Léon Fleuriot

Who was Léon Fleuriot?

Léon Fleuriot was a French academic specializing in Celtic languages and in history, particularly that of Gallo-Roman Brittany and of the Early Middle Ages.

Born in Morlaix, Brittany, in a family originating in the region of Quintin and having studied Breton in his youth, he passed his university history agrégation in 1950. He taught at lycées and collèges in Paris and the surrounding suburbs, as well as at the Prytanée National Militaire in La Flèche. He entered the Centre national de la recherche scientifique in 1958 and earned his doctorate at the Sorbonne University in 1964, defending a thesis called Le vieux-breton, éléments d'une grammaire, along with a complementary thesis, Dictionnaire des gloses en vieux-breton.

In 1966, Fleuriot was named chair of Celtic studies at the University of Rennes 2 – Upper Brittany in Rennes, and at the same time research director at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris. He strongly contributed to the growth of Breton language teaching at the university level.