The Ecole nationale des chartes

The School is a member of the University PSL (Paris Sciences & Lettres) and a founding member of the Condorcet Campus.

A Grand Etablissement of higher education

The Ecole nationale des chartes ranks among among the grands établissements of higher education. At the cutting edge of historical research, for which it has continuously and deeply renewed its methods since its foundation in 1821, the School has constantly supported the development of historical methods and the modernisation of the conservation professions, up to and including the current application of digital humanities in these sectors.

The School’s facade, at 65, Rue de Richelieu

 © ENC - cl. Didier Plowy

After more than one hundred years located within the Sorbonne, the School reached a new milestone in its history in October 2014 by moving to the Richelieu – Libraries, Museum, Galleries site next to the French National Library, near the Ecole du Louvre, the Ministry of Culture, the Interministerial Archival Services and the National Archives in the Marais. The School occupies a key position among the heritage institutions.

Entrance of the School at 19, Rue de la Sorbonne 75005 Paris

 © © Énc - cl. Myr Muratet

Under the administrative supervision of the Ministry for Higher Education, Research and Innovation, the School is managed by a director, assisted by a board of directors and a scientific advisory board. Two organisations, the CTHS (Committee of Historical and Scientific Works) and the URFIST (Regional Unit for Education in Scientific and Technical Information) are also attached to the School.

Teaching at the School

The courses are dispensed by the School’s professors, associate professors, part-time lecturers, international guest professors, as well as heritage and library curators.

The diploma of “archiviste paléographe”

2018 Archivist-Palaeographer Graduation Ceremony

 © ENC, cl. Didier Plowy

The School recruits and trains experienced researchers, and specifically future heritage and library curators, by providing them with a high-quality historiographical education focused on the analysis of all kinds of documents (archaeological materials, books, writings, artworks, audio-visual and electronic materials, etc.), the study of the evolution of medieval Latin and New Latin, Romance languages, and the history of the law and institutions. After defending a thesis based on original and in-depth research and doing various internships, these “trainee civil servant” students will obtain their Archivist-Palaeographer Diploma.

From Master’s Degrees to PhDs

The School also proposes three Master’s degrees in “Digital Technologies Applied to History”, “Digital Humanities” and “Transnational History”. It participates in two other Master’s programs: “Medieval Studies” and “Audio-Visual Design”. It issues PhDs in its areas of expertise (history, literature, art history) and has opened a doctoral research program, specifically for heritage and library curators.

Continuing and Professional Education

This is designed to meet the needs of documentation professionals, teachers, students and researchers, as well as different trades, like auctioneers or preventive archaeology professionals, organisations involved in promoting and protecting cultural heritage as well as private or public companies.

The School’s Research

Logo of the “Centre Jean-Mabillon”

The School’s scientific research laboratory, the “Centre Jean-Mabillon” (EA 3624), follows the tradition of modern-era scholars, deepens their historical critical methods in the contemporary world and embodies the collective, multidisciplinary and international aspect of research in the field of historical and philological sciences such as they are taught at the School.

Research has three main focuses:

• the culture of writing from the Middle Ages to the 21^st century
• the genesis and tradition of written cultural heritage resources: authors, relays and institutions
• the epistemology and normativity of publishing texts and images in the digital age

An Exceptional Library

Library Stores

 © J-C Ballot

The Ecole nationale des chartes boasts an exceptionally rich library in the disciplines corresponding to its fundamental vocation: history and its sources, palaeography, Latin and Romance language philology, the history of books, bibliography and codicology, history of the law, art history and archaeology. The library is no longer located in the Sorbonne and, since February 2017, can be found at 12, Rue des Petits-Champs on the Richelieu site.

Career Objectives and Prospects

The Ecole nationale des chartes works towards educating:

• future library and heritage curators specialising in archives, museums, historical monuments, archaeology or inventory
• teaching staff in higher education
• research professionals in universities or at the National Centre for Scientific Research
• IT project leaders in the cultural heritage sector or for research in the human and social sciences

The School in a few figures

• More than one hundred undergraduate and graduate students (150 in 2016-2017)
• A net monthly salary of €1,250 for “trainee civil servant” students
• 95% professional integration
• 2,000 students in continuing education each year
• 50 books published per year (including those of the CTHS) and electronic publications

Selective bibliography of the School’s history and courses

Selective bibliography of the School’s history and courses

An Institution in the Service of History and Heritage since 1821

From 1821 to 1829: the creation of a new school

The Ecole des chartes was created by Louis XVIII by the ruling of 22 February 1821, at the proposal of Interior Minister Joseph-Jérôme Siméon, himself won over by the project of Baron Joseph-Marie de Gérando. Since the Revolution, the closure of religious congregations and the transfer of powers from the Church to the State had created new demands in terms of the organisation, conservation and study of the documents and manuscripts that had been confiscated. As of 1807, Gérando proposed an initial project to Napoleon I, which the Emperor studied attentively but did not follow up on. The context of the 1820s proved to be much more conducive to the creation of the Ecole des chartes.

The Director’s office, at 65 Rue de Richelieu

 © ENC - cl. Oppic

From defence of the Charter to the rediscovery of Mediaeval civilisations

The School’s foundation came at a time when Mediaeval civilisations were being rediscovered thanks to the first Romantic movement, a time when there was also a need to renew the nation’s history through the direct study of archives, manuscripts and various dialects, and to maintain the tradition of erudition inherited from the Maurists, but which was endangered by the lack of staff educated in the “science of charters and manuscripts”.

The political context during the middle of Louis XVIII’s reign, marked by the return of the Ultras and challenges to the constitutional monarchy, influenced the foundation of a school assigned to the study and preservation of charters, explicitly referring to the defence of the Charter and therefore of rights and freedoms.

From 1829 to 1846: creation of the archivist-palaeographer and historiography diploma under François Guizot

The Entrance to the Hotel de Clisson, the School’s Entrance from 1846 to 1866

 © CC BY-SA 3.0 - cl. R. Mathis

The new institution’s goal was to educate young people in how to organise document archives and renew the study of “accumulated archives” and “an entire branch of literature,” the study of manuscripts and dialects. From the beginning, the Ecole des chartes was assigned a twofold mission, somewhere between conservation and the production of history. Rapidly falling into dormancy, it was reorganised by the ruling of 11 November 1829: classes resumed at the Archives of the Kingdom and the Royal Library; students were taught palaeography, diplomatics and philology and their education was recognised by the archivist-palaeographer’s diploma. In the spirit of Guizot’s “total history”, the ruling of 31 December 1846 profoundly restructured the School. Endowed with a new status, it left the Royal Library and moved into the Hotel de Clisson, in the Archives of the Kingdom. The reform also affected tuition at the school: an admission examination was introduced, the number of professors increased to seven and the School’s academic excellence enhanced..

Disciplines taught nowhere else

Doorknob, Sorbonne (Henri-Paul Nénot, end of the 19th century)

 © Arnaud Carpentier

The School’s activity was shaped by the principle of multidisciplinarity. A selection of six subjects was established in the reform by the terms of Article 8 of the ruling of 31 December 1846, and some of them are not taught anywhere else, even today: palaeography, taught by Champollion-Figeac (“the reading and deciphering of charters and written monuments”), archaeology in the class taught by Jules Quicherat (“figurative archaeology, embracing art history, Christian architecture, sigillography and numismatics”), diplomatics (“the general history of the Middle Ages, specifically applied to the chronology and art of verifying the age of titles and their authenticity”), philology (“linguistics applied to the history of the origins and formation of the national language”), historical geography (“the political geography of France in the Middle Ages”) and history of law (“the cursory knowledge of the principles of canon and feudal law”). The School was transformed into a genuine school for historians. The thesis was introduced by the 1846 reform as the key to obtaining the archivist-palaeographer diploma which was awarded subject to the defence of a “public act on a printed subject chosen [by the students]”, qualifying the “chartist” as a historian-researcher.

A genuine school of historians

The bust of Jules Quicherat by Jean Petit (1819-1903)

 © ENC - cl. Myr Muratet

Once its academic foundations were laid, the School thus became a cutting-edge institution of historical research, for which it renewed its methods profoundly. Its educational method of putting students in direct contact with sources became a benchmark throughout Europe, whether through archaeological study trips or palaeography classes using facsimiles of ancient documents. The ambitious twofold purpose of its education, both academic and professional, was the key to the School’s success. As a genuine “incubator for historians,” the School thus trained generations of intellectuals and senior civil servants, figures of major debates and developments in France from the 19^th century to the present day, like Jules Quicherat (class of 1834), Léopold Delisle (class of 1849), Paul Meyer (Class of 1861), Louis Courajod (class of 1867), Arthur Giry (class of 1870), Auguste Molinier (class of 1873), Gabriel Hanotaux (class of 1880), Charles-Victor Langlois (class of 1885), Camille Enlart (class of 1889), Clovis Brunel (class of 1908), Michel de Boüard and Jeanne Laurent (class of 1930), Régine Pernoud (class of 1933), Henri-Jean Martin (class of 1947), René Girard (class of 1947), Robert Fossier (class of 1949), Emmanuel Poulle (class of 1954), Jean Favier (class of 1954), Paul-Alberte Février (class of 1955), Yves-Marie Bercé (class of 1959) and Michel Pastoureau (class of 1972).

The School and the modernisation of the conservation professions

The Léopold-Delisle Room, a lecture by Jean-Pierre Babelon

 © ENC

The School also played an active part in the modernisation of the conservation professions. By specialising, throughout the 19^th century, in a public service mission oriented towards the conservation of heritage, the “chartists” contributed to the establishment of a dense network of archives and libraries, often cited as an example, and the definition of methods and action plans, from classification guidelines for the departmental archives to the manuscript catalogues at the Royal Library. Rulings and decrees progressively reserved a large number of positions in libraries and archives for alumni; as of 1829, these “natural” prospects were regularly confirmed, in 1846, in 1871 and during the 1880s specifically, while other careers were opened up to “chartists” in museums and archaeology, inventory and historical monument departments, as well as education and senior civil service positions.

The School at the centre of transformations of the cultural heritage professions

During the 20^th century, the School continued to support transformations affecting cultural heritage professions, for example, preparing students for the technical diploma for librarians from the 1930s to the 1950s. As of the 1990s, the School adapted its education to the context: specifically, through its significant commitment in the field of digital humanities. As an accompaniment to the creation of the French National School for Heritage (in 2001 becoming the National Heritage Institute), it strengthened its teaching in art history and archaeology, new media and contemporary history, as well as backing up its tuition with a number of internships.

2005: a reminder of the School’s mission by decree

Ceiling light at the School, with the inscription: “Gesta reru(m) scripturaru(m) apicibus convenit comendari, ut perhenni [memorie] contradantur.” (“Events should be put down in writing to pass them down in perpetual memory”)

 © Oppic

The School’s facade, at 65, Rue de Richelieu

 © ENC - cl. Didier Plowy

The School moved out of 19, Rue de la Sorbonne where it had been located since 1897, in order to move into its new premises at 65 Rue de Richelieu, the establishment’s original neighbourhood, near the French National Library, the National Heritage Institute, the Ecole du Louvre and the Ministry of Culture.

On 9 October 2015, François Hollande, the President of the Republic, inaugurated the new building → find out more

Entrance at 65, Rue de Richelieu, ironwork by Raymond Subes

 © Hafner

Architects Fernand Leroy and Jacques Cury designed the building at 65, Rue de Richelieu, built in 1929 for Camille Ernest Descheemaeker, an industrialist from Tourcoing. Trained at the Ecole des Beaux-arts in the studio of Victor Laloux, together they built several Parisian buildings in the Art Deco style, including the nearby building at 75, Rue de Richelieu in 1930, with the architect Jacquard, which housed the headquarters of the Aubusson Hamot tapestry manufacturer, and the spectacular “Ocean Liner” building (1934), located at 37, Rue du Louvre* for the Paris-Soir newspaper, by Jean Prouvost. After the war, Fernand Leroy built more remarkable office buildings (4-8, Rue du colonel Driant and 115-117, Rue Montmartre, in 1953, then at 83 of the same street in 1958), a church, Notre-Dame des Foyers (1960) and social housing in Montreuil, corporate headquarters buildings, etc.

For the ironwork at 65, Rue de Richelieu, as for that pf the Hamot building and the Building on the Rue du Louvre, the two architects called on Raymond Subes, who, in 1919, was the artistic director of the Robert and Borderel workshops, specialists in metallic structures and ironwork. He had already designed several ironwork creations (gates, banisters, consoles, etc.) for many residential and office buildings as well as religious edifices, exhibited at the Decorative Arts Expo of 1925 and participated in the decoration of the Ile-de-France ocean liner (1927). Here, for the façade and entrance, he designed a geometric pattern using the triangle as a decorative motif, a motif that he would reuse in several variations, specifically for the gate of the Bibliothèque d’Etude et du Patrimoine in Toulouse (1935) and the entrance of 8, Square d’Ornano in Paris.

 

65, Rue de Richelieu, interior bannister by Raymond Subes

 © Hafner

Raymond Subes was also responsible for designing the staircase bannister, whose design is very close to others executed for other buildings during these same years.

Bibliography: Blanc (Karin), Ferronnerie en Europe au XX^e siècle, Monelle Hayot, 2015

* (see Agnès Chauvin, “37, rue du Louvre : de Paris-Soir au Figaro,” Livraisons d’histoire de l’architecture, n°11, 2006, p. 21-31)

At the heart of a network

The Ecole Nationale des Chartes’ ties with the French-speaking world of higher education and research could not be stronger: the School is a member of the PSL (Paris Sciences & Lettres) University. It is also one of the founders of the public establishment for scientific cooperation, the Condorcet Campus, created by a decree published on March 1, 2012.

List of Directors

To find out more

• consult a selective biography of the School’s history and courses
• consult the Wikipedia page on the Ecole nationale des chartes
• consult the School brochure
• watch and listen to speakers at the conference of 13 November 2015 “L’Histoire en mutation : l’Ecole nationale des chartes aujourd’hui et demain” [“History in Transformation: The Ecole nationale des chartes of Today and Tomorrow”]