

Since 1983 he has held the Chair of History of Western Symbolism (Chaire d'histoire de la symbolique occidentale) and is a director of studies at the Sorbonne's École pratique des hautes études.

After writing his 1972 thesis about heraldic bestiaries in the Middle Ages, he worked in the coins, medals and antiquities department of the French National Library until 1982. He studied at the École Nationale des Chartes, a college for prospective archivists and librarians. When he received an honorary doctorate from the Pastoureau was born in Paris on 17 June 1947. He is an academician of the Académie internationale d'héraldique (International Academy of Heraldry) and vice-president of the Société française d'héraldique (French Heraldry Society). Pastoureau was born in Paris on 17 June 1947.
