1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Chevalier, Ulysse

CHEVALIER, ULYSSE (1841–  ), French bibliographer, was born at Rambouillet on the 24th of February 1841. He published a great number of documents relating to the history of Dauphiné, e.g. the cartularies of the church and the town of Die (1868), of the abbey of St André le-Bas at Vienne (1869), of the abbey of Notre Dame at Bonnevaux in the diocese of Vienne (1889), of the abbey of St Chaffre at Le Monestier (1884), the inventories and several collections of archives of the dauphins of Viennais, and a Bibliothèque liturgique in six volumes (1893–1897), the third and fourth volumes of which constitute the Repertorium hymnologicum, containing more than 20,000 articles. But his principal work is the Répertoire des sources historiques du moyen âge. The first part, Bio-bibliographie (1877–1886; 2nd ed., 1905), contains the names of all the historical personages alive between the years 1 and 1500 who are mentioned in printed books, together with the precise indication of all the places where they are mentioned. The second part, Topo-bibliographie (1894–1903), contains not only the names of places mentioned in books on the history of the middle ages, but, in a general way, everything not included in the Bio-bibliographie. The Répertoire as a whole contains an enormous mass of useful information, and is one of the most important bibliographical monuments ever devoted to the study of medieval history. Though a Catholic priest and professor of history at the Catholic university of Lyons, the Abbé (afterwards Canon) Chevalier knew how to maintain an independent critical attitude even in religious questions. In the controversy on the authenticity of the Holy Shroud (sudario) at Turin, he worked in the true scientific spirit by tracing back the history of that piece of stuff, which was undoubtedly used as a shroud, but which was not produced before the 14th century and is probably no older (See Le Saint Suaire de Lirey-Chambéry-Turin et les défenseurs de son authenticité). Similarly, in Notre Dame de Lorette; étude critique sur l’authenticité de la Santa Casa (1906), he dissipated by the aid of authentic documents the legend which had embellished and falsified the primitive history of that sanctuary.