Henri Grégoire (;

Huy Huy ( or ; nl, Hoei, ; wa, Hu) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium. Huy lies along the river Meuse, at the mouth of the small river Hoyoux. It is in the ''sillon industriel'', the former industrial ...

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

, 21 March 1881 – 28 September 1964,

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

, Belgium) was an eminent scholar of the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

, virtually the founder of

Byzantine studies Byzantine studies is an interdisciplinary branch of the humanities that addresses the history, culture, demography, dress, religion/theology, art, literature/epigraphy, music, science, economy, coinage and politics of the Eastern Roman Empire. T ...

in Belgium. Grégoire spent most of his teaching career at the Université libre de Bruxelles. In 1938, he taught at the

New School for Social Research The New School for Social Research (NSSR) is a graduate-level educational institution that is one of the divisions of The New School in New York City, United States. The university was founded in 1919 as a home for progressive era thinkers. NSSR ...

and during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, joined the

École libre des hautes études The École Libre des Hautes Études ( ‘Free School for Advanced Studies’) was a "university-in-exile" for French academics in New York during the Second World War. It was chartered by the French (the Free French) and Belgian governments-in-e ...

at the New School. He was the editor of four journals—''Byzantion'', ''Nouvelle Clio'', ''Annuaire de l'Institut de Philologie et d'Histoire Orientales et Slaves'', and ''Flambeau''—and published prolifically: by 1953 he had 575 titles in his bibliography. Grégoire is especially remembered for his work on medieval

epic poetry An epic poem, or simply an epic, is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants. ...

, notably

Digenis Akritas ''Digenes Akritas'', ) is a variant of ''Akritas''. Sometimes it is further latinized as ''Acritis'' or ''Acritas''. ( el, Διγενῆς Ἀκρίτας, ) is the most famous of the Acritic songs and is often regarded as the only surviving epic ...

References

* "Henri Grégoire" (memorial note), ''Speculum'' 41:3:594-602 (July 1966
at JSTOR
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gregoire, Henri Belgian Byzantinists 20th-century Belgian historians 1881 births 1964 deaths People from Huy Belgian medievalists Scholars of Byzantine history