Arbois De Jubainville

ARBOIS DE JUBAINVILLE, MARIE HENRI D' (1827-1910), French historian and philologist, was born at Nancy on the $th of December 1827. In 1851 he left the Ecole des Charles with the degree of palaeographk 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 Rtpertoire archtologique du department in 1861; a valuable Histoire des dues et comles de Champagne depuis le VI' siecle jusqu'a la fin du XI', which was published between 1859 and 1869 (8 vols.), and in 1880 an instructive monograph upon Lcs Intendanls de Champagne. But already he had become attracted towards the study of the most ancient inhabitants of Gaul; in 1870 he brought out an f'.tude sur la dtdinaison des noms proprei dans la langue franque a I'tpoque mfrtmngienne; and in 1877 a learned work upon Les Premiers Habitants de I' 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 Cows de litttrature celtique which in 1908 extended to twelve volumes. For this he himself edited the following works: Introduction a I'ttude de la litttrature celtique (1883); L Epopee celtique en Irlande (1892); Etudes sur le droit celtique (1895); and Les Principaux Auteurs de rantiquitt a consulter sur I 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 Us temps les plus recults jusqu'a I'an too anant noire 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 Reckerches sur I'origine de la proprittl fonciere (1890), which illumined one of the most interesting aspects of the Roman occupation of Gaul.

The Recueil dt mtmoires comma*! la litttrature et I'histoire celtiquei, 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.*)