CAHIER, CHARLES. — French Jesuit and archaeologist, born in Paris on 26 February 1807, died there on 27 February 1882. He devoted almost his entire life to the study of religious archaeology, with the declared aim of not leaving this field to unbelieving scholars.
In collaboration with Fr. MARTINO G (v.) he published: Monographie de la cathédrale de Bourges (Paris 1841–44, large folio; only the first part: Vitraux du XIIIe siècle, with 33 plates noteworthy for the period), and Mélanges d'archéologie, d'histoire et de littérature (4 vols., there 1848–56, quarto with illustrations).
After his collaborator’s death (1856), he published the material he had prepared with him: Suite aux mélanges d'archéologie (there 1868, 2 vols., almost entirely plates), and Nouveaux mélanges d'archéologie, d'histoire et de littérature du moyen âge (4 quarto vols., there 1874–77, with many illustrations; the list of the dissertations in the three series, with the portion attributable to the two authors, is found in Leclercq, cited infra). Meanwhile, C. opened the way for modern iconography with his highly useful Caractéristiques des saints dans l'art populaire (2 quarto vols., there 1867, an alphabetical repertory of emblems and symbols, with approximately 500 figures drawn by Martin). Besides many articles in: Annales de philosophie religieuse, Études, Revue de l'art chrétien, etc., he worked extensively on a Géographie ecclésiastique, which remained unpublished.
With the defects of a self-taught scholar and an originality at times somewhat bizarre, C. was, in the study of medieval archaeology, a pioneer of exceptionally broad erudition.