Jacques Le Goff
Encyclopedia
Jacques Le Goff is a prolific French
historian
specializing in the Middle Ages
, particularly the 12th and 13th centuries.
Le Goff champions the Annales School
movement, which emphasizes long-term trends over the topics of politics, diplomacy, and war that dominated 19th century historical research. From 1972 to 1977, he was the head of the École des hautes études en sciences sociales
(EHESS). He was a leading figure of New History
, related to cultural history
. Le Goff argues that the Middle Ages formed a civilization
of its own, distinct from both the Greco-Roman antiquity
and the modern world
.
(École des Annales), founded by his intellectual mentor Marc Bloch
. Le Goff succeeded Fernand Braudel
in 1972 at the head of the École des hautes études en sciences sociales
(EHESS) and was succeeded by François Furet
in 1977. Along with Pierre Nora
, he was one of the leading figure of New History
(Nouvelle histoire) in the 1970s.
Since then, he has dedicated himself to studies on the historical anthropology
of Western Europe
during medieval times. He is well-known for contesting the very name of "Middle Ages" and its chronology, highlighting achievements of this period and variations inside it, in particular by attracting attention to the Renaissance of the 12th century
.
In his 1984 book The Birth of Purgatory, he argued that the conception of purgatory
as a physical place, rather than merely as a state, dates to the 12th century, the heyday of medieval otherworld-journey narratives such as the Irish Visio Tnugdali
, and of pilgrims' tales about St Patrick's Purgatory, a cavelike entrance to purgatory on a remote island in Ireland.
An agnostic
, Le Goff presents an equidistant
position between the detractors and the apologists of the Middle Ages. His opinion is that the Middle Ages formed a civilization
of its own, distinct of both the Greco-Roman antiquity
and the modern world
.
Among his recent works are two widely accepted biographies, a genre
his school did not usually favor: the life of Louis IX
, the only King of France to be canonized
, and the life of Saint Francis of Assisi
, the Italian
mendicant friar.
In 2004 Le Goff received the Dr. A.H. Heineken Prize for History from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
historian
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 study of all history in time. If the individual is...
specializing in the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
, particularly the 12th and 13th centuries.
Le Goff champions the Annales School
Annales School
The Annales School is a group of historians associated with a style of historiography developed by French historians in the 20th century. It is named after its scholarly journal Annales d'histoire économique et sociale, which remains the main source of scholarship, along with many books and...
movement, which emphasizes long-term trends over the topics of politics, diplomacy, and war that dominated 19th century historical research. From 1972 to 1977, he was the head of the École des hautes études en sciences sociales
École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales
The École des hautes études en sciences sociales is a leading French institution for research and higher education, a Grand Établissement. Its mission is research and research training in the social sciences, including the relationship these latter maintain with the natural and life sciences...
(EHESS). He was a leading figure of New History
New history
For New history see:* James Harvey Robinson for "new history" in early 20th century American historiography* Nouvelle histoire for "new history" in late 20th century French historiography* New Mormon history for Mormon history in a historical context...
, related to cultural history
Cultural history
The term cultural history refers both to an academic discipline and to its subject matter.Cultural history, as a discipline, at least in its common definition since the 1970s, often combines the approaches of anthropology and history to look at popular cultural traditions and cultural...
. Le Goff argues that the Middle Ages formed a civilization
Civilization
Civilization is a sometimes controversial term that has been used in several related ways. Primarily, the term has been used to refer to the material and instrumental side of human cultures that are complex in terms of technology, science, and division of labor. Such civilizations are generally...
of its own, distinct from both the Greco-Roman antiquity
Classical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
and the modern world
Modern World
Modern World or The Modern World may refer to:*Modernity, a popular academic term.*The modern era, the age in which people today now live.*Modern World, a song by Wolf Parade from their 2005 album Apologies to the Queen Mary....
.
Life and writings
A prolific medievalist of international renown, Le Goff is sometimes considered the principal heir and continuator of the movement known as Annales SchoolAnnales School
The Annales School is a group of historians associated with a style of historiography developed by French historians in the 20th century. It is named after its scholarly journal Annales d'histoire économique et sociale, which remains the main source of scholarship, along with many books and...
(École des Annales), founded by his intellectual mentor Marc Bloch
Marc Bloch
Marc Léopold Benjamin Bloch was a French historian who cofounded the highly influential Annales School of French social history. Bloch was a quintessential modernist. An assimilated Alsatian Jew from an academic family in Paris, he was deeply affected in his youth by the Dreyfus Affair...
. Le Goff succeeded Fernand Braudel
Fernand Braudel
Fernand Braudel was a French historian and a leader of the Annales School. His scholarship focused on three main projects, each representing several decades of intense study: The Mediterranean , Civilization and Capitalism , and the unfinished Identity of France...
in 1972 at the head of the École des hautes études en sciences sociales
École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales
The École des hautes études en sciences sociales is a leading French institution for research and higher education, a Grand Établissement. Its mission is research and research training in the social sciences, including the relationship these latter maintain with the natural and life sciences...
(EHESS) and was succeeded by François Furet
François Furet
-Biography:Born in Paris on 27 March 1927, into a wealthy family, François Furet was a brilliant student who graduated from the Sorbonne with the highest honors and soon decided on a life of research, teaching and writing. He received his education at the Lycée Janson de Sailly and at the faculty...
in 1977. Along with Pierre Nora
Pierre Nora
Pierre Nora is a French historian of Jewish descent. Elected to the French Academy on June 7, 2001, he is known for his work on French identity and memory. His name is associated with the study of new history...
, he was one of the leading figure of New History
New history
For New history see:* James Harvey Robinson for "new history" in early 20th century American historiography* Nouvelle histoire for "new history" in late 20th century French historiography* New Mormon history for Mormon history in a historical context...
(Nouvelle histoire) in the 1970s.
Since then, he has dedicated himself to studies on the historical anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
of Western Europe
Western Europe
Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...
during medieval times. He is well-known for contesting the very name of "Middle Ages" and its chronology, highlighting achievements of this period and variations inside it, in particular by attracting attention to the Renaissance of the 12th century
Renaissance of the 12th century
The Renaissance of the 12th century was a period of many changes at the outset of the High Middle Ages. It included social, political and economic transformations, and an intellectual revitalization of Western Europe with strong philosophical and scientific roots...
.
In his 1984 book The Birth of Purgatory, he argued that the conception of purgatory
Purgatory
Purgatory is the condition or process of purification or temporary punishment in which, it is believed, the souls of those who die in a state of grace are made ready for Heaven...
as a physical place, rather than merely as a state, dates to the 12th century, the heyday of medieval otherworld-journey narratives such as the Irish Visio Tnugdali
Visio Tnugdali
The Visio Tnugdali is a 12th-century religious text reporting the otherworldly vision of the Irish knight Tnugdalus...
, and of pilgrims' tales about St Patrick's Purgatory, a cavelike entrance to purgatory on a remote island in Ireland.
An agnostic
Agnosticism
Agnosticism is the view that the truth value of certain claims—especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, but also other religious and metaphysical claims—is unknown or unknowable....
, Le Goff presents an equidistant
Equidistant
A point is said to be equidistant from a set of objects if the distances between that point and each object in the set are equal.In two-dimensional Euclidian geometry the locus of points equidistant from two given points is their perpendicular bisector...
position between the detractors and the apologists of the Middle Ages. His opinion is that the Middle Ages formed a civilization
Civilization
Civilization is a sometimes controversial term that has been used in several related ways. Primarily, the term has been used to refer to the material and instrumental side of human cultures that are complex in terms of technology, science, and division of labor. Such civilizations are generally...
of its own, distinct of both the Greco-Roman antiquity
Classical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
and the modern world
Modern World
Modern World or The Modern World may refer to:*Modernity, a popular academic term.*The modern era, the age in which people today now live.*Modern World, a song by Wolf Parade from their 2005 album Apologies to the Queen Mary....
.
Among his recent works are two widely accepted biographies, a genre
Genre
Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...
his school did not usually favor: the life of Louis IX
Louis IX of France
Louis IX , commonly Saint Louis, was King of France from 1226 until his death. He was also styled Louis II, Count of Artois from 1226 to 1237. Born at Poissy, near Paris, he was an eighth-generation descendant of Hugh Capet, and thus a member of the House of Capet, and the son of Louis VIII and...
, the only King of France to be canonized
Canonization
Canonization is the act by which a Christian church declares a deceased person to be a saint, upon which declaration the person is included in the canon, or list, of recognized saints. Originally, individuals were recognized as saints without any formal process...
, and the life of Saint Francis of Assisi
Francis of Assisi
Saint Francis of Assisi was an Italian Catholic friar and preacher. He founded the men's Franciscan Order, the women’s Order of St. Clare, and the lay Third Order of Saint Francis. St...
, the Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
mendicant friar.
In 2004 Le Goff received the Dr. A.H. Heineken Prize for History from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences is an organisation dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands...
.
Works
- Time, Work, & Culture in the Middle Ages, translated by Arthur Goldhammer. (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1980)
- Constructing the Past: Essays in Historical Methodology, edited by Jacques Le Goff and Pierre Nora. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985)
- The Medieval Imagination, translated by Arthur Goldhammer. (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1988)
- Your Money or Your Life: Economy and Religion in the Middle Ages, translated by Patricia Ranum. (New York : Zone Books, 1988)
- Medieval Civilization, 400-1500, translated by Julia Barrow. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988)
- The Medieval World, edited by Jacques Le Goff, translated by Lydia G. Cochrane. (London: Parkgate, 1990)
- The Birth of Purgatory, translated by Arthur Goldhammer. (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1990)
- History and Memory, translated by Steven Rendall and Elizabeth Claman. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992)
- Intellectuals in the Middle Ages, translated by Teresa Lavender Fagan. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993)
- Saint Louis (Paris: Gallimard, 1996)
- Saint Francis of Assisi, trans. Christine Rhone (London: Routledge, 2003)
- The Birth of Europe, translated by Janet Lloyd. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005)