Fustel de Coulanges, Numa Denis (nümä` dənē` füstĕl` də k

läNzh`), 1830–89, French historian. His masterly study, La Cité antique (1864, tr. The Ancient City, 1874), stressed the influence of primitive religion on the development of Greek and Roman institutions. Losing (1870) his professorship in antiquities at the Univ. of Strasbourg after Strasbourg became German, he turned to medieval history. The result was a work of profound and original scholarship, Histoire des institutions politiques de l'ancienne France (6 vol., 1888–92; rev. ed. by Camille Jullian, 6 vol., 1905–14). In it Fustel, attacking belief in the Germanic origin of feudalism and the manorial system, traced these institutions to Roman influences. His theories were widely attacked, but they opened the way for new interpretations of early medieval history.

Bibliography

See J. Herrick, The Historical Thought of Fustel de Coulanges (1954).

Fustel de Coulanges, Numa Denis

(born March 18, 1830, Paris, France—died Sept. 12, 1889, Massy) French historian. He had a brilliant teaching career at the University of Strasbourg (1860–70) and later received other academic appointments. He championed the importance of objectivity and the unreliability of secondary sources, which became important tenets of modern historiography, and his insistence on the use of contemporary documents led to the full use of the French national archives in the 19th century. Most of his work, including La Cité antique (1864) and La Gaule romaine (1891), dealt with Roman Gaul and the Germanic invasions of the Roman Empire.