medievalists Presidents of the American Historical Association Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America Harvard University faculty Johns Hopkins University alumni Johns Hopkins University faculty People from Meadville, Pennsylvania University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty Corresponding Fellows of the British Academy