LECLERCQ (d'ORLANCOURT), HENRI. - Polymath, b. at Tournai on 4 Dec. 1869, d. in London on 23 March 1945. Naturalized French, he entered the Benedictine Order and was professed at the abbey of Solesmes, whence he passed in 1896 to the abbey of Farnborough, and there became a priest in 1898. He passed to the secular clergy of the archdiocese of Westminster in 1924, becoming an oblate of the abbey of St. Mary of Paris and chaplain of the Sisters of Sion in London.
He was the most active collaborator of Abbot Cabrol (v.) for the edition of the first volumes of the Monumenta Ecclesiae liturgica; he published Les Martyrs. Recueil des pièces authentiques sur les martyrs, depuis les origines jusqu'au XXe siècle (15 vols., Paris 1903-24); of a historical and archaeological character are L'Afrique chrétienne (2 vols., ibid. 1904) and L'Espagne chrétienne (ibid. 1906), a compendium of other authors and by now superseded by new studies and by the fruitful explorations that followed.
His activity predominated in the drafting of articles for the Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie which, begun « avec le concours d'un grand nombre de collaborateurs », in 1903, was soon reduced to being compiled solely by L.; his articles, for the most part compendia of previous publications, are often lacunose and incomplete, with judgments not always serene and objective and with not a few errors, especially as regards the description of monuments (cf., e.g., A. Ferrua, Rivista, in Civ. Catt., 1938, I, pp. 67-72; 1939, IV, pp. 172-75). L., before dying, had already completed the drafting of all the articles from vol. XIV, II (1948); the printing, now, is directed by prof. E. Marrou of the University of Paris. In 1907 he began the French translation of C. Hefele's work on the history of the councils from the 2nd German edition, augmented with critical and bibliographical notes (Histoire des Conciles, 19 vols., Paris 1907-49). L. furthermore published: a popularizing booklet, St-Benoît sur Loire, les reliques, le monastère, l'église (4th ed., Paris 1925); St Jérôme (Louvain 1927); L'Ordre bénédictin (ibid. 1930); La vie chrétienne primitive (ibid. 1928); a Histoire du déclin et de la chute de la Monarchie française, of which the following volumes have appeared: Histoire de la Régence pendant la minorité de Louis XV (3 vols., ibid. 1921); Les journées d'octobre et la fin de l'an 1789 (ibid. 1924); Vers la fédération (Janvier-juillet 1790),
La fédération (janvier-juillet 1790; Paris 1929); L'Eglise constitutionnelle (juillet 1790-avril 1791; Paris 1934); La fuite du roi (avril-juillet 1791; ibid. 1936); L'oeuvre de la Constituante (juillet-décembre 1791; ibid. 1938), a study on Ferdinand Gaillard, « maître-graveur » (Paris 1934), and in English A chronicle of social and political events from 1610 to 1914 (Oxford 1937).
Enrico Josi