COMMYNES, PHILIPPE de. — French historian and politician, born at Hazebrouck (Flanders) around 1447, died at Argenton on 18 October 1511.
He held various offices, first at the court of Charles the Bold, then at that of Louis XI. After an unfortunate period, he returned to political activity under Charles VIII, whom he followed to Italy, and finally under Louis XII. He spent his final years in his own castle at Argenton, where he completed his Mémoires, in seven books: the first six recount the events in France during the reign of Louis XI, while the seventh recounts Charles VIII’s expedition to Italy.
Notable in C. is his effort to rise above chronicle-writing into history, thanks to a deeper vision of the whole and to his ability to discern, beyond the contingent concatenation of events, the possibility of a wise intervention by human will within the limits of Providence; in his historiographical writing, however, he does not avoid a marked psychologism. C.’s examination of the political and diplomatic factor in the history of peoples is masterly.