Benoît Lacroix

Benoît Lacroix (bənwa lakʁwa; 8 September 1915 – 2 March 2016) was a Quebec theologian, philosopher, Dominican priest, professor in medieval studies and historian of the Medieval period, and author of almost 50 works and a great number of articles. He was born Joachim Lacroix in Saint-Michel-de-Bellechasse, Quebec, one of five children to Caïus Lacroix and Rose-Anna Blais. He studied at Collège de Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pocatière obtaining a baccalaureate in the arts in 1936. The same year, he entered the Dominican school in Saint-Hyacinthe to study religion. He was ordained a priest with the Dominican Order on 5 July 1941, obtaining a degree in theology from the Dominican University College in Ottawa in 1941. According to Pietro Boglioni, a historian who wrote a comprehensive biography of Lacroix, he was named Benoît after becoming a Dominican priest, in memory of Pope Benedict XI (in French, Benoît XI), a Dominican pope from the Middle Ages. After entering the Dominican Order, Father Benoît Lacroix wanted to travel in a mission to Europe to specialize in liturgical studies. But World War II halted his ambitions and instead he studied for a Ph.D. in Mediaeval Sciences from the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto in 1951, under the guidance of philosopher, historian professor Étienne Gilson, who encouraged him to study Historiography. His thesis was titled "Les Débuts de l'historiographie chrétienne" (The Beginnings of Christian Historiography") followed by "L'Histoire dans l'antiquité" (History in Antiquity) in 1951 with a preface by historian philosopher and Early Christianity expert professor Henri-Irénée Marrou. He completed his post-doctoral studies at École pratique des hautes études, and at École Nationale des Chartes both in Paris in 1952-1953 and at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1959-1960, with a bursary from the Guggenheim Fellowship. Between 1945 and 1985, he lectured at various periods at the Institute of Medieval Studies at Université de Montréal, and was appointed director of the Institute between 1963 and 1969.