Auguste Molinier

Who was Auguste Molinier?

August Molinier was a French historian.

He was born at Toulouse. He was a pupil at the École des Chartes, which he left in 1873, and also at the École des Hautes Études; and he obtained appointments in the public libraries at the Mazarine, at Fontainebleau, and at Sainte-Geneviève, of which he was nominated librarian in 1885.

He was a good palaeographer and had a thorough knowledge of archives and manuscripts; and he soon won a first place among scholars of the history of medieval France. His thesis on leaving the École des Chartes was his Catalogue des actes de Simon et d'Amauri de Montfort, an important contribution to the history of the Albigenses. This marked him out as a capable editor for the new edition of L'histoire générale de Languedoc by Dom Vaissète: he superintended the reprinting of the text, adding notes on the feudal administration of this province from 900 to 1250, on the government of Alphonse of Toulouse, brother of St Louis, and on the historical geography of the province of Languedoc in the Middle Ages.

He also wrote a Bibliographie du Languedoc, which was awarded a prize by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, but remained in manuscript. He also published several documents for the Société de l'Orient Latin; for the Société de l'Histoire de France; for the Collection de textes relatifs à l'enseignement de l'histoire; for the Collection des documents inédits; for the Recueil des historiens de la France, etc., and several volumes in the Recueil des catalogues des bibliothèques publiques de France.