Jacques Le Goff | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | (1924-01-01)1 January 1924 Toulon, France |
| Died | 1 April 2014(2014-04-01) (aged 90) Paris, France |
| Occupation | Historian,medievalist |
| Alma mater | École Normale Supérieure |
| Genre | Historian |
Jacques Le Goff (French:[ʒakləɡɔf]; 1 January 1924 – 1 April 2014) was a French historian and prolific author specializing in theMiddle Ages, particularly the 12th and 13th centuries.[1]
Le Goff championed theAnnales School movement, which emphasizes long-term trends over the topics of politics, diplomacy, and war that dominated 19th-century historical research. From 1972 to 1977, he was the head of theSchool for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) in Paris. He was a leading figure ofNew History, related tocultural history. Le Goff argued that the Middle Ages formed acivilization of its own, distinct from bothClassical Antiquity and themodern world.
A prolific medievalist of international renown, Le Goff was sometimes considered the principal heir and continuator of the movement known asAnnales School (École des Annales), founded by his intellectual mentorMarc Bloch. Le Goff succeededFernand Braudel in 1972 at the head of theÉcole des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) and was succeeded byFrançois Furet in 1977. Along withPierre Nora, he was one of the leading figures ofNew History (Nouvelle histoire) in the 1970s.
Subsequently, he dedicated himself to studies on thehistorical anthropology ofWestern Europe during medieval times. He was well known for contesting the very name of "Middle Ages" and its chronology, highlighting achievements of this period and variations inside it, in particular by attracting attention to theRenaissance of the 12th century.
In his 1984 book,The Birth of Purgatory, he argued that the conception ofpurgatory as a physical place, rather than merely as a state, dates to the 12th century, the heyday of medieval otherworld-journey narratives such as the IrishVisio Tnugdali, and of pilgrims' tales aboutSt Patrick's Purgatory, a cavelike entrance to purgatory on a remote island in Ireland.[2] Alexander Lee argued inHistory Today, "This innovative use of popular culture to uncover the roots of a central idea in the religious thought of the Middle Ages was firmly within the Annales tradition, but extended the boundaries of the Annalistes’ approach in such a way that its broader potential as an historiographical methodology was almost beyond question."[3]
Anagnostic, Le Goff presented an equidistant position between the detractors and the apologists of the Middle Ages.
Among his numerous works were two widely accepted biographies, agenre that his school did not usually favour: thelife ofLouis IX, the onlyKing of France to becanonized, and the life ofSaint Francis of Assisi, theItalian mendicant friar.
In October 2000 he received an Honorary Doctor of Philosophy degree from theUniversity of Pavia. He was also nominated Academician of Studium, Accademia di Casale e del Monferrato, Italy.
In 2004, he received theDr. A.H. Heineken Prize for History from theRoyal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.[4]
