IMBART DE LA TOUR, PIERRE-GILBERT-JEAN-MARIE. - French historian, b. 22 Aug. 1860 at Valenton (Seine-et-Oise), d. 18 Dec. 1925 in Paris. A pupil of the Ecole normale supérieure and of Fustel de Coulanges, he specialized in the study of medieval history and, in particular, of the religious history of France in that period.
Professor at Bordeaux from 1885 to 1910, member of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences from 1909, he is chiefly remembered for two monographs on medieval history: one on ecclesiastical immunities in the Carolingian age (Les immunités accordées aux Eglises à l'époque carolingienne, Paris 1899), the other on episcopal elections (Les élections épiscopales dans l'Eglise de France du IXe au XIIe siècle, ibid. 1891). His most important work is that on the origins of the Protestant “Reformation,” in several volumes, unfortunately left unfinished (Les origines de la réforme, ibid. 1905-35: 4 vols., the last of which was published posthumously).