KURIH, GODEFROY. - Belgian historian, b. at Arlon on 11 May 1847, d. at Assche (Brussels) on 4 Jan. 1916. He studied at the Normal School attached to the University of Liège. In his youth he was a poet and novelist. In 1869 he became professor of history at the Royal Athenaeum of Liège, and three years later he occupied the chair of history at the University of Liège, remaining there until 1906, when he became director of the Belgian Historical Institute in Rome. A convinced Catholic, he took an active part in the International Eucharistic Congresses and repeatedly defended the freedom of teaching against those who sought to make it an instrument of persecution.
K. is one of the founders of the Belgian historical school. He was the first in Belgium to establish, in accordance with what was already practised in German universities, a practical course in history and thus introduced the scientific method into historical research in his own country. Of German origin, he possessed a profound critical spirit, but to his tenacity in erudite research corresponded an equal capacity for representation and synthesis, so that his works are distinguished not only for their historical erudition but also for their literary style. Even the apparently driest texts of the High Middle Ages assume in his hands a vitality and immediacy that are quite unexpected: witness his work on the origins of modern civilisation (Les origines de la civilisation moderne, 2 vols., Paris 1886). This was followed by the Histoire poétique des Mérovingiens (ibid. 1893), which is a patient investigation into the limits of the historical reliability of Gregory of Tours, Fredegar and other contemporary historical documents, and the noteworthy monograph on Clovis (Clovis, Tours 1896), which highlights the assimilating function of Christianity and the importance of the religious unity established, after this monarch’s conversion, between the Gauls and the Franks. Among his other works may be mentioned those on the history of Liège in the Middle Ages: the two volumes on Notger de Liège et la civilisation au Xe siècle (Paris 1905) and the three volumes on La cité de Liège au moyen âge (Brussels-Liège 1910); also the Etudes franques (2 vols., Brussels 1919) and the brilliant volume: L'Église aux tournants de l'histoire, 6th ed., Brussels 1927. From 1897 to 1907 K. directed the Bulletin de la Commission royale d'histoire, published by the Royal Academy of Belgium, of which he had become a member in 1894. In 1899 he founded the historical journal Archives belges.