Marie Henri d'Arbois de Jubainville - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

MARIE HENRI D ARBOIS DE JUBAINVILLE' (1827-1910), French historian and philologist, was born at Nancy on the 5th of December 1827. In 1851 he left the Rcole 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 Repertoire archeologique du departement in 1861; a valuable Histoire des dues et comtes de Champagne depuis le VP e siecle jusqu'd la fin du XI e , 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 Etude sur la declinaison des noms propres dans la langue franque a l'epoque merovingienne; 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 College de France, he began the Cours de litterature celtique which in 1908 extended to twelve volumes. For this he himself edited the following works: Introduction a l'etude de la litterature celtique (1883); L'Epopee celtique en Irlande (1892); Etudes sur le droit celtique (1895); and Les Principaux Auteurs de l'antiquite a 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 recules jusqu'a l'an roo avant notre ere (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 propriete foncicre (1890), which illumined one of the most interesting aspects of the Roman occupation of Gaul. The Recueil de memoires concernant la litterature 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.*)