The École nationale des chartes – PSL (French pronunciation: [ekɔl nɑsjɔnal de ʃaʁt]), sometimes rendered in English as the National School of Charters, is a French grande école and grand établissement specialising in the historical sciences, archival studies, palaeography, diplomatics, the history of the book and digital humanities. Founded by royal ordinance on 22 February 1821, it is a constituent institution of PSL University.
The school was originally associated with the National Archives and was later located at the Palais de la Sorbonne. Since October 2014, it has been based at 65 rue de Richelieu in the 2nd arrondissement of Paris, opposite the Richelieu site of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Students admitted to the archivist-palaeographer programme are recruited through a highly selective competitive examination and may hold the status of trainee civil servants. After completing their studies and defending a thesis, they receive the qualification of archivist-paleographer. Graduates commonly pursue careers as heritage curators, archivists, library curators, lecturers and researchers in the humanities and social sciences. The school also offers master's degrees, introduced in 2005, and doctoral programmes, introduced in 2011.
Contents
History
The École des Chartes was created by order of Louis XVIII on 22 February 1821, although its roots are in the Revolution and the Napoleonic period. The Revolution, during which property was confiscated, congregations were suppressed and competencies were transferred from the Church to the State, produced radical cultural changes. In 1793 the feudalist Antoine Maugard approached the public instruction committee of the Convention with a proposal for a project of historical and diplomatic education. The project was never carried out, and Maugard was largely forgotten. The institution was eventually created by the philologist and anthropologist Joseph Marie de Gérando, baron of the Empire and general secretary to Champagny, the Minister of the Interior. In 1807 he submitted a proposal to Napoleon for the creation of a school to train young scholars of history. Napoleon examined the proposal and declared that he wished to develop a much larger specialist history school. However, Gérando was posted to Italy on an administrative mission, and the project was interrupted. At the end of 1820, Gérando convinced Count Siméon, a philosopher and professor of law who had been state councilor under the Empire and who was at that time Minister of the Interior, of the usefulness of an institution modeled on the grandes écoles, dedicated to the study of "a branch of French literature", the charters. The 1820s were a favorable period for the creation of the École des Chartes. Firstly this was because the atmosphere of nostalgia for the Middle Ages created a desire to train specialists who would, by carrying out a direct study of archives and manuscripts confiscated during the Revolution, be able to renew French historiography. Secondly, the need was also felt to maintain this branch of study, which stemmed from Maurist tradition, since the field was endangered by a lack of knowledgeable collaborators in the "science of charters and manuscripts". And thirdly, during the reign of Louis XVIII, a period which saw the return of the Ultras and during which the constitutional monarchy was called into question, the political context influenced the creation of an institution whose name inevitably made explicit reference to the defense of the Charter.
Under the order of 1821, twelve students were nominated by the Minister of the Interior, based on propositions by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, and they were paid during the two years of their studies. They principally studied paleography and philology, with a purely practical aim: to be able to read and understand the documents that they would be responsible for curating. The professors and students of the school were placed under the authority of the curator of medieval manuscripts of the Royal Library, rue de Richelieu, and of the general guard of the Archives of the Kingdom.
Missions
The École nationale des Chartes is regulated by the statute of 27 January 1984, modified by statute no. 2013-660 of 22 July 2013 which relates to higher education and research. Article 3 of decree no. 87-832 of 8 October 1897 modified by decree no. 2005-1751 of 30 December 2005 defines the missions of the school as follows:
The mission of the École nationale des Chartes is to provide training for the scientific staff of archives and libraries. It trains those who contribute to scientific knowledge and the protection of national heritage. It engages in the training and research of students in the human and social sciences, particularly in disciplines relating to critical study, exploitation, conservation and communication of historic sources.
Organization
The governing bodies are composed of the director of the School, the administrative council and the scientific council.
The director is selected from among the directors of studies of the École pratique des hautes études, the École nationale des Chartes and the École française d'Extrême-Orient, or from among professors of the universities and members of affiliated institutions. The director is appointed by decree of the President of the Republic for a term of five years, renewable once under the conditions of the article.
The director is assisted by a director of studies and a general director of services.
The administrative council, consists of 21 members, including four unelected members, ten members appointed by the minister responsible for higher education, two of whom are members of the Institute, and seven elected members, three of whom are teachers, two of whom are IATOS (non-teaching staff) and two of whom are students.
The scientific council37, headed by the director of the School, includes all the teachers who are directors of studies, as well as other unelected members. It also includes fifteen appointed members, five of whom are members of the Institute, as well as an elected teacher and a student representative.
The Paris URFIST (an inter-academic research and training body) and the Committee of Historical and Scientific Work are affiliated with the l'École des Chartes.
Training
Archivist-paleographers
French students are recruited by competitive examination prepared in literary-oriented classes préparatoires in and outside Paris. Since 1991, it has been divided into two sections:
Section A, "Classics". This includes, among other subjects, medieval history, modern history and Latin. Studies at the School require fluency in Latin.
Section B, "Modern". This is part of the École normale supérieure's banque d'épreuves littéraires (BEL), a set of entrance examinations valid for several schools, and includes modern history, contemporary history and modern languages among its subjects.
Students prepare for the entrance examination in dedicated classes préparatoires, the first year of which is known as "hypoChartes" and the second year "Chartes". Depending on the school, students preparing for examination A and those preparing for examination B may be grouped into a single cohort with different options, or they may be divided into two different cohorts. Those preparing for Section B can be grouped into khâgnes with additional options.
Candidates who can provide proof of at least a bachelor's degree in theory may take an examination to be allowed to proceed directly into the second year. This examination is aimed at candidates who are already conducting research at an advanced level.
There is a strict limit on the number of candidates admitted after succeeding the entrance examination. Their number was reduced from 30 to 20 in three years, which is lower than the number of positions available to graduates of the school (in archives, libraries, museums, etc.). This extremely selective process makes the school probably one of the most elitist in the world.
Students recruited by competitive examination can assume the status of trainee civil servants, being paid (currently approximately €1250/month net) in exchange for committing to a ten-year engagement. Those who pass the examination may choose whether or not to accept this status. Foreign students who are recruited by examination or on the basis of qualifications (according to the international selection procedure) are not remunerated while they follow the course, although they can apply for a scholarship.
Master's
In 2006 the École des Chartes introduced a Master's program in Digital Technologies Applied to History and has since then trained approximately 20 students per year. In the first year, all students take the same basic modules plus three options (archiving, history of books and media, and history of art). The first year of the Master's is a continuance of the École des Chartes undergraduate training. In the second year, students follow more specialized training in the field of IT applied to webcasting. There are two possible paths, one more research-oriented and the other, which is more vocational, oriented towards the dissemination of knowledge in a heritage service.
In 2011, the École des Chartes introduced a further two Master's courses. The first, in Medieval Studies, is offered in partnership with the École normale supérieure, the University of Paris III and the University of Paris IV. Its aim is to "provide training in literary research for medieval texts, with an interdisciplinary approach in the context of specialization in the Middle Ages". The second, run in partnership with the École normale supérieure Paris-Saclay and the Institut national de l'audiovisuel, is in Audiovisual Design: Plurimedial Representations of History, Society and Science. It aims to "train designers and makers of audiovisual documentaries (for cinema, television, radio and internet) as well as creators and heads of multimedia sites operating in the written press and publishing".
Doctorate
The École nationale des Chartes awards doctorates in the subjects that it teaches. Any student holding a master's degree, whether or not it was awarded by the École des Chartes, can apply to enroll in a doctoral program at the school. The doctorate is prepared through two collaborating doctoral schools: the École pratique des hautes études (for doctorates in medieval history, history of art, archeology, Roman philology and Latin) and the Paris Sorbonne University (for doctorates in modern and contemporary history).
The Institut national du patrimoine's classe préparatoire intégrée
Detailed article: Institut national du patrimoine (France).
The École des Chartes provides part of the preparation for the competitive examination for heritage curators (archive specialization) for students of the INP's classe préparatoire intégrée. These students are selected on the basis of social and academic criteria.
Research
Most of the professors at the École nationale des Chartes are affiliated to the Centre Jean-Mabillon, the École's research unit, whose director is currently Olivier Poncet.
The aim of the centre's research program is to cover all the processes that explain and publicize the written production from the Middle Ages to the present, through various stages:
the conditions of production (axis 1: the cultures of writing from the Middle Ages to the 21st century)
the mechanisms of heritage transmission (axis 2: genesis and tradition of written heritage: author, institutions, laws, study, etc.)
the conditions of returning this historic documentation to the scientific community (axis 3: epistemology and the norms of editing texts and images in the digital age)
A significant part of the school's research activity is the theses of the students, whose fields of studies have diversified over the years and now relate to all periods of history, notably contemporary.
Partnerships
Partnerships with other institutions form one of the central policies of the current administration, which collaborates closely with the École pratique des hautes études, the Institut de recherche et d'histoire des textes and the Centre d'études superieures de civilisation médiévale of the University of Poitiers to create the École d'Érudition en réseau. The École des Chartes is also part of the Institut d'histoire du livre together with the City of Lyon (its municipal library and Museum of printing works), the École normale supérieure of Lyon and the Enssib.
The École des Chartes also collaborates with other higher education establishments in Paris to form the ComUE heSam University, the ComUE Sorbonne Universities and the Campus Condorcet Paris-Aubervilliers.
The school also has partnerships with institutions outside France, such as the Russian State Archives, a number of Moscow libraries, the University of Alicante, and some Italian research centers. The school takes in a number of foreign students, who are often Swiss, Belgian or from francophone African countries, and is currently seeking to attract new students for shorter stays, through partnerships with universities. The school's students are also regularly invited to do internships in archives or libraries in other countries.
The library
The library was created by the order of 31 December 1846. At the time it occupied one of the two rooms reserved for the school in the hôtel de Soubise. The library moved with the school in 1897, and since then has occupied the second floor (reading room and history room), third floor (Horseshoe Room) and fourth floor (offices and store rooms in the attic).
In 1920, the management of the library was taken over by the secretary of the school, who at the time was René Poupardin. Today it is managed by a library curator.
It was designed as a research library. Its collections are particularly well supplied in the subjects taught at the school: medieval history, philology, history of books, bibliography, etc. The collections (around 150,000 volumes) are all available for immediate access. The catalogue is available online. Many electronic resources are also available.
Due to lack of space at the Sorbonne, the library moved in 2017 to 12 rue des Petits-Champs, into much larger premises.
Dissemination of knowledge
The École nationale des Chartes disseminates scientific works in its fields of specialization, in printed and electronic format.
It has published four collections of works in the printed format :
Mémoires et Documents, a collection dating from 1896, consisting of monographs, most notably the theses of École des Chartes alumni
Études et Rencontres, a collection begun in 1998, principally consisting of the minutes of scientific meetings
Matériaux pour l'Histoire, a collection inaugurated in 1996, consisting of richly illustrated quarto volumes
Études et documents for a Gallia Pontificia, a collection jointly edited by the École nationale des Chartes and the German Historical Institute of Paris since 2009 with the aim of presenting the work carried out as part of the Gallia Pontificia, a scientific enterprise that aims to identify, publish and study the papal acts concerning France dating from before 1198
The École des Chartes also publishes two periodic publications relating to the training it offers :
Abstracts of theses submitted by students to obtain their qualification of archivist-paleographer, published annually by the École des Chartes since 1849. Since 2000, they have also been available online
Hypotheses. Works of the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne doctoral school of history and the École nationale des Chartes, co-edited by the École nationale des Chartes and Sorbonne publications since 2010
These works are disseminated by CID-FMSH, through the Comptoir des presses de l'université.
École des Chartes publications
The École des Chartes also publishes numerous works, in both paper and electronic format. The Mémoires et documents de l'École des Chartes are monographs, many of them drawn from École des Chartes theses or doctoral research. The first of these was published in 1896 and they are distributed by Honoré Champion and Droz. Two more collections, the Études et rencontres (minutes of conventions and brief monographs) and Matériaux pour l'histoire (illustrated large-format albums), have been created more recently. ELEC is also responsible for the school's online publications, which include databases, editions of texts, minutes of symposia, bibliographies, and studies.
The Société de l'École des Chartes
The Société de l'École des Chartes is registered as a public-interest association, which students and alumni can join. Its current president is Marie-Françoise Limon-Bonnet, who was elected in 2018. Twice a year, the Société publishes the Bibliothèque de l'École des Chartes with the support of the École. This scientific review, founded in 1839, is one of the oldest in France.
Some famous École des Chartes alumni
Archives, libraries, research
Pierre Aubry (1874–1910), musicologist
Jean-François Bergier (1931–2009), modernist
Léopold Victor Delisle (1826–1910), librarian
Jean Favier (1932–2014), medievalist and archivist
Arthur Giry (1848–99), professor at the École des Chartes
Louis Halphen (1880–1950), medievalist
Suzanne Honoré (1909–2000), archivist, librarian, historian
Antoine Le Roux de Lincy (1806–1869), medievalist
Charles-Victor Langlois (1863–1929), medievalist and archivist
Henri-Jean Martin (1924–2007), historian of books
Émile Maupas (1842–1916), librarian and zoologist
Auguste Molinier (1851–1904), professor at the École des Chartes
Michel Pastoureau (born 1947), medievalist
Ngô Đình Nhu (1910–1963), archivist (Director of National Library of Vietnam from 1945 to 1946)
Régine Pernoud (1909–98), medievalist
Marcel Poëte (1866–1950), librarian, historian and urban planner
Jean Richard (1921–2021), medievalist
Clergy
Jules Doinel
George Bernard Flahiff
Joan Tarré i Sans
Maurice de Germiny
Henri Brincard
Politics
Charles Beauquier
Camille Pelletan
Gabriel Hanotaux
Louis Germain-Martin
François de Clermont-Tonnerre
Félix Grat
Lucien Romier
Ngô Đình Nhu (1910 - 1963), State Counsellor of South Vietnam from 1955 to 1963
Literature
Roger Martin du Gard
Valérie Mangin
André Chamson
Georges Bataille
René Girard
Édith Thomas
Some biographers, perhaps overgeneralizing, also use the term chartiste to refer to certain French historians, such as La Villemarqué, Achille Jubinal, Pierre Lalo and Louis Madelin, or foreign historians, such as Alfred Métraux, K. J. Conant or Aleksander Gieysztor, who audited some of the lessons at the École des Chartes, or to Auguste Poulet-Malassis, José-Maria de Heredia and François Mauriac, who were registered as students but who never completed their studies.