Godefroid Kurth (11 May 1847 – 4 January 1916) was a Belgian historian and pioneering Christian democrat. He is known for his histories of the city of Liège in the Middle Ages and of Belgium, his Catholic account of the formation of modern Europe in Les Origines de la civilisation moderne, and his defence of the medieval guild system.

Early life

Godefroid Kurth was born on 11 May 1847 in Arlon, the capital of the Belgian province of Luxembourg. His father, a former soldier from Cologne who was naturalized as a Belgian in 1842, became a police commissioner in Arlon but died in 1850. That same year he was appointed French master at the Athénée royal de Liège.

Academic career

In 1873, Kurth became the first person to be awarded the "special doctorate in historical sciences", for a dissertation on Cato the Elder. He was a member of the committee that organized the Exposition de l'art ancien au Pays de Liège for the 1905 International exposition in Liège.

In 1906, Kurth was promoted to emeritus status and left the university to take up the position of director of the Belgian Historical Institute in Rome. In 1908, a Festschrift was published in his honor, Mélanges Godefriod Kurth (Université de Liège, 1908). Halkin said of him, "Godefroid Kurth [was] the last of the romantic historians and the first of the 'technical' historians in Belgium."

Political and social thought

In Liège, Kurth encountered difficulties because of his strongly held Catholic views, which were considered ultramontane by his contemporaries. He was an active member of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul. In 1873, he was elected president of the Cercle catholique de l'Est, one of the predecessor bodies to the Catholic Party, which Kurth played a role in founding. He was also a pioneer of Christian democracy, helping organize the Social Congresses held in Liège in 1886, 1887, and 1890 that gave shape to Catholic social teaching.

Honours and awards

  • Prix quinquennal des Sciences historiques (1891)
  • Commander in the Order of St Gregory the Great (1906)
  • Commander in the Order of Leopold (1907)
  • Honorary Doctorate of the Catholic University of Leuven (1912)

Works

Godefroid Kurth wrote over 500 books and journal articles, including contributions to the Catholic Encyclopedia. His "style is consciously literary, lively, and flamboyant. However, Kurth's version of history is notably technical, founded on rigorous principles of historical criticism, extensive mastery of philology and profound knowledge of the sources and other works." and La cité de Liège au Moyen-âge (1909–1910) remain indispensable reference works.

Books

  • Caton l'ancien, étude biographique (Bruges, Daveluy, 1872), online
  • Analectes pour servir à l’histoire d’Arlon (Arlon, Institut archéologique du Luxembourg, 1880)
  • Les origines de la ville de Liège (Liège, L. Grandmont-Danders, 1883)
  • Les Origines de la civilisation moderne (Louvain, Ch. Peeters, 1886), online
  • Histoire poétique des Mérovingiens (Brussels, Société belge de librairie, 1893), online
  • La Frontière linguistique en Belgique et dans le nord de la France (Brussels, Société belge de librairie, 1896)
  • Das deutsche Belgien und der Deutsche Verein (Arlon and Aubel, Willems, 1896)
  • Clovis, le fondateur (Paris, Éditions Tallandier, 1896; reprinted 2000, )
  • Clovis (Tours, Alfred Mame et Fils, 1906), online
  • L'Église aux tournants de l'histoire (Brussels, Société belge de librairie, 1900)
  • Saint Boniface (Paris, Lecoffre, 1902), online
  • Notger de Liège et la civilisation au Xe siècle (Paris, Brussels and Liège, A. Picard, O. Schepens, and L. Demarteau, 1905), online
  • La Cité de Liège au Moyen-Âge (3 vols., Liège, Dewit, Cormaux et Demarteau, 1909–1910), vol. 1, vol. 2, vol. 3
  • Etude critique sur Jean d'Outremeuse (Mémoires de l'Académie royale de Belgique, Classe des Lettres et des Sciences Morales et Politiques, 7; Brussels, 1910), online
  • Histoire des croix miraculeuses d’Assche (Asse, Imprimerie Frans Van Achter, 1912)
  • Mizraim, souvenirs d'Égypte (Albert Dewit, 1912), online
  • La Nationalité belge (Namur, Picard-Balon, 1913), online
  • Études franques (2 vols., Paris and Brussels, Honoré Champion and Albert Dewitte, 1919), vol. 1, vol. 2
  • Le Guet-apens prussien en Belgique (Paris, H. Champion, 1919)
  • La chronique de Jean de Hocsem (Brussels, Kiessling, 1927), online

;Articles, lectures and pamphlets

  • "Notice sur un manuscrit d'Hariger et d'Anselme, conservé à l'abbaye d'Averbode", Bulletin de la Commission royale d'Histoire, 4th series, vol. 2 (1875), pp. 377–394, online
  • "Saint Grégoire de Tours et les études classiques au VIe siècle", Revue des questions historiques, 24 (1878), pp. 586–593, online
  • "La Loi de Beaumont en Belgique", Mémoires couronnés et autres mémoires, 31 (1881), pp. 769–790, online
  • "Une biographie de l'évêque Notger au XIIe siècle", Bulletin de la Commission royale d'Histoire, 4th series, vol. 17 (1891), pp. 3–60 online
  • La lèpre en Occident avant les Croisades (Paris, Alphonse Picard, 1891), a lecture delivered to the Congrès scientifique international des catholiques, held in Paris, April, 1891, online
  • Les Corporations ouvrières au moyen-âge (Brussels, Société belge de librairie, 1893)
  • Qu’est-ce que le moyen âge? lecture to the Congrès international des catholiques in Fribourg, 19 August 1897, online
  • "Les Nationalités en Auvergne au VIe siècle", Bulletins de l'Académie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, 4 (1900), pp. 224–242, online
  • "Les Ducs et les comtes d'Auvergne au VIe siècle", Revue d'Auvergne, September 1900
  • "Comment Philippe II travaillait", in Mélanges Paul Frédéricq : hommage de la société pour le progrès des études philologiques et historiques (Brussels, H. Lamertin, 1904), pp. 289–293, online, contribution to the Festschrift for Paul Fredericq.
  • "Les origines de la Commune de Liège", Bulletin de l'institut archéologique liégeois, 35 (1905), pp. 229–324 online
  • "Ce que demandent les Allemands", Le Vingtième Siècle, 1906
  • "Recherche sur l'origine des paroisses de Liège", Bulletin de la Société d'art et d'histoire du diocèse de Liège, 16 (1907), pp. 227–251, online
  • "Notre nom national", Bulletin de la Commission Royale d'Histoire, 78 (1909), pp. CII-CXXII, online
  • Preface to Marie de Villermont, L'Infante Isabelle: Gouvernante des Pays-Bas (Tamines and Paris, 1912) online
  • "L'édit de Milan (313)", Revue sociale catholique, 17 (1912), pp. 65–73, online
  • "Etude critique sur la vie de Sainte Geneviève", Revue d'Histoire Ecclésiastique 14 (1913), pp. 5–80, online

References

  • Biography and bibliography (in French)
  • Clovis at Project Gutenberg (in French)