ABSTRACT
Jean Henri Otto Lucien Marie Pirenne, preeminent historian of medieval urban structures and economy, was born on 23 December 1862 in Verviers, an industrial town in eastern Belgium not far from Liège and but a few miles from the German border. His father and mother were from two leading Verviétois families with ties cemented by a partnership in the largest wool industry in Verviers. Pirenne’s father, Lucien Henri Joseph Pirenne, was a well-known denizen, widely traveled and read, an energetic bourgeois entrepreneur who took little interest in religion, staunchly supported the Liberal Party, and served as an échevin (alderman) of Verviers. His mother, Virginie Duesberg, was a devout Catholic who daily attended early mass throughout her long life, worried about the spiritual health of her offspring, and presided over a strict regimen for her household. Henri, the eldest of six children, grew up in a spacious house in the shadow of his father’s factory with the sounds of an industrial enterprise clearly audible. That as a boy he frequently visited the factory and talked with the workers undoubtedly influenced him to specialize in economic and social history.
