Francisque Xavier Michel (18 February 1809, Lyon – 18 May 1887, Paris) was a French historian and philologist.
He became known for his editions of French works of the Middle Ages, and the French Government, recognizing their value, sent him to England (1833) and Scotland (1837) to continue his research there. In 1837 he became a member of the Comité Historique and in 1838 chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur. In 1839 he was appointed professor of foreign literature in the Faculté des lettres at the University of Bordeaux. Between 1834 and 1842 he published editions of many works written between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries in French, English, and Saxon, including the Roman de la rose and the Chanson de Roland. He got his licence in literature in 1842, and his doctorat in 1846, with a thesis in Latin on Virgil and a thesis in French, entitled: Histoire des races maudites de la France et de l'Espagne. Subsequently, he published French translations of Goldsmith, Sterne, Shakespeare, and Tennyson. In 1857 he published his important book on the Basque Country: Le Pays Basque, sa population, sa langue, ses moeurs, sa littérature et sa musique.
Michel was one of the most prolific editors of medieval French texts. His Libri Psalmorum versio antiqua gallica lists 50 of his works, both editions of Medieval texts and original works.[1] The following is a selected bibliography.
