Bruno Neveu; Catholic historian & director/Maison Francaise
Hyfler/Rosner
Bruno Neveu
Catholic historian and convivial director of the Maison
Française, Oxford
17 April 2004
Bruno Neveu, historian and university administrator:
born Grenoble, France 4 November 1936; Director of Studies,
History and Philological Section, Ecole Pratique des Hautes
Etudes, Sorbonne 1973-2002; Director, Maison Française,
Oxford 1981-84; died Beirut 24 March 2004.
Bruno Neveu was one of the most distinguished and productive
historians of the Early Modern Catholic Church. His main
contribution lay in the field of 17th-century theology and
erudition, though in recent years he had moved forwards in
time and was working on the impact of modernism on the
Church. He had very close connections with Britain, having
been Director of the Maison Française in Oxford in the 1980s
and subsequently maintaining a wide circle of friends over
here.
Born in 1936, Neveu, the son of an engineer, began his
university studies in his native Grenoble. His merits earned
him a place at the Ecole Nationale des Chartes in Paris -
the school for the study of documents of all periods - and
it was as a chartiste with the diploma of "archiviste
paléographe" that he first made his mark. He secured one of
the coveted scholarships at the Fondation Thiers, which
provided him with board and lodging in Paris.
It was during this period, 1963-66, that he obtained a
doctorate at the Sorbonne and produced his great work Un
Historien à l'Ecole de Port-Royal: Sébastien Le Nain de
Tillemont ("A Historian of the School of Port-Royal:
Sébastien Le Nain de Tillemont", 1966). It was a careful
delineation of the strands of thought and scholarship that
underpinned both theology and erudition in the
pre-Enlightenment age. Neveu managed to write sensitively
about the contribution of Jansenists without hostility to
them but also without personal commitment to their cause.
In 1966, he moved to the prestigious Ecole Française de Rome
for a three-year period, the first of his many links with
Italy, a country which Neveu came to love and visited as
often as he could. He obtained a further four years,
1969-73, in Rome as a chargé de mission attached to the CNRS
(Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique).
It was a prolific period for Neveu, as he produced a
full-length study of another religious figure, Du Cambout de
Pontchâteau, in Sébastien Joseph Du Cambout de Pontchâteau,
1634-1690, et ses missions à Rome: d'après sa correspondance
et des documents inédits (1969) and edited two volumes of
the diplomatic despatches of a papal nuncio at the court of
Louis XIV (Correspondance du nonce en France Angelo Ranuzzi,
1973).
In 1973 he was appointed directeur d'études, a post of
professorial standing, at the history and philological
section of the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes at the
Sorbonne in Paris. The Ecole Pratique, a creation of
Napoleon III, exists to foster research by allowing its
members to devote themselves to it full time with a minimum
of teaching in their chosen field. Neveu was truly in his
element in this institution, where he remained until his
retirement in 2002, with a stint as president of all the
sections from 1994 to 1998.
From 1981 to 1984 he had been seconded from the Ecole
Pratique to become Director of the Maison Française in
Oxford. He threw himself wholeheartedly into Oxford life. He
was made an associate member of All Souls College, he joined
the Athenaeum - places where his conviviality was much
appreciated. He came to love the Anglican establishment with
its choir schools and cathedral closes. To him, it was like
discovering a vanished world.
The French government could have extended his term, and its
failure to do so created a mini-scandal. With his return to
Paris, his publications resumed their impressive course. He
sat on several bodies and councils involved with history or
with the publication of texts, both in France and at the
Vatican.
In 2001 he was elected to the Académie des Sciences Morales
et Politiques and no fewer than 45 British academics and
friends contributed to the purchase of his ceremonial sword.
He was honoured by many countries, becoming a Corresponding
Member of the Royal Historical Society and the holder of
decorations from Italy and Portugal. Last year he was
appointed Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur and was also made
a Knight Commander of the Order of St Sylvester by the Pope.
He took an immense pleasure in wearing his habit vert and
his colourful decorations.
A gentle, convivial bachelor, Bruno Neveu remained a very
private person. When he learned that someone had described
him as having the gait and manner of a Trollopian prelate,
he was immensely gratified by the comparison. Not liking the
Roman liturgy that prevailed after the Second Vatican
Council, but wishing to remain within the discipline of the
Church, he practised the Greek Catholic rite. It was on a
visit to the Lebanon and at the residence of the Patriarch
that he died suddenly in his sleep.
His funeral at the church of St Etienne-du-Mont in Paris was
celebrated in the rite that he had come to love, and it was
attended by the former French prime minister Pierre Messmer
and by numerous friends from many countries.
John Rogister