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WILHELM VON GIESEBRECHT (1814–1889)

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Originally appearing in Volume V12, Page 3 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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WILHELM VON

GIESEBRECHT (1814–1889)  , German historian, was a son of Karl Giesebrecht (d . 1832), and a
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nephew of the poet Ludwig Giesebrecht (1792–1873) . Born in Berlin on the 5th of March 1814, he studied under Leopold von Ranke, and his first important
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work, Geschichte Ottosll., was contributed to Ranke's Jahrbucher
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des deuischen Reichs unter dem sachsischen Hause (Berlin, 1837–1840) . In 1841 he published his Jahrbucher des Klosters Altaich, a reconstruction of the lost Annales Altahenses, a
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medieval source of which fragments only were known to be extant, and these were obscured in other chronicles . The brilliance of this performance was shown in 1867, when a copy of the
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original chronicle was found, and it was seen that Giesebrecht's text was substantially correct . In the meantime he had been appointed Oberlehrer in the Joachimsthaler Gymnasium in Berlin; had paid a visit to Italy, and as a result of his re-searches there had published De litterarum studiis apud Italos primis medii aevi seculis (Berlin, 1845), a study upon the survival of culture in
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Italian cities during the
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middle ages, and also several critical essays upon the
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sources for the early
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history of the popes . In 1851 appeared his
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translation of the Historiae of Gregory of
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Tours, which is the standard German translation . Four years later appeared the first
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volume of his
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great work, Geschichte der deuischen Kaiserzeit, the fifth volume of which was published in 1888 . This work was the first in which the results of the scientific methods of research were thrown open to the
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world at large . Largeness of style and brilliance of portrayal were joined to an absolute mastery of the sources in a way hitherto unachieved by any German historian . Yet later German historians have severely criticized his glorification of the imperial era with its Italian entanglements, in which the interests of Germany were sacrificed for idle glory . Giesebrecht's history, however, appeared when the new German
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empire was in the making, and became popular owing both to its patriotic tone and its intrinsic merits .

In 1857 he went to

Konigsberg as professor ordinarius, and in 1862 succeeded H. von Sybel as professor of history in the university of Munich . The Bavarian government honoured him in various ways, and he died at Munich on the 17th of December 1889 . In addition to the
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works already mentioned, Giesebrecht published a good monograph on Arnold of Brescia (Munich, 1873), a collection of essays under the title Deutsche Reden (Munich, 1871), and was an active member of the
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group of scholars who took over the direction of the Monumenta Germaniae historica in 1875 . In 1895 B. von Simson added a
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sixth volume to the Geschichte der deuischen Kaiserzeit, thus bringing the work down to the
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death of the emperor Frederick I. in 1190 . See S . Riezler, Gedachtnisrede auf Wilhelm von Giesebrecht (Munich, 1891); and Lord Acton in the
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English
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Historical Review, vol. v . (
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London, 1890) .

End of Article: WILHELM VON GIESEBRECHT (1814–1889)
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