Maurice Yans

Maurice Jean Alfred Alphonse Yans (1914–1983) was a Belgian historian and archivist who served as a conservator at the State Archive of Liège.

Life Yans was born in Glain on 15 May 1914, the son of a baker. Educated at the Athénée royal de Liège he became a history student at the University of Liège in 1931 at the age of 17. In 1936 he obtained a doctorate, passed the exam for candidate archivists in the Belgian State Archives, and won a travel bursary which he used to study in Paris, following courses at the École Nationale des Chartes, the Sorbonne, the Collège de France, École normale supérieure and the École pratique des hautes études. In 1938 he began to work in the State Archives in Liège, which were hit by a V-2 rocket on 24 December 1944 and caught fire. Yans was among the salvage workers who dug through the ruins in freezing weather to see what could be saved. L'équité et le droit liégeois du Moyen Age: Étude historique des successions (Liège, 1946) Les Echevins de Huy: Biographies des échevins et des maires de Huy-Grande (Liège, 1952) with Georges de Froidcourt (eds), Lettres autographes de Velbruck, prince-évêque de Liège (1772-1784) (2 vols, Liège, 1954–1955) Contribution à l'histoire patrimoniale de la Maison de Brialmont (Liège, 1973) La banlieue liégeoise: Aux origines de la grande agglomération (Liège, 1974)