Léon Gautier (historian)

Léon Gautier (8 August 1832 – 25 August 1897) was a French literary historian and archivist. He was born in Le Havre and died in Paris.

The son of Théodore Gautier,^[1] a language teacher born in Alençon in 1797, Léon lost his mother at the age of three. He was raised in Paris by his aunt, Madame Moyat, the widow of an Imperial colonel.

His father enrolled him at the Lycée de Laval, where his future colleague Jules Oppert was his professor from 1845 to 1851. He completed his studies as a boarding student at the Collège Sainte-Barbe from 1853 to 1855,^[2] alongside another future colleague, Michel Bréal.^[3]

Gautier studied at the École des Chartes from 1852 to 1855, where he obtained the diploma of archivist-paleographer with a thesis entitled Essai sur la poésie liturgique au Moyen Âge : proses, tropes, offices rimés, suivi d’une histoire de la versification latine à la même époque ("Essay on liturgical poetry in the Middle Ages: proses, tropes, rhymed offices, followed by a history of Latin versification in the same period").^[4]

It was at the École des Chartes that he wrote his first Essays on Liturgical Poetry in the Middle Ages, the subject of his thesis. He had conceived the project of creating a comprehensive work on proses, tropes, and rhymed offices. He wished to write the history of this poetry and assemble a truly complete collection, where the chants of all the Churches of Christendom, gathered side by side, would give the work a real character of universality. This project was realized through the publication of the Poetic Works of Adam of Saint-Victor (considered the greatest Latin liturgical poet of the Middle Ages) and by the History of Liturgical Poetry in the Middle Ages.

In the latter volume, he addressed the question of tropes interpolated into the pontifical text of the Catholic liturgy. He detailed the nature, origin, and vicissitudes of these pieces of the office, which are intimately linked to the history of Latin poetry, music, and theatre in the Middle Ages. In his original research, Gautier traced the development of tropes and demonstrated how proses emerged from them, followed by the small satirical poems sung by student monks during recreation—a work of scholarship achieved through the study of manuscripts. He thus showed the resources offered by liturgical monuments in assessing the spirit and habits of medieval religious society.^[5]

Upon leaving the École des Chartes, he was immediately attached as secretary to François Guessard, whom the Ministry of Public Instruction had just entrusted with the direction of the collection Anciens Poètes de la France ("Ancient Poets of France"). Accompanying Guessard to Switzerland and Italy, Gautier discovered at the Marciana Library in Venice a small French poem by an Italian author. He highlighted its interest and merit by analyzing it in the Bibliothèque de l'École des chartes under the title Entrée en Espagne ("Entry into Spain"), thus preluding his studies on the origin of national literary history to which his name would remain attached.^[5]

His scientific works were devoted to the history of epic poetry of the Middle Ages in France, to chivalry, and to paleography, but his most famous works are on literary history and earned him high academic rewards on several occasions. The first volume of Épopées françaises ("French Epics") appeared at a time when the literate public still had only very vague notions about old French literature. Gautier brought order and clarity to the singularly complex history of French epic poetry by summarizing and popularizing in a new form all the works that had dealt with the epic literature of France, and by completing these works with the results of his own research. On two occasions, the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres awarded him the Second Prix Gobert for Volume I and the first part of Volume II; in 1868, it awarded him the Grand Prix Gobert after the publication of Volume III.^[5]

The definitive text he provided of The Song of Roland made his name almost popular. His critical edition of this text, long known only to scholars and a few curiosities, became a classic studied in schools after 1872. More than twenty-five editions attest to the ever-growing success of this 11th-century epic masterpiece. He himself stated in the preface to the popular illustrated edition of the Chanson de Roland (1881, Mame) that one of the great joys of his life was seeing the inclusion of the Chanson de Roland in the Agrégation curriculum in 1878, and subsequently in the high school curriculum. The Académie des Inscriptions rewarded his work with the Second Prix Gobert in 1878, and the Académie française awarded him the Prix Guizot in 1875 for the same work.

As a continuation and complement to his previous works, Gautier published in 1884 a study of medieval mores based on poetic documents, titled La Chevalerie ("Chivalry"). He described this institution through the representation of one of its representatives; chivalry as a whole is summarized in the story of a single knight. From birth to death, every episode of the baron's life gives rise to clarifications and precious details borrowed from texts well known to the author. The text is elucidated by well-chosen technical figures, and the scope, restricted to the era of Philip Augustus, allowed him to bring great precision to the study of the monuments. The Académie française awarded him the Grand Prix Gobert in 1884 for this work.

Appointed archivist of the Haute-Marne department at the end of 1856, he held this post for two years before entering the Imperial Archives on 1 March 1859. He remained there for 38 years, replacing the historian Siméon Luce as head of the historical section in 1893. Appointed professor of paleography at the École des Chartes in 1871, he continued his teaching there for over twenty-five years until his death.

He was elected a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in 1887. A Knight of the Order of St. Gregory the Great in 1864, he was named a Knight of the Legion of Honour in 1870.

He contributed numerous articles on literature, its history, and its polemics to various newspapers and journals. He also wrote a number of pamphlets on religious polemics.^[6]

• Comment faut-il juger le Moyen Âge ? ("How Should We Judge the Middle Ages?"), Paris, 1858.
• Quelques mots sur l’étude de la paléographie ("A Few Words on the Study of Paleography"), Paris, 1858.
• Essai d’une théorie catholique de l’origine du langage ("Essay on a Catholic Theory of the Origin of Language"), Paris, 1858.
• L’Entrée en Espagne, chanson de geste inédite, Paris, 1858.
• Œuvres poétiques d’Adam of Saint-Victor, 1858-59.
• Définition catholique de l’histoire ("Catholic Definition of History"), Paris, 1860.
• L’Amour par un catholique ("Love by a Catholic"), Paris, 1860.
• Scènes et nouvelles catholiques, Paris, 1861.
• Études littéraires pour la défense de l’Église (in-18). Paris: Vve Poussielgue et fils. 1865.
• Les Épopées françaises ("French Epics"), 1865-1868.
• La Chanson de Roland (critical text, 1872).
• Portraits contemporains et questions actuelles, 1873.
• Benoit XI: étude sur la papauté au commencement du XIX^e siècle. Angers: Alfred Mame. 1874. OCLC 797005070.
• Lettres d’un catholique ("Letters of a Catholic"), 1876.
• La Chanson de Roland (popular edition), 1881.
• La Chevalerie. Paris: Sanard et Derangeon. 1883. pp. xv, 850. OCLC 889530812. (Crowned by the Académie française)
• Histoire de la poésie liturgique au Moyen Âge : les tropes, 1886.
• Portraits du XIX^e siècle. 1. Poètes et romanciers ("Poets and Novelists"), 1894-95.
• Portraits du XIX^e siècle. 2. Historiens et critiques ("Historians and Critics"), 1894-95.
• Portraits du XIX^e siècle. 3. Apologistes ("Apologists"), 1894-1895.
• Portraits du XIX^e siècle. 4. Nos adversaires et nos amis ("Our Adversaries and Our Friends"), 1894-95.
• Portraits du XVII^e siècle suivis d'études sur les deux derniers siècles, 1894-95.
• Bibliographie des chansons de geste, 1897.

• "Bibliography of Léon Gautier on Gallica".
• "Léon Gautier in Bibliothèque de l'école des chartes".