Robert Bossuat

Robert Émile Étienne Bossuat (6 August 1888 – 12 November 1968) was a French philologist and Romanist, a specialist in medieval literature and a member of the Institute.

Biography

Robert Bossuat was born in 10th arrondissement of Paris. Bossuat came from a Nièvre family and entered the National School of Charters in 1908, graduating second in his class with a thesis on the Livre d'amours de Drouart la Vache under the supervision of Paul Meyer. He also obtained a licence from the Faculty of Letters and a diploma from the Research School of Advanced Studies (EPHE), and passed the competitive examination for the agrégation in grammar in 1914.

As soon as he finished his studies, he was mobilized, wounded and taken prisoner. At the end of the war, he began teaching in secondary schools in Laon, Dijon and Paris: this activity did not prevent him from putting the finishing touches to his doctoral thesis in 1925. Preferring to remain in Paris, he continued to teach at secondary level, but was also a lecturer at the EPHE and the Sorbonne (1927 and 1930). He was finally elected to the Chair of Narrative and Literary Sources at the School of Charters in 1937.

He moved to the Chair of Romance Philology on the departure of Clovis Brunel (1955) and retired himself in 1958. He was elected member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in 1962 and died in 1968 at 80 years of age. He is buried in the 14th division of the Pantin cemetery in Paris.

Private life

His brother André Bossuat (1892–1967) was a renowned historian. His daughter Denise Bossuat also studied at the National School of Charters and was an archive curator and historian; she married Didier Ozanam.

External links

• Works by Robert Bossuat at Persée
• Works by Robert Bossuat at Gallica