Top 5 Quotes & Sayings by Henri Pirenne

Explore popular quotes and sayings by a Belgian historian Henri Pirenne.

Last updated on September 18, 2024.

Henri Pirenne was a Belgian historian. A medievalist of Walloon descent, he wrote a multivolume history of Belgium in French and became a prominent public intellectual. Pirenne made a lasting contribution to the study of cities that was a controversial interpretation of the end of Roman civilization and the rebirth of medieval urban culture. He also became prominent in the nonviolent resistance to the Germans who occupied Belgium in World War I.

Belgian - Historian | December 23, 1862 - October 25, 1935

Source: Wikipedia

The Germanic invasions in the West could not and did not in any way alter this state of affairs.

Henri Pirenne

The cause of the break with the tradition of antiquity was the rapid and unexpected advance of Islam. The result of this advance was the final separation of East from West, and the end of the Mediterranean unity.

Henri Pirenne

The Germanic invasions destroyed neither the Mediterranean unity of the ancient world, nor what may be regarded as the truly essential features of the Roman culture as it still existed in the 5th century, at a time when there was no longer an Emperor in the West.

Henri Pirenne

There happened in the Middle Ages what has happened so often since then. Those who were the beneficiaries of the established order were bent on defending it, not so much, perhaps, because it guaranteed their interests, as because it seemed to them indispensable to the preservation of society.

Henri Pirenne

If I were an antiquarian, I would have eyes only for old stuff, but I am a historian. Therefore, I love life.

Henri Pirenne

Top 5 Quotes & Sayings by Henri Pirenne

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