FRANZ

See also:

• PFEIFFER
• FRANZ PFEIFFER (1815—1868)

PFEIFFER (1815—1868)  , German scholar, was born at Bettlach near Soleure on the 27th of February 1815 . After studying at the university of Munich he went to Stuttgart, where in 1846 he became librarian to the royal library . In T856 Pfeiffer founded the Germania, a quarterly periodical devoted to German antiquarian research . In 1857, having established his fame as one of the foremost authorities on German medieval literature and philology, he was appointed professor of these subjects at the university of Vienna; and in 186o was made a member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences . He died at Vienna on the 29th of May 1868 . Among the many writings edited by him may be mentioned the Barlaam and Josaphat of Rudolf von Ems (1843), the Edelstein of Ulrich Boner (1844), Die deutschen Mystiker des z¢ . Jahrhunderts (1845—1857; new ed., 1906), the Buch der Natur of Konrad von Megenberg, a 14th-century writer (1861), Die Predigten des Berthold von Regensburg (1862), and the poems of Walther von der Vogelweide (1864; 6th ed. by K . Bartsch, 188o) . Of his independent writings the most important are Zur deutschen L iteraturgeschichte, fiber Wesen and Bildung der hofischen Sprache in mittelhochdeutscher Zeit, Der Dichter des Nibelungenliedes, Forschung and Kritik auf dem Gebiete des deutschen Altertums, and Altdeutsches Ubungsbuch . A biographical sketch by Karl Bartsch is in Uhlands Briefwechsel mit Freiherrn von Lassberg, edited by Franz Pfeiffer (187o) .