Charles Seignobos (b. 10 September 1854 at Lamastre, d. 24 April 1942 at

Ploubazlanec Ploubazlanec (; br, Plaeraneg) is a commune in the Côtes-d'Armor department in Brittany in northwestern France. Historically its economy relied on fishing. Fishermen in the 19th century and early 20th century went to Iceland aboard sailing sh ...

) was a French scholar of

historiography Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians hav ...

and an

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

who specialized in the history of the

French Third Republic The French Third Republic (french: Troisième République, sometimes written as ) was the system of government adopted in France from 4 September 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed during the Franco-Prussian War, until 10 July 194 ...

, and was a member of the Human Rights League.

Biography

Seignobos was born to a Republican Protestant family in 1854 at Lamastre in the

Ardèche Ardèche (; oc, Ardecha; frp, Ardecha) is a department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of Southeastern France. It is named after the river Ardèche and had a population of 328,278 as of 2019.baccalaureat in 1871 at Tournon, where he studied with the French

Symbolist Symbolism was a late 19th-century art movement of French and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts seeking to represent absolute truths symbolically through language and metaphorical images, mainly as a reaction against naturalism and real ...

poet and critic

Stéphane Mallarmé Stéphane Mallarmé ( , ; 18 March 1842 – 9 September 1898), pen name of Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of t ...

. After a stellar academic career at the

École normale supérieure École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education Secondary education or post-primary education covers two phases on the International Standard Classification of Education sca ...

where he took courses with

Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges (; 18 March 1830 – 12 September 1889) was a French historian. Joseph M. McCarthy argues that his first great book, '' The Ancient City'' (1864), was based on his in-depth knowledge of the primary Greek and Latin te ...

and

Ernest Lavisse Ernest Lavisse (; 17 December 184218 August 1922) was a French historian. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature five times. Biography He was born at Le Nouvion-en-Thiérache, Aisne. In 1865 he obtained a fellowship in history, an ...

, he completed a degree in history. Afterwards, he moved to Germany where he studied for two years, spending most of his time in

Göttingen Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, t ...

Berlin Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

, and

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

. Named to a tenured position as Maître de conférences at the

University of Burgundy The University of Burgundy (french: Université de Bourgogne, uB; formerly known as ''Université de Dijon'') is a public university located in Dijon, France. The University of Burgundy is situated on a large campus (more than 150 ha) in the east ...

in 1879 and a professor at the Écoles des hautes études internationales et politiques (HEI-HEP), he defended his doctoral thesis in 1881, and then was named to a position at the

Sorbonne Sorbonne may refer to: * Sorbonne (building), historic building in Paris, which housed the University of Paris and is now shared among multiple universities. *the University of Paris (c. 1150 – 1970) *one of its components or linked institution, ...

. He is regarded, along with his friend the physiologist

Louis Lapicque Louis Édouard Lapicque (1 August 1866 – 6 December 1952) was a French neuroscientist, socialist activist, antiboulangist, dreyfusard and freemason who was very influential in the early 20th century. One of his main contributions was to propo ...

, as one of the two founders of the scientific and humanistic community "Sorbonne-Plage" at L'Arcouest in Ploubazlanec, near

Paimpol Paimpol (; ) is a commune in the Côtes-d'Armor department in Brittany in northwest France. It is a tourist destination, especially during the summer months when people are attracted by its port and beaches. Geography The town is located in t ...

. (Marie Curie had a house constructed there and moved there in 1912).Hervé Queillé, L'Arcouest. Les héritiers de Sorbonne-Plage 16 août 2013 rchivesur le site du Télégramme (consulté le 7 février 2015). His brother Raymond Seignobos succeeded their father (who had been a mayor for just a few weeks in 1870) as Mayor of Lamastre from 1895 to 1914. Charles Seignobos died in April 1942 after having been placed under house arrest at

Brittany Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica during the period o ...

. Considered along with

Charles-Victor Langlois Charles-Victor Langlois (May 26, 1863, in Rouen – June 25, 1929, in Paris) was a French historian, archivist and paleographer, who specialized in the study of the Middle Ages and was a lecturer at the Sorbonne, where he taught paleography, bibl ...

as one of the leading proponents of the historical method, Seignobos wrote a number of works on political history which implemented the German historical method, benefiting from his excellent knowledge of linguistic particulars in

documentary research Documentary research is the use of outside sources, documents, to support the viewpoint or argument of an academic work. The process of documentary research Research is "creativity, creative and systematic work undertaken to increase th ...

in English and German. He is, as a result of his critical reading of manuscripts, regarded as one of the major figures in the history of the historical method. To emphasize the importance of primary sources, Seignobos and Langlois in their handbook ''"L’Introduction aux études historiques"'' (1897) coined the famous maxime ''"L'histoire se fait avec des documents"''.

Notes and references

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Seignobos, Charles University of Paris faculty Human Rights League (France) members École Normale Supérieure alumni 1854 births 1942 deaths