1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Arbois de Jubainville, Marie Henri d'

by Charles Bémont

ARBOIS DE JUBAINVILLE, MARIE HENRI D’ (1827–1910), French historian and philologist, was born at Nancy on the 5th of December 1827. In 1851 he left the École des Chartes with the degree of palaeographic archivist. He was placed in control of the departmental archives of Aube, and remained in that position until 1880, when he retired on a pension. He published several volumes of inventorial abstracts, a Répertoire archéologique du département in 1861; a valuable Histoire des ducs et comtes de Champagne depuis le VIᵉ siècle jusqu’à la fin du XIᵉ, which was published between 1859 and 1869 (8 vols.), and in 1880 an instructive monograph upon Les Intendants de Champagne. But already he had become attracted towards the study of the most ancient inhabitants of Gaul; in 1870 he brought out an Étude sur la déclinaison des noms propres dans la langue franque à l’époque mérovingienne; and in 1877 a learned work upon Les Premiers Habitants de l’Europe (2nd edition in 2 vols. 1889 and 1894). Next he concentrated his efforts upon the field of Celtic languages, literature and law, in which he soon became an authority. Appointed in 1882 to the newly founded professorial chair of Celtic at the Collège de France, he began the Cours de littérature celtique which in 1908 extended to twelve volumes. For this he himself edited the following works: Introduction a l’étude de la littérature celtique (1883); L’Épopée celtique en Irlande (1892); Études sur le droit celtique (1895); and Les Principaux Auteurs de l’antiquité à consulter sur l’histoire des Celtes (1902). He was among the first in France to enter upon the study of the most ancient monuments of Irish literature with a solid philological preparation and without empty prejudices. We owe to him also Les Celtes depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu’à l’an 100 avant noire ère (1904), and a study of comparative law in La Famille celtique (1905). Numerous detailed studies upon the Gaulish names of persons and places took synthetic form in the Recherches sur l’origine de la propriété foncière (1890), which illumined one of the most interesting aspects of the Roman occupation of Gaul. The Recueil de mémoires concernant la littérature et l’histoire celtiques, made by the most notable among his disciples on the occasion of his seventy-eighth birthday (1906), was a well-deserved tribute to his persevering and fruitful industry. He died in February 1910.  (C. B.*)