Godefroid Kurth

Godefroid Kurth (11 May 1847 – 4 January 1916) was a Belgian historian and pioneering Christian democrat. He is known for his histories of the city of Liège in the Middle Ages and of Belgium, his Catholic account of the formation of modern Europe in Les Origines de la civilisation moderne, and his defence of the medieval guild system.

Early life

Godefroid Kurth was born on 11 May 1847 in Arlon, the capital of the Belgian province of Luxembourg. His father, a former soldier from Cologne who was naturalized as a Belgian in 1842, became a police commissioner in Arlon but died in 1850. The family spoke Luxembourgish at home, and he learned French in primary school. He was educated at the Athénée royal d'Arlon and the Liège Normal school, where he completed his studies in 1869. That same year he was appointed French master at the Athénée royal de Liège.

Academic career

In 1873, Kurth became the first person to be awarded the "special doctorate in historical sciences", for a dissertation on Cato the Elder. The same year, he became chair of Medieval History and Belgian History at the University of Liège. One of his students, Henri Pirenne, became a noted historian. Léon-Ernest Halkin considered them the founders of the scientific method of history in Belgium. Kurth modeled his pedagogy on that instituted by the German historian Leopold von Ranke at the University of Berlin. On 7 May 1894 he was elected a member of the Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium. He was a member of the committee that organized the Exposition de l'art ancien au Pays de Liège for the 1905 International exposition in Liège.