What is Henri Pirenne?
[[File:Henri.Pirenne.Portrait.gif|thumb|Henri Pirenne]] '''Henri Pirenne''' (December 23, [[1862]] in [[Verviers]] – October 25, [[1935]] in [[Uccle]]) was a [[Belgium|Belgian]] historian and academic. Pirenne is considered as one of the most important historians of Belgium. == Biography == He studied at the [[University of Liège]] and was a professor at the [[University of Ghent]]. His focus was on [[Middle Ages|Medieval history]], the [[history of Belgium]] and [[economic history]]. He developed the so-called ''Pirenne thesis'' (nowadays out of date) in his book ''Mohammed and Charlemagne'' (published after his death in 1937). According to this opinion [[Mediterranean Sea|Mediterranean]] economics were disturbed by the early [[Muslim conquests|Islamic conquests]] and not by the [[Migration period|barbarian invasions]] some centuries before. Pirenne resisted the [[Dutch language|Dutchification]] of the University of Ghent. When this university had completely become Dutch-language spoken in 1930, he moved to the [[Brussels-Capital Region|Brussels region]] where died in 1935, aged 72. == Works == * Histoire de Belgique (7 volumes) (1899-1932) * The Formation and Constitution of the Burgundian State (Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries), The American Historical Review (1909) * Belgian Democracy, Its Early History (1910, 1915) * The Stages in the Social History of Capitalism, The American Historical Review (1914) * Medieval Cities: Their Origins and the Revival of Trade (1927) * A History of Europe (1936) * Economic and Social History of Medieval Europe (1936) * Mohammed and Charlemagne (1937) {{Commonscat}} {{bio-stub}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Pirenne, Henri}} [[Category:1862 births]] [[Category:1935 births]] [[Category:Belgian academics]] [[Category:Belgian historians]] [[Category:People from Verviers]]