HAVET

havet, julien (pierre eugene) (1853-1893), french historian, was born at vitry-sur-seine on the 4th of april 1853, the second son of ernest havet. he early showed a remarkable aptitude for learning, but had a pronounced aversion for pure rhetoric. his studies at the ecole des chartes (where he took first place both on entering and leaving) and at the ecole des hautes etudes did much to develop his critical faculty, and the historical method taught and practised at these establishments brought home to him the dignity of history, which thenceforth became his ruling passion. his valedictory thesis at the ecole des chartes, _serie chronologique des gardiens et seigneurs des iles normandes_ (1876), was a definitive work and but slightly affected by later research. in 1878 he followed his thesis by a study called _les cours royales dans les iles normandes_. both these works were composed entirely from the original documents at the public record office, london, and the archives of jersey and guernsey. on the history of merovingian institutions, havet's conclusions were widely accepted (see _la formule n. rex francor., v. inl._, 1885). his first work in this province was _du sens du mot "romain" dans les lois franques_ (1876), a critical study on a theory of fustel de coulanges. in this he showed that the status of the _homo romanus_ of the barbarian laws was inferior to that of the german freeman; that the gallo-romans had been subjected by the germans to a state of servitude; and, consequently, that the germans had conquered the gallo-romans. he aimed a further blow at fustel's system by showing that the frankish kings had never borne the roman title of _vir inluster_, and that they could not therefore be considered as being in the first place roman magistrates; and that in the royal diplomas the king issued his commands as _rex francorum_ and addressed his functionaries as _viri inlustres_. his attention having been drawn to questions of authenticity by the forgeries of vrain lucas, he devoted himself to tracing the spurious documents that encumbered and perverted merovingian and carolingian history. in his _a propos des decouvertes de jerome vignier_ (1880), he exposed the forgeries committed in the 17th century by this priest. he then turned his attention to a group of documents relating to ecclesiastical history in the carolingian period and bearing on the question of false decretals, and produced _les chartes de st-calais_ (1887) and _les actes de l'eveche du mans_ (1894). on the problems afforded by the chronology of gerbert's (pope silvester ii.) letters and by the notes in cipher in the ms. of his letters, he wrote _l'ecriture secrete de gerbert_ (1877), which may be compared with his _notes tironiennes dans les diplomes merovingiens_ (1885). in 1889 he brought out an edition of gerbert's letters, which was a model of critical sagacity. each new work increased his reputation, in germany as well as france. at the bibliotheque nationale, where he obtained a post, he rendered great service by his wide knowledge of foreign languages, and read voraciously everything that related, however remotely, to his favourite studies. he was finally appointed assistant curator in the department of printed books. he died prematurely at st cloud on the 19th of august 1893. after his death his published and unpublished writings were collected and published (with the exception of _les cours royales des iles normandes_ and _lettres de gerbert_) in two volumes called _questions merovingiennes_ and _opuscules inedits_ (1896), containing, besides important papers on diplomatic and on carolingian and merovingian history, a large number of short monographs ranging over a great variety of subjects. a collection of his articles was published by his friends under the title of _melanges havet_ (1895), prefixed by a bibliography of his works compiled by his friend henri omont. (c. b.*)