FRANZ

See also:

• FRANZ STUCK (1863— )

STUCK (1863— )  , German painter, was born at Tettenweis, in Bavaria, and received his artistic training at the Munich Academy . He first made a name with his illustrations for Fliegende Blatter, and vignette designs for programmes and book decoration . He did not devote himself to painting till after 1889, the year in which he achieved a marked success with his first picture, " The Warder of Paradise." His style in painting is based on a thorough mastery of design, and is sculptural rather than pictorial . His favourite subjects are of mythological and allegorical character, but in his treatment of time-worn motifs he is altogether unconventional . A statuette of an athlete, bronze casts of which are at the Berlin and Budapest classics and a third in mathematics . He was elected a fellow of Trinity College, and held the college living of Navestock, Essex, from 1850 to 1866 . He was librarian at Lambeth, and in 1862 was an unsuccessful candidate for the Chichele professorship of modern history at Oxford . In 1866 he was appointed regius professor of modern history at Oxford, and held the chair until 1884 . His lectures were thinly attended, and he found them grievous interruptions to his historical work . Some of his statutory lectures are published in his Lectures on Mediaeval and Modern History . He was rector of Cholderton, Wiltshire, from 1875 to 1879, when he was appointed a canon of St Paul's . He served on the ecclesiastical courts commission of 1881—1883, and wrote the weighty appendices to the report .

On the 25th of

April 1884 he was consecrated bishop of Chester, and in 1889 was translated to the see of Oxford . Until Bishop Stubbs found it necessary to devote all his time to his episcopal duties, he pursued historical study with unremitting diligence . He rejected the theory of the unity and continuity of history so far as it would obliterate distinctions between ancient and modern history, holding that, though work on ancient history is a useful preparation for the study of modern history, either may advantageously be studied apart . He urged that history is not to be treated as an exact science, and that the effects of individual character and the operations of the human will necessarily render generalizations vague and consequently useless . While pointing out that history has a utility as a mental discipline and a part of a liberal education, he recommended its study chiefly for its own sake, for the truth's sake and for the pleasure which it brings . It was in this spirit that he worked; and his intellectual character was peculiarly fitted for his work, for he was largely endowed with the faculty of judgment and with a genius for minute and critical investigation . He was eminent alike in ecclesiastical history, as an editor of texts and as the historian of the English constitution . His right to be held as an authority on ecclesiastical history was proved in 1858 by his Registrum sacrum anglicanum, which sets forth episcopal succession in England, by many other later works, and particularly by his share in Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents, edited in co-operation with the Rev . A . W . Haddan, for the third volume of which he was specially responsible . His place as a master in critical scholarship and historical exposition is decided beyond debate by the nineteen volumes which he edited for the Rolls series of Chronicles and Memorials .

It is, however, by his Constitutional History of England that he is most widely known as a historian . The

appearance of this book, which traces the development of the English constitution from the Teutonic invasions of Britain till 1485, marks a distinct step in the advance of English historical learning . Specialists may here and there improve on a statement or a theory, but it will always remain a great authority, a monument of patient and exhaustive research of intellectual power, and of ripe and disciplined judgment . Its companion volume of Select Charters and other Illustrations of English Constitutional History, admirable in itself, has a special importance in that its plan has been imitated with good results both in England and the United States . Bishop Stubbs belongs to the front rank of historical scholars both as an author and a critic . Among Englishmen at least he excels all others as a master of every department of the historian's work, from the discovery of materials to the elaboration of well-founded theories and literary production . He was a good palaeographer, and excelled in textual criticism, in examination of authorship, and other such matters, while his vast erudition and retentive memory made him second to none in interpretation and exposition . His carefulness was exemplary, and his references are always exact . His merits as an author are often judged solely by his Constitutional History . The learning and insight which this book displays are unquestionable: it is well planned, and its contents are well arranged; but constitutional history is not a lively subject, and, in spite of the skill with which Stubbs handled it and the genius displayed in his narrative national galleries and the Hamburg Museum, affords convincing proof of his talent for plastic art . Among his paintings the best known are " Sin " and " War," at the Munich Pinakothek, " The Sphinx," " The Crucifixion," " The Rivals," Paradise Lost," " Oedipus," " Temptation," and " Lucifer." Though Stuck was one of the leaders of the Munich Sezession, he enjoyed an appointment of professor at the academy .