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 shi ...
) 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 ha ...
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 stu ...
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 1940 ...
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 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 ...
. 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 establishments (collège and lycée)
* École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France
* École, Savoi ...
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, and ...
, 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 the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
,
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...
, 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 wel ...
. 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, 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 th ...
. (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
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 shi ...
in
Brittany
Brittany (; french: link=no, Bretagne ; br, Breizh, or ; Gallo language, Gallo: ''Bertaèyn'' ) is a peninsula, Historical region, historical country and cultural area in the west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known ...
.
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, bibli ...
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 " creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of ...
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"''.