Pirenne pioneered in historical demography. Pirenne himself, however, was never to write the history of the industry others did so, piecemeal, according to his guidelines. A preliminary step was the collection and publication of the available source materials, and this was accomplished by Pirenne in collaboration with Georges Espinas (1906–1924). In order to place in proper perspective the effect of the development of the cloth industry on the growth of Flemish towns, Pirenne decided to write a history of that industry. He expanded especially the discussion of Italian and Russian towns. When he later, in 1927, wrote Les villes du moyen age, characteristically subtitled Essai d’histoire economique et sociale, he remained loyal to his original theories but developed certain aspects of the subject more fully. His own theory was that towns developed as the result of the revival of commerce in the tenth and eleventh centuries and that their original nuclei were settlements of merchants. In his first important contribution to this field (1893–1895), he rejected previous explanations of the origin of towns. Throughout his career, Pirenne studied the history of towns. This does not mean that he was a historical materialist: important individuals play a significant part in his explanation of events, as does chance. Thus, he ascribed the process of political unification of the areas on opposite sides of the language frontier to their similar economic and social structure. Pirenne worked out a synthesis of social, economic, and political factors in the study of the history of his own country (1900–1932), especially of certain mass movements. His interest in social and economic history was enhanced by postgraduate studies in Germany with Gustav Schmoller and through his acquaintance with Karl Lamprecht his contact with Arthur Giry in Paris in 1884–1885 strengthened his interest in urban history. He had personal experience with the Walloon woolen industry, since his father managed a factory in the town of Verviers, and he became aware of the acuteness of social distress in Belgian industry at the time that he completed his university studies. Several circumstances contributed to Pirenne’s interest in the social aspects of history. He taught medieval history and from 1893 on held the first chair of economic history in Belgium. There he taught until 1930 and between 19 acted as rector of the university.

In 1885 he was appointed to a teaching position at that university but the following year moved to the University of Ghent.

After studying under Godefroid Kurth and Paul Fredericq, he received his doctorate of letters at the University of Liege in 1883. Henri Pirenne (1863–1935) was a Belgian historian.

Henri pirenne books