Étymologiquement, prosopography means description of a person. For the historians of the Antiquity, the prosopography was a long time a auxiliary Science of the history whose objective was to study the biographies of the members of a specific category of the company, generally of the elites, social or political. By Métonymie, prosopography also indicates the work in which the characters are classified alphabetically with a description of the features retained for the study.

The terminology prosopography is currently employed in all the chronological fields of the history. It indicates a study of biographies in mass. The first stage consists in determining the social group which will make the object of the study (for example such profession, the members of a movement or an organization, the holders of a political or legal load, etc) It then acts to compile the biographies of the whole of the people belonging to this group by listing relevant characteristics as much as possible. Lastly, the quantitative analysis of these biographies must make it possible to put at the day of the ruptures or continuities in the lifestyles, recruitment, reproduction of the social group considered. More than of an auxiliary science, it is then advisable to speak about historical method insofar as the prosopography produces specific historical problems.

The use of data processing, and in particular of the databases, allowed a significant development of this historical approach.

Among many others, one can quote, as example and for French-speaking historiography, the work of Christophe Charle on the French academics of 1870 to 1940 ( the Republic of the academics ) or, in a very different style, the work of Herbert Luethy on the Protestant bankers, of the revocation of the Édit of Nantes to the French revolution. The biographical Dictionary of the labor movement French , initiated by Jean Maitron, is also an excellent example of bearing prosopography over the contemporary period. One can also quote Christian Topalov (sociologist, CNRS and EHESS) and his research on the reforming nebula of the years 1880-1914 (assumption of the existence of a field of the reform).

The prosopography is one of the specialities of the Laboratory of medievistic Western of Paris (LAMOP), directed by professor Jean-Philippe Genet. The LAMOP agrees of the significant efforts with regard to its presence on line. The methods are very documented and several databases are accessible. A visit of their site gives an good idea of the use of the prosopographic method.

Summary bibliography

• Data-processing Helene Millet (to dir.), and prosopography. Acts of the table-round CNRS, Paris, 25- October 26th, 1984 , Paris, CNRS editions, 1985,360 p.

• Francoise Autrand, Prosopographie and genesis of the modern state, acts of table-round CNRS and ENSJF, Paris, 22 October 23rd, 1984 , Paris, ENSJF, 1986,360 p.
• Herbert Luethy, the Protestant bank in France of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes to the French revolution , EPHE-SEVPEN, 1959 (1998)
• Charle Christophe, the Republic of the academics (1870-1940) , Seuil, 1994.
• On the biographical Dictionnaire of the labor movement French * Prosopographia Imperii Romani Saec I. II. III., Berlin, (1$re$ edition: 1897-1898; 2nd edition: in progress since 1933)
• Hans-Georg Pflaum, the equestrian careers procuratoriennes under the Roman high-empire , Paris, 1960
• A.H.M. Jones, J.R. Martindale, J. Morris, Prosopography off the Later Roman Worsens , Cambridge, 1971-1992

Bonds

• Prosopographie of the members of the international Company of the practical studies of social economy (definition of the population of reference) international Company of the practical studies of social economy
• LAMOP and one of its research programs: the operation Charles VI