Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.
LECLERCQ (d'ORLANCOURT), HENRI. — Polymath, born in Tournai on 4 December 1869, died in London on 23 March 1945. Naturalized French, he entered the Benedictine Order and was professed at the abbey of Solesmes, from which he transferred in 1896 to the abbey of Farnborough, where he became a priest in 1898. He transferred to the secular clergy of the archdiocese of Westminster in 1924, becoming an oblate of the abbey of S. Maria in Paris and chaplain to the Sisters of Sion in London.
He was the Cabrol (v.) in the editing 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); L'Afrique chrétienne (2 vols., ibid. 1904) and L'Espagne chrétienne (ibid. 1906) are historical and archaeological in character, a compendium of other authors and by now superseded by new studies and subsequent fruitful explorations.
His activity was chiefly devoted to the preparation of articles for the Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie which, begun « avec le concours d'un grand nombre de collaborateurs », in 1903, soon came to be compiled solely by L.; his articles, for the most part summaries of earlier publications, are often deficient and incomplete, with judgments that are not always dispassionate and objective and with quite a few errors, especially concerning the description of monuments (cf., e.g., A. Ferrua, Rivista, in Civ. Catt., 1938, I, pp. 67–72; 1939, IV, pp. 172–75). Before his death, L. had already completed the preparation of all the articles through vol. XIV, II (1948); the printing is now 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, based on the 2nd German edition and expanded with critical and bibliographical notes (Histoire des Conciles, 19 vols., Paris 1907–49). L. also published: a popular 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); and 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),
(photo Garcia Garrabrija)
LECTORIUM — L. in the cathedral of León (Spain), a work by Stefano Jordán (1578).
La fédération (janvier-juillet 1790; Paris 1929); L'Eglise constitutionnelle (juillet 1790-avril 1791; Paris 1934); La fuite du roi (avril-juillet 1791; Paris 1936); L'oeuvre de la Constituante (juillet-décembre 1791; Paris 1938), a study of Ferdinand Gaillard, « maître-graveur » (Paris 1934), and, in English, A chronicle of social and political events from 1610 to 1914 (Oxford 1937). Enrico Josi
Cite this article
“LECLERCQ (D'ORLANCOURT), HENRI.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. VII (1951), p. 619. Azione Romana digital edition, https://azioneromana.com/article/leclercq-d-orlancourt-henri.
