Jeanne Vieillard

Jeanne Vieillard, passionate about the Hispanic Middle Ages

The only woman in the founding trio, Jeanne Vielliard bridged the gap between knowledge and the simple pilgrim. In 1938, she translated the first “Guide du Pèlerin de Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle” (Pilgrim’s Guide to Santiago de Compostela), a 12th-century Latin text, into French from the Compostelle and Ripoll manuscripts, and had it published. Jeanne Vielliard was born in Paris on May 26, 1894 and died in Maisons-Laffitte on November 3, 1979. She graduated in Philosophy in 1912 before studying at the École normale catholique. In 1920, she was the only woman admitted to the École Nationale des Chartes. She graduated top of her class in 1924, with a thesis entitled “Le latin des diplômes royaux et chartes privées del époque mérovingienne”. At the same time, she studied at the École des Hautes Études, which published her thesis in 1927. Her position as valedictorian enabled her to be sent to the École française de Rome. She was the first woman to be admitted. She stayed there from October 1924 to September 1927. She was then appointed a member of the École des hautes études hispaniques (Casa de Velasquez). Officially, she remained there for 4 years, but in 1928, she was seconded to the Archives of the Crown of Aragon in Barcelona, where she examined the registers of the Aragonese Chancellery, a job that gave rise to several publications with archivist-historians Robert Avezou and Léon Mirot. The sources of her most famous works stem from this love of Spain, such as her “Guide du pèlerin de Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle” (Pilgrim’s Guide to Santiago de Compostela).

But more than her work, of which no one is unaware, what I would like to remember,” says Jean Glénisson of Jeanne Vielliard’s stay in Spain, “is the passion she felt for this country. A passion beautifully evoked by Jacques Fontaine:

“Every time I had the joy of entering her office, she thought she saw, in spite of me, in spite of herself, Isidore of Seville enter in person and behind him, with the scent of meseta jarales… all the spells of the Hispanic Middle Ages. In short, we were both aficionados a Espana. And so it was that, in the interstices of our learned conversations, we were both, in the words of Miguel de Unamuno, “aching for Spain”.

Between 1931 and 1937, Jeanne Vielliard was a curator at the Archives Nationales. She accompanied Félix Grat in his project to create the Institut de Recherche et d’Histoire des Textes, which came into being in 1937. When Félix Grat died in 1940, Jeanne Vielliard became director of the IRHT, a position she held until 1964.

In 1972, she became the first woman to hold the annual presidency of the Société de l’histoire de France.

In the history of contemporary scholarship,” writes Jean Glénisson, “the name of Jeanne Vielliard will forever be linked to that of the Institut de Recherche et d’Histoire des Textes.

My research wasn’t confined to the archives, and I made the pilgrimage three times, the last in 1954, which was a “holy year” and which I still remember fondly; if I didn’t take part in the pilgrimage that the “Friends of Santiago de Compostela” organized so successfully last year, it’s because I feared I wouldn’t be able to bear the fatigue, but it was with all my heart and a touch of nostalgia that I followed in thought, step by step, the pilgrims of 1965 who, following in the footsteps of so many glorious and obscure predecessors, went to pay homage to the great apostle.

In Revue Compostelle 1965 1″ série: ” Souvenirs et projets ” signed by J. Vielliard