 | This article containstranslated text and the factual accuracy of the translation should be checked by someone fluent in French and English.(March 2025) |
Charles Seignobos | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | (1854-09-10)10 September 1854 |
| Died | 24 April 1942(1942-04-24) (aged 87) |
| Occupation | Historian |
| Nationality | French |
| Subject | History |
| Literary movement | Historical method |
Charles Seignobos (10 September 1854 – 24 April 1942) was a French scholar ofhistoriography and ahistorian who specialized in the history of theFrench Third Republic, and was a member of theHuman Rights League.[citation needed]
Seignobos was born to a Republican Protestant family in 1854 at Lamastre in theArdèche department of France, the son of Charles-André Seignobos, the deputy for Ardèche from 1871 to 1881 and again from 1890 to 1892 and also the Councillor of Lamastre from 1852 to 1892. He passed hisbaccalaureat in 1871 at Tournon, where he studied with the FrenchSymbolist poet and criticStéphane Mallarmé.[1] After a stellar academic career at theÉcole normale supérieure where he took courses withNuma Denis Fustel de Coulanges andErnest Lavisse, he completed a degree in history.
Afterwards, he moved to Germany where he studied for two years, spending most of his time inGöttingen,Berlin,Munich, andLeipzig. Named to a tenured position as Maître de conférences at theUniversity of Burgundy 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 theSorbonne. He is regarded, along with his friend the physiologistLouis Lapicque, as one of the two founders of the scientific and humanistic community "Sorbonne-Plage" at L'Arcouest in Ploubazlanec, nearPaimpol. (Marie Curie had a house constructed there and moved there in 1912).[2][3]
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 atPloubazlanec inBrittany.[citation needed]
Considered along withCharles-Victor Langlois as one of the leading proponents of the historical method, Seignobos wrote a number of works on political history which implemented the Germanhistorical method,[citation needed] benefiting from his excellent knowledge of linguistic particulars indocumentary research 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.[citation needed]
To emphasize the importance of primary sources, Seignobos and Langlois began their book"L'Introduction aux études historiques" (1898) with their famous maxim, "History is made with documents."[4][5]
'History is made with documents.'
L'histoire se fait avec des documents. Les documents sont les traces qu'ont laissées les pensées et les actes des hommes d'autrefois.[History is made with documents. Documents are the traces left by the thoughts and actions of people from times past.]
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