Léopold Genicot was born in Forville, Belgium, in 1914. After earning his BA in political economy, he worked as an archivist in the Namur branch of the Royal Archives from 1935 to 1944. During that time, he obtained a doctorate in History in 1937. His work at the archives also allowed him to hide escaped prisoners during the Second World War. In 1935, he was offered a position as professor at the Catholic University of Leuven, receiving tenure there in 1947. He taught diplomatic, methodology, Belgian history and medieval history. In his research, he was particularly interested in the history of Wallonia. His contribution to Medieval History is well known, and his books and articles are used today in many medieval history classes. In 1963, persuaded of the academic value of interdisciplinarity, he established a Centre for Rural History and later still a Centre for Historical Ecology, inviting historians to work together with geographers, agronomers, and other specialists in Earth Sciences in the newly established Institut Interfacultaire d'Études Médiévales. In 1972 he decided to start publishing a series of small monographs under the title Typologie des sources du Moyen Âge occidental, devising the editorial plan and writing an introductory volume the same year. The whole of this collection has acquired enormous academic prestige and has continued to be published by Brepols. This collection was to serve a scholarly base of medievalists ranging from graduate students to professors and has become one of the most successful collections of introductory and bibliographical aids ever presented to the academic community of medieval history scholars. By publishing three to four titles a year, the series has steadily grown to seventy-eight volumes, covering everything in medieval studies and culture, from necrological documents to Latin treatises on the virtues and the vices, from astronomy to arms, from armour to other daily hardware.
Political activism
Genicot was a Catholic and a political militant on behalf of the Walloon Movement who had been a member of Rénovation wallone and a candidate for Rassemblement wallon in the European elections. As a politician, in 1995, by the time of his demise, his patriotic views had become gradually more regionalistic, favouring either an independent Wallonia or its integration into France.
Awards, Honours and Distinctions
In 1964, he received the "Guaillarde d'Argent" and in 1982, he received an honorary degree from the Catholic University of Lublin. In 1988, he was awarded the prize "Personnalité Richelieu" by the Belgium and Luxembourg branch of "Richelieu International". He was the father of the architectural historian Luc-Francis Genicot, and the great uncle of Garance Genicot.
Publications
See , , . ;Monographs This is a partial list of Genicot's published monographs.
;Articles This is a partial list of Genicot's published articles.
"Discordiae concordantium: Sur l'intérêt des textes hagiographiques", Académie royale de Belgique: Bulletin de la Classe des Lettres et des Sciences Morales et Politiques, 5éme ser.,, vol. 51, pp. 65–75.
"Crisis: From the Middle Ages to Modern Times" in , vol.I, ch. 8, pp. 660-742.
"" in Problèmes de stratification sociale. Actes du Colloque international de Paris, 1966. Louvain: Centre belge d'histoire rurale,, 1968. pp. 83-100.
"" in La Lexicographie du latin médiéval et ses rapports avec les recherches actuelles sur la civilisation du Moyen âge . coll. Colloques internationaux du CNRS, n° 581. Paris: CNRS, 1981. 547 p.
"" in Acta historica et archaeologica mediaevalia,, 1986, pp. 163-192.
"" in Révue d'histoire ecclesiastique vol. 81, pp. 501-527.
"" in Fredric L. Cheyette Lordship and Community in Medieval Europe - Selected Readings. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1968, pp. 128-136.
;Editions This is a partial list of Genicot's edited articles.
Léopold Genicot and Paul Tombeur, , 5 volumes.
Léopold Genicot, La Typologie des sources du moyen âge occidental, general editor.
