Geoffroi Jacques Flach
Encyclopedia
Geoffroi Jacques Flach (February 16, 1846 – December 4, 1919) was a French
jurist
and historian
born at Strasbourg
, Alsace
, of a family known at least as early as the 16th century, when Sigismond Flach was the first professor of law at University of Strasbourg
.
G.J. Flach studied classics and law
at Strasbourg, and in 1869 took his degree of doctor of law. In his theses as well as in his early writings such as De la subrogation réelle, La Bonorum possessio, and Sur la durée des effets de la minorité (1870) he endeavored to explain the problems of laws by means of history, an idea which was new to France at that time. The Franco-Prussian War
engaged Flach's activities in other directions, and he spent two years (described in his Strasbourg après le bombardment, 1873) at work on the rebuilding of the library and the museum, which had been destroyed by Prussia
n shells.
When the time came for him to choose between Germany
and France, he settled definitely in Paris
, where he completed his scientific training at the École des Chartes and the École des Hautes Études. Having acted for some time as secretary to Jules Sénard, ex-president of the Constituent Assembly
, he published an original paper on artistic copyright, but as soon as possible resumed the history of law. In 1879 he became assistant to the jurist Édouard René de Laboulaye
at the Collège de France
, and succeeded him in 1884 in the chair of comparative legislation.
Since 1877 he had been professor of comparative law at the free school of the political sciences. To qualify himself for these two positions he had to study the most diverse civilizations, including those of the East and Far East (e.g. Hungary
, Russia
and Japan
) and even the antiquities of Babylon
ia and other Asiatic countries. Some of his lectures have been published, particularly those concerning Ireland
: Histoire du régime agraire de l'Irlande (1883); Considérations sur l'histoire politique de l'Irlande (1885); and Jonathan Swift, son action politique en Irlande (1886).
His chief efforts, however, were concentrated on the history of ancient French law. A celebrated lawsuit
in Alsace, pleaded by his friend and compatriot Ignace Chauffour, aroused his interest by reviving the question of the origin of the feudal laws, and gradually led him to study the formation of those laws and the early growth of the feudal system. His great work, Les Origines de l'ancienne France, was produced slowly. In the first volume, Le Régime seigneurial (1886), he depicts the triumph of individualism
and anarchy
, showing how, after Charlemagne
's great but sterile efforts to restore the Roman principle of sovereignty, the great landowners gradually monopolized the various functions in the state; how society modelled on antiquity disappeared; and how the only living organisms were vassalage and clientship.
The second volume, Les Origines communales, et féodalité et la chevalerie (1893), deals with the reconstruction of society on new bases which took place in the 10th and 11th centuries. It explains how the Gallo-Roman villa gave place to the village, with its fortified castle, the residence of the lord; how new towns were formed by the side of old, some of which disappeared; how the townspeople united in corporations; and how the communal bond proved to be a powerful instrument of cohesion. At the same time it traces the birth of feudalism
from the germs of the Gallo-Roman personal comitalus; and shows how the bond that united the different parties was the contract of the fief; and how, after a slow growth of three centuries, feudalism was definitely organized in the 12th century.
In 1904 appeared the third volume, La Renaissance de l'État, in which the author describes the efforts of the Direct Capetian
kings to reconstruct the power of the Frankish kings over the whole of Gaul
; and goes on to show how the clergy, the heirs of the imperial tradition, encouraged this ambition; how the great lords of the kingdom (the "princes", as Flach calls them), whether as allies or foes, pursued the same end; and how, before the close of the 12th century, the Capetian kings were in possession of the organs and the means of action which were to render them so powerful and bring about the early downfall of feudalism.
In these three volumes, which appeared at long intervals, the author's theories are not always in complete harmony, nor are they always presented in a very luminous or coherent manner, but they are marked by originality and vigour. Flach gave them a solid basis by the wide range of his researches, utilizing charters and cartularies (published and unpublished), chronicles, lives of saints, and even those dangerous guides, the chansons de geste.
He owed little to the historians of feudalism, who knew what feudalism was, but not how it came about. He pursued the same method in his L'Origine de l'habitation et des lieux habités en France (1899), in which he discusses some of the theories circulated by A Meitzen in Germany and by Arbois de Jubainville
in France. Following in the footsteps of the jurist F. K. von Savigny, Flach studied the teaching of law in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance
, and produced Cujas les glossateurs et les Bartolistes (1883), and Études critiques sur l'histoire du droit romain au moyen âge, avec textes inédits (1890).
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
jurist
Jurist
A jurist or jurisconsult is a professional who studies, develops, applies, or otherwise deals with the law. The term is widely used in American English, but in the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth countries it has only historical and specialist usage...
and historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
born at Strasbourg
Strasbourg
Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,...
, Alsace
Alsace
Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...
, of a family known at least as early as the 16th century, when Sigismond Flach was the first professor of law at University of Strasbourg
University of Strasbourg
The University of Strasbourg in Strasbourg, Alsace, France, is the largest university in France, with about 43,000 students and over 4,000 researchers....
.
G.J. Flach studied classics and law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
at Strasbourg, and in 1869 took his degree of doctor of law. In his theses as well as in his early writings such as De la subrogation réelle, La Bonorum possessio, and Sur la durée des effets de la minorité (1870) he endeavored to explain the problems of laws by means of history, an idea which was new to France at that time. The Franco-Prussian War
Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...
engaged Flach's activities in other directions, and he spent two years (described in his Strasbourg après le bombardment, 1873) at work on the rebuilding of the library and the museum, which had been destroyed by Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
n shells.
When the time came for him to choose between Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and France, he settled definitely in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, where he completed his scientific training at the École des Chartes and the École des Hautes Études. Having acted for some time as secretary to Jules Sénard, ex-president of the Constituent Assembly
Constituent assembly
A constituent assembly is a body composed for the purpose of drafting or adopting a constitution...
, he published an original paper on artistic copyright, but as soon as possible resumed the history of law. In 1879 he became assistant to the jurist Édouard René de Laboulaye
Édouard René de Laboulaye
Édouard René Lefèbvre de Laboulaye was a French jurist, poet, author and anti-slavery activist...
at the Collège de France
Collège de France
The Collège de France is a higher education and research establishment located in Paris, France, in the 5th arrondissement, or Latin Quarter, across the street from the historical campus of La Sorbonne at the intersection of Rue Saint-Jacques and Rue des Écoles...
, and succeeded him in 1884 in the chair of comparative legislation.
Since 1877 he had been professor of comparative law at the free school of the political sciences. To qualify himself for these two positions he had to study the most diverse civilizations, including those of the East and Far East (e.g. Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
) and even the antiquities of Babylon
Babylon
Babylon was an Akkadian city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...
ia and other Asiatic countries. Some of his lectures have been published, particularly those concerning Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
: Histoire du régime agraire de l'Irlande (1883); Considérations sur l'histoire politique de l'Irlande (1885); and Jonathan Swift, son action politique en Irlande (1886).
His chief efforts, however, were concentrated on the history of ancient French law. A celebrated lawsuit
Lawsuit
A lawsuit or "suit in law" is a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions, demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint...
in Alsace, pleaded by his friend and compatriot Ignace Chauffour, aroused his interest by reviving the question of the origin of the feudal laws, and gradually led him to study the formation of those laws and the early growth of the feudal system. His great work, Les Origines de l'ancienne France, was produced slowly. In the first volume, Le Régime seigneurial (1886), he depicts the triumph of individualism
Individualism
Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or social outlook that stresses "the moral worth of the individual". Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and so value independence and self-reliance while opposing most external interference upon one's own...
and anarchy
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
, showing how, after Charlemagne
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...
's great but sterile efforts to restore the Roman principle of sovereignty, the great landowners gradually monopolized the various functions in the state; how society modelled on antiquity disappeared; and how the only living organisms were vassalage and clientship.
The second volume, Les Origines communales, et féodalité et la chevalerie (1893), deals with the reconstruction of society on new bases which took place in the 10th and 11th centuries. It explains how the Gallo-Roman villa gave place to the village, with its fortified castle, the residence of the lord; how new towns were formed by the side of old, some of which disappeared; how the townspeople united in corporations; and how the communal bond proved to be a powerful instrument of cohesion. At the same time it traces the birth of feudalism
Feudalism
Feudalism was a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, which, broadly defined, was a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.Although derived from the...
from the germs of the Gallo-Roman personal comitalus; and shows how the bond that united the different parties was the contract of the fief; and how, after a slow growth of three centuries, feudalism was definitely organized in the 12th century.
In 1904 appeared the third volume, La Renaissance de l'État, in which the author describes the efforts of the Direct Capetian
House of Capet
The House of Capet, or The Direct Capetian Dynasty, , also called The House of France , or simply the Capets, which ruled the Kingdom of France from 987 to 1328, was the most senior line of the Capetian dynasty – itself a derivative dynasty from the Robertians. As rulers of France, the dynasty...
kings to reconstruct the power of the Frankish kings over the whole of Gaul
Gaul
Gaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...
; and goes on to show how the clergy, the heirs of the imperial tradition, encouraged this ambition; how the great lords of the kingdom (the "princes", as Flach calls them), whether as allies or foes, pursued the same end; and how, before the close of the 12th century, the Capetian kings were in possession of the organs and the means of action which were to render them so powerful and bring about the early downfall of feudalism.
In these three volumes, which appeared at long intervals, the author's theories are not always in complete harmony, nor are they always presented in a very luminous or coherent manner, but they are marked by originality and vigour. Flach gave them a solid basis by the wide range of his researches, utilizing charters and cartularies (published and unpublished), chronicles, lives of saints, and even those dangerous guides, the chansons de geste.
He owed little to the historians of feudalism, who knew what feudalism was, but not how it came about. He pursued the same method in his L'Origine de l'habitation et des lieux habités en France (1899), in which he discusses some of the theories circulated by A Meitzen in Germany and by Arbois de Jubainville
Marie Henri d'Arbois de Jubainville
Marie Henri d'Arbois de Jubainville , was a French historian and philologist.He was born at Nancy. In 1851 he left the École des Chartes with the degree of palaeographic archivist...
in France. Following in the footsteps of the jurist F. K. von Savigny, Flach studied the teaching of law in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
, and produced Cujas les glossateurs et les Bartolistes (1883), and Études critiques sur l'histoire du droit romain au moyen âge, avec textes inédits (1890).