Jean Gimpel (10 October 1918 – 15 June 1996) was a French
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 st ...
and
medievalist
The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star.
Computer scientists and mathematicians often vo ...
.
Gimpel was one of three sons of a French father, the art dealer
René Gimpel
René Albert Gimpel (4 October 1881–3 January 1945) was a prominent French art dealer of Alsatian Jewish descent who died in 1945 in Neuengamme concentration camp, near Hamburg, Germany. Friend and patron of living artists and collectors, he ...
, and an English mother, Florence, the youngest sister of Lord Duveen. Gimpel was brought up in luxury in a house in the
Bois de Boulogne
The Bois de Boulogne (, "Boulogne woodland") is a large public park located along the western edge of the 16th arrondissement of Paris, near the suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt and Neuilly-sur-Seine. The land was ceded to the city of Paris by t ...
, though he went on to be educated in both France and Britain. He made his living as a diamond broker before establishing himself as a critic of the concept of the great artist.
During the Second World War Gimpel served in the
French resistance
The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...
Legion of Honour
The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon ...
.Jean Gimpel, Obituary by Roger Berthoud, in ''The Independent'', 26 June 1996. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituaryjean-gimpel-1338891.html
In 1987 Gimpel became a founding vice-president of the Society for the History of Mediaeval Technology and Science, the British affiliate of AVISTA and the Association de Villard de Honnecourt. Gimpel believed that the basis of sustainable development in the developing world should be low-tech mediaeval machines that could be built, maintained, repaired and replaced using local craftsmen and resources. He was also a founder of Models for Rural Development, part of the
Appropriate Technology
Appropriate technology is a movement (and its manifestations) encompassing technological choice and application that is small-scale, affordable by locals, decentralized, labor-intensive, energy-efficient, environmentally sustainable, and loca ...
movement.
Gimpel and his wife Catherine maintained a salon in London in his later years.
Works
Gimpel's published works included:
* ''The Medieval Machine: The Industrial Revolution of the Middle Ages''
* ''The Cathedral Builders''
* ''The Cult of Art: Against Art and Artists''
* ''The End of the Future: The Waning of the High-Tech World''
Author
Ken Follett
Kenneth Martin Follett, (born 5 June 1949) is a British author of thrillers and historical novels who has sold more than 160 million copies of his works.
Many of his books have achieved high ranking on best seller lists. For example, in the ...
was inspired and informed by Gimpel's work and later retained him as a consultant while writing ''
The Pillars of the Earth
''The Pillars of the Earth'' is a historical novel by British author Ken Follett published in 1989 about the building of a cathedral in the fictional town of Kingsbridge, England. Set in the 12th century, the novel covers the time between the ...
''.Ken Follett, 1999 Preface to The ''Pillars of the Earth'' (first published in 1989), 2017