Louis Bréhier

Louis René Bréhier (August 5, 1868 – October 13, 1951) was a French historian who specialized in Byzantine studies. He was a native of Brest, and was brother to philosopher Emile Bréhier (1876–1952).

He studied history and literature in Paris, where one of his instructors was historian Charles Diehl (1859–1944). Afterwards he taught classes in Reims, and in 1899 received his doctorate at the Sorbonne with the dissertation- Le schisms oriental au Xie siècle (The Eastern Schism in the 11th Century). From 1899 to 1938 he was professor of ancient and medieval history in Clermont-Ferrand.

Bréhier's best known work was the three-volume Le Monde byzantin (The Byzantine World). He was a specialist of Byzantine iconography, and in 1924 published an influential treatise on Byzantine art titled L'Art Byzantin. He was a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, and in 1937 was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Athens.

Selected publications

• La Cathédrale de Reims. Une œuvre francaise, Paris 1916
• L'Art Byzantin, Paris 1924
• Histoire anonyme de la première croisade, éditee et traduite par Louis Bréhier, (Anonymous history of the First Crusade, edited and translated into French by Louis Bréhier), Paris 1924
• Le Monde byzantin, Paris 1947-50 (3 Volumes)
• ----Volume 1: Vie et mort de Byzance
• ----Volume 2: Les Institutions de l'Empire byzantin
• ----Volume 3: La civilisation byzantine

• De Graecorum judiciorum origine (1899)
• Le Schisme oriental du 11e siècle (1899),
• La Querelle des images (1904)
• L'Église et l'Orient au Moyen Âge : les croisades.
• Le travail historique (1908)
• L'Auvergne (1912)
• L'art chrétien, son développement iconographique des origines à nos jours (1918)
• Les églises romanes
• L'homme dans la sculpture romane
• Études archéologiques : Le sarcophage des Carmes-Déchaux ; Les anciens inventaires de la cathédrale : Le Bible historiée de Clermont
• Les survivances du rite impérial romain: à propos des rites shintoïstes (1920)

References

• This article is based on a translation of an article from the German Wikipedia.