Francisque Xavier Michel (18 February 1809,
Lyon – 18 May 1887,
Paris) was a French historian and
philologist.
Life
He became known for his editions of French works of the Middle Ages, and the French Government, recognizing their value, sent him to England (1833) and
Scotland (1837) to continue his research there. In 1837 he became a member of the Comité Historique and in 1838 chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur. In 1839 he was appointed professor of foreign literature in the Faculté des lettres at the
University of Bordeaux. Between 1834 and 1842 he published editions of many works written between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries in French, English, and
Saxon, including the Roman de la rose and the Chanson de Roland.
He got his licence in literature in 1842, and his doctorat in 1846, with a thesis in Latin on
Virgil and a thesis in French, entitled: Histoire des races maudites de la France et de l'Espagne. Subsequently, he published French translations of
Goldsmith,
Sterne,
Shakespeare, and
Tennyson. In 1857 he published his important book on the Basque Country: Le Pays Basque, sa population, sa langue, ses moeurs, sa littérature et sa musique.
Publications
Quae vices quaeque mutationes et Virgilium ipsum et ejus carmina per mediam aetatem exceperint. (thesis, 1846).
Histoire des races maudites de la France et de l'Espagne (thesis, 1847)
Recherches sur le commerce pendant le moyen âge (1852–1854)
Les Ecossais en France et les français en Ecosse (1862)
Etudes de philologie comparée sur l'argot (1856)
Le Pays basque (1857)
Le Romancero du Pays Basque (1859)
Histoire du commerce et de la navigation a Bordeaux (1867–1871)
in conjunction with
Édouard Fournier, Histoire des hôtelleries, cabarets, hotels garnis (1851–1854)
Edited texts
Michel was one of the most prolific editors of medieval French texts. His Libri Psalmorum versio antiqua gallica lists 50 of his works, both editions of Medieval texts and original works.[1] The following is a selected bibliography.
Tristan; recueil de ce qui reste des poëmes relatifs à ses aventures, 1835. Edition of several poems on the subject of
Tristan
Charlemagne an Anglo-Norman Poem of the twelfth Century, 1836
Chronique des ducs de Normandie par
Benoît, trouvère anglo-normand du XIIe siècle, 1836-44. Three volumes, 44,544 verses in total
William Cole. First and Otherwise Notable Editions of Medieval French Texts Printed from 1742 to 1874: A Bibliographical Catalogue of My Collection. Sitges: Cole & Contreras, 2005.