The Dutch historian Johan Huizinga perceived in late medieval Europe the dense atmosphere of a civilization approaching its end. In The Autumn of the Middle Ages, he reinterpreted the Renaissance not as pure rebirth, but as the final season of medieval culture, reshaping modern historical thought.

In this historical space, there drifts a dense sense of the end of a single culture.
That is to say, “The Autumn of the Middle Ages.”
2016-12-06
Johan Huizinga
Johan Huizinga, also known as Huizingha (Dutch: Johan Huizinga[1], December 7, 1872 – February 1, 1945), was a Dutch historian.
He shifted from the study of Sanskrit literature to historical research.
He is known for works such as The Autumn of the Middle Ages and Homo Ludens.
Life
He was born in Groningen.
He studied literature at the University of Groningen, and after graduating, taught secondary education in Haarlem, but sought to shift toward historical studies, produced the thesis “The Formation of the City of Haarlem,” and in 1905 was appointed Professor of Foreign History and National History at the University of Groningen.
In 1915, he transferred to Leiden University as Professor of Foreign History and Historical Geography and resided in Leiden.
He remained in his post at the university until it was effectively closed in 1940 due to the Nazi German occupation of the Netherlands.
In 1942, his area of residence was restricted by the occupying forces, and he lived in De Steeg near Arnhem, where he died in February 1945[2].
His major work The Autumn of the Middle Ages was published in 1919.
Whereas Burckhardt’s The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, published in the latter half of the nineteenth century, limited its observational gaze to fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italy, Huizinga expanded the wings of empirical investigation and historical imagination to fourteenth- and fifteenth-century France and the Netherlands.
Fixing himself upon the records of contemporaries, and judging by inference from the prevailing modes of thought and feeling that had spread widely, he discerned that in this historical space there drifts a dense sense of the end of a single culture.
That is to say, “The Autumn of the Middle Ages.”
After the publication of The Autumn of the Middle Ages, his achievements ranged widely, including essays on the Renaissance problem, works and papers on figures such as Erasmus, Grotius, and Abelard, and inquiries into the spirit of the twelfth century, but from around the publication of In the Shadow of Tomorrow (1935), his interests converged upon criticism of Nazism and, further, toward critique of modern civilization.
Homo Ludens (1938) is an attempt to view the process of the formation, development, and decline of European civilization “under the aspect of play,” and My Path to History (1947), written at the place of confinement in De Steeg, is an autobiographical testament left to the modern age[2].
Chronology
1872, Born in Groningen in the northeastern Netherlands.
1891, Entered the University of Groningen.
Studied comparative linguistics.
1897, Earned his degree with a dissertation on the clown appearing in ancient Indian drama, “The Vidûsaka in Indian Theatre (De vidûsaka in het indisch tooneel).”
Taught history at the Haarlem Higher Technical School (until 1905).
1903, Private lecturer at the University of Amsterdam.
Lectured on Brahmanism and Buddhism.
1905, Published the dissertation “The Formation of the City of Haarlem,” appointed professor at his alma mater, the University of Groningen.
1915, Professor at Leiden University.
1919, Published The Autumn of the Middle Ages.
1929, Chairman of the Historical and Literary Section of the Royal Academy of Sciences.
1932, President of Leiden University.
1936, Member of the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation of the League of Nations.
1938, Vice-chairman of the same committee.
Published Homo Ludens.
1942, For the charge of criticizing Nazism, he was interned in a concentration camp by Nazi Germany after its invasion of the Netherlands.
He was soon released, but thereafter lived under de facto house arrest.
1945, Died shortly before the liberation of the Netherlands.
To be continued.