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enri Pirenne’s edition of Galbert of Bruges’s De multro, traditione, et occisione gloriosi Karoli comitis Flandriarum,published in 1891,is not his greatest or most influential work, but it nonetheless played an important role in his career and was his most important work at the time it was published.1 As Bryce Lyon wrote in his biography of Pirenne, “his reputation was furthered by an edition of Galbert of Bruges’account of the murder of Count Charles the Good of Flanders. . . . [T]his study revealed his gift for work on key historical problems. By choosing to edit Galbert, who was a well-placed witness to many of the dramatic events he described, Pirenne made available the finest narrative account of twelfth-century Flemish feudal, institutional, and communal history. . . . No more valuable text on medieval communal history exists.”2 Pirenne’s friend Maurice Prou, one of the editors of the series in which the edition appeared, wrote to him not long after the publication of the edition that “[v]otre Galbert a parfaitement réussi. On en Henri Pirenne at Work: Editing Galbert of Bruges Jeff Rider H I would like to thank Professor Michel de Waha, Françoise Jurion, the staff of the archives of the Université libre de Bruxelles,especially Françoise Delloye,and the staff of the Bibliothèque municipale de Sens, especially the conservateur en chef Michèle Degrave, for all their help during my trips to the Pirenne archives in Brussels and the Prou archives in Sens. I also owe a special debt of gratitude to Professor Sara McDougall, who took the time to provide me with some desperately needed materials at the last minute. The research for this essay was made possible by a grant from the Thomas and Catharine McMahon Memorial Fund of Wesleyan University. 1 Galbert of Bruges, Histoire du meurtre. For a bibliography of Pirenne’s publications, see Ganshof et al., “Bibliographie.” 2 Lyon, Henri Pirenne, pp. 94–96. In his entry on Pirenne in the Biographie nationale F. L. Ganshof wrote that “l’excellente édition de cette source de qualité et de portée exceptionnelles qu’est l’Histoire du meurtre de Charles le Bon, comte de Flandre, par Galbert de Bruges” was the first of the two editions “hors de pair” published by Pirenne (“Pirenne,” col. 685). 51 parle beaucoup. Tout le monde le trouve excellent, très bien fait, et à juste titre.” Pirenne was, in fact, somewhat anxious about the reception of the edition, and Prou assured him again a little over a week later that “[v]otre édition de Galbert a établi ici votre réputation,”and wrote yet again several months later that “[c]omme je sais que l’estime des Français vous est précieuse, je puis vous assurer que votre Galbert vous l’a acquise.”3 The edition also played a significant role in Pirenne’s nomination to the Commission royale d’histoire, which occurred soon after its publication. Writing in July 1891 to inform Pirenne of this honor, Napoléon de Pauw noted that “[v]otre dernière et excellente publication sur Galbertus n’a pas été étrangère à cette désignation. Je l’avais lu comme un roman et vos notes judicieuses en facilitent admirablement l’intelligence.”4 The foundation of Pirenne’s edition of Galbert’s chronicle was in some sense laid in 1883–84, when he spent nine months in Paris taking courses at the École des Chartes and the École pratique des hautes études,where he studied with Arthur Giry and Marcel Thévenin,among others,and became friends with his fellow students Maurice Prou and Abel Lefranc.5 The relationships and friendships that Pirenne formed that year, especially those with Giry, Prou, and Lefranc, were maintained actively in the following years, and it was out of them that the edition of Galbert’s chronicle grew. The immediate origin of the edition appears to have been a visit Pirenne made to Paris in late April 1890 and a meeting he had with Giry and Prou at that time. A new series of editions of primary sources, the “Collection de textes pour servir à l’étude et à l’enseignement de l’histoire,”had been founded in January 1885 “par l’initiative d’un certain nombre de membres de l’Institut, de l’Université, de l’Ecole des Chartes et de l’Ecole des Hautes-Etudes.”The purpose of the collection , as its title suggests, was to provide reasonably inexpensive...

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