author
Wilhelm Wattenbach
1819–1897
A pioneering German historian and paleographer, he helped readers make sense of the medieval sources behind European history. His work became especially valued for its careful study of chronicles, charters, and manuscripts.
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About the author
Born in Rantzau, Holstein, in 1819, Wilhelm Wattenbach studied philology at the universities of Bonn, Göttingen, and Berlin. Early in his career he joined the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, the major scholarly project devoted to editing and preserving sources for medieval German history.
Wattenbach later served as an archivist in Breslau and went on to become a professor of history, first at Heidelberg and then at the University of Berlin. He was especially known for his mastery of medieval documents and for helping scholars read them with greater care and precision.
His reputation rests above all on his work as a historian of sources and a paleographer—the specialist who studies old handwriting and manuscripts. For readers interested in the Middle Ages, his legacy is the patient, exacting scholarship that made difficult original texts more accessible and reliable.