According to the preface (pp. 5-8), the Jesuit François-Humbert Voisard (1749-1818) wrote the Abrégé as the first history in French of the bishops of Basel and dedicated it to his students. Entirely focused on the ecclesiastical history of Basel and Porrentruy, the text's structure reveals its pedagogic nature: a short question introduces each chapter, and the text that immediately follows provides a more or less lengthy reply to the question. According to Gustave Amweg's Bibliographie du Jura bernois, Voisard's Abrégé survives in five copies and has not been published to this day. This manuscript has been corrected, annotated, and ends with an index of the bishops and the clerical institutions of the Basel episcopacy (pp. 459-460). Ownership notes inscribed on the front pastedown document its provenance: “Ce livre appartient à Henri Joliat, étudiant en rhétorique. Porrentruy, le 3 mai 1819 / Et / Schwartzlin Père / et /à l'abbé Vautrey à qui il a été remis par M. l'abbé Marquis en 1813”.
Online Since: 12/14/2022