Yves-marie Bercé (1936 – 2026)

Their Story

Yves-Marie Bercé was a preeminent French historian born in 1936 in the Bordelais region who dedicated his scholarly career to understanding popular revolts and social upheaval in early modern Europe. A graduate of the École nationale des chartes and former member of the École française de Rome, he earned his doctorate in 1972 with a groundbreaking thesis on seventeenth-century peasant uprisings in southwestern France. Over a distinguished academic career, he held professorships at leading French universities and served as director of the École nationale des chartes, profoundly influencing multiple generations of students. Bercé's prolific scholarly output established him as a leading authority on the social history of the early modern period. His seminal work *Croquants et Nu-pieds* (1974) illuminated the antagonism between urban centers and rural communities, while subsequent publications such as *Fête et Révolte* and *Révoltes et révolutions dans l'Europe moderne* examined the nature of political violence as a cultural phenomenon in preindustrial societies. As a member of the Institut de France and the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres, he maintained an active scholarly presence until his death in June 2026, leaving behind a legacy of rigorous historical scholarship that reshaped understanding of collective action and social protest in European history.