Henri Valois

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Not to be confused with Henry of Valois.

Henri Valois (September 10, 1603, in Paris – May 7, 1676, in Paris) or in classical circles, Henricus Valesius, was a philologist and a student of classical and ecclesiastical historians. He is the elder brother to Adrien Valois (1607–1692), who described his life in a biography (first published in 1677), which is the basis for all modern biographies of Henri Valois.[1]

Life

Belonging to a family of

Collège de Clermont at Paris, where he studied rhetoric under Denis Pétau. He studied law at Bourges (1622–24) and returned to Paris, where, to please his father, he practised law against his inclination for seven years. When he regained his liberty he plunged into classical studies, which he had never entirely abandoned.[2]

Constantine Porphyrogenitus
on virtue and vice. Valois took from it numerous previously unedited fragments of earlier historians, which he published in 1634:
Ioannis antiocheni
excerpta. In 1636 he edited Ammiani Marcellini rerum gestarum libri XVIII, with abundant notes which illumined all the history of that period and its institutions, together with two fragments, one from an Origo Constantini (ca. 340) and one dating from ca. 527; although unconnected with each other, these two items are still usually printed together under his name, Anonymus Valesianus. He succeeded in recognizing the rhythm of the phrases in the establishment of the text, at the same time making no display of his discovery. [2] This edition was revised and enlarged by his brother Adrien in 1681.

In 1650, the

Saint Athanasius, on that of Paul, Bishop of Constantinople, and the sixth canon of Nicaea (against Lamouy
). In 1673, he completed his book with Theodoret, Evagrius, and the excerpts from Philostorgius and Theodorus Lector: Socratis, Sozomeni, Theodoreti et Evagrii Historia ecclesiastica.[2]

At first he had only the slender means left him by his father, but later pensions from President Jean-Antoine de Mesmes of the parlement of Paris, the clergy of France, Cardinal Mazarin, and Louis XIV provided him with the necessary leisure and the assistance of a secretary, for his sight was never good, and as early as 1637 he ceased to have the use of his right eye. In 1664, when he was nearly blind, he married the young Marguerite Chesneau and had by her four sons and three daughters.[2]

He did important work, and though the manuscripts at his disposal were not always the best, his tact and the certainty of his criticism was admirable. His temperate and sanely learned notes are excellent documents of the French learning of the seventeenth century. Valois was associated with the greatest scholars of his time, with whom however he always maintained his liberty of judgment. He wrote the funeral eulogies of Jacques Sirmond, Pierre Depuy, and Denis Pétau. He also wrote several occasional Latin poems, but to posterity he is the learned and exact editor of the Greek ecclesiastical historians.[2]

Notes

  1. ^ Martin Wallraff: Der Kirchenhistoriker Sokrates. Untersuchungen zur Geschichtsdarstellung, Methode und Person, 1997, p. 14 sq., note 14.
  2. ^ a b c d e Lejay 1913.

References

Wikisource has original works by or about:
Henri Valois
  •  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lejay, Paul (1913). "Henri Valois". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
  • Adrien Valois. De vita Henrici Valesii in the second edition of Eusebius (Paris, 1677), also in the Cambridge edition (1720)
  • Eduard Schwartz. Eusebius Werke, Die Kirchengesch., III (Leipzig, 1909).
  • Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Valois, Henri de" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 27 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
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