Louis Bréhier


Louis René Bréhier was a French historian who specialized in Byzantine studies. The philosopher Émile Bréhier was his brother.

Biography

He studied history and literature in Paris, obtaining his agrégation in history in 1892. Afterwards, he worked as a schoolteacher in Montauban, Bourges, Reims and Saint-Quentin. In 1899 he received his doctorate at the Sorbonne with the dissertation Le schisme oriental du XIe siècle. Bréhier became a professor at the University of Paris, teaching ancient and medieval history and geography. He presented a paper on "Les colonies d'Orientaux en Occident du Moyen Age" at the Thirteenth Congress of Orientalists in Hamburg in 1902.
From 1903 to 1938 he was professor of ancient and medieval history in Clermont-Ferrand. His travels were largely confined to the Mediterranean world that included an archaeological mission to Mount Athos in 1930. He settled in Reims after World War II and died in this city in 1951.
Bréhier's best known work was the three-volume Le Monde byzantin. He was a specialist of Byzantine iconography, and in 1924 published an influential treatise on Byzantine art titled L'Art byzantin. In 1935 he became a member of the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres. Bréhier contributed many articles to the Catholic Encyclopedia.

Selected publications

Translation or collaboration