Richard Knabl (24 October 1789, in
Graz
Graz (; sl, Gradec) is the capital city of the Austrian state of Styria and second-largest city in Austria after Vienna. As of 1 January 2021, it had a population of 331,562 (294,236 of whom had principal-residence status). In 2018, the popul ...
,
Styria
Styria (german: Steiermark ; Serbo-Croatian and sl, ; hu, Stájerország) is a state (''Bundesland'') in the southeast of Austria. With an area of , Styria is the second largest state of Austria, after Lower Austria. Styria is bordered to ...
– 19 June 1874) was an Austrian parish priest and
epigraphist
Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the wr ...
who, though he lacked formal academic training as a historian, became a prominent contributor to our current knowledge of the Roman period in
Noricum
Noricum () is the Latin name for the Celts, Celtic kingdom or federation of tribes that included most of modern Austria and part of Slovenia. In the first century AD, it became a Roman province, province of the Roman Empire. Its borders were th ...
and western
Pannonia
Pannonia (, ) was a province of the Roman Empire bounded on the north and east by the Danube, coterminous westward with Noricum and upper Italy, and southward with Dalmatia and upper Moesia. Pannonia was located in the territory that is now wes ...
, especially on the territory of modern
Styria
Styria (german: Steiermark ; Serbo-Croatian and sl, ; hu, Stájerország) is a state (''Bundesland'') in the southeast of Austria. With an area of , Styria is the second largest state of Austria, after Lower Austria. Styria is bordered to ...
.
Youth and parish priest
Knabl was a son of the
syndic
Syndic (Late Latin: '; Greek: ' – one who helps in a court of justice, an advocate, representative) is a term applied in certain countries to an officer of government with varying powers, and secondly to a representative or delegate of a universi ...
Ambros Knabl, who had been mayor of Styria's capital Graz from 1784 to 1788. He attended school and studied theology in his home town, was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest in 1811, and spent the following years as a chaplain and parish priest at various places in Styria. In 1838 he was assigned to parishes in what was then the immediate vicinity of Graz, first to Karlau and then to St. Andrä.
Epigraphist and historian
Only at this time, already at an age of 49 years, Knabl began to devote himself to epigraphy and
numismatics
Numismatics is the study or collection of currency, including coins, tokens, paper money, medals and related objects.
Specialists, known as numismatists, are often characterized as students or collectors of coins, but the discipline also includ ...
. Inspired by the large collection of Roman artifacts on display at the ''
Joanneum'' (the largest museum in Graz) and at the castle of
Seggau, he embarked on private investigations which in 1845 led to his discovery that the archeological finds near
Leibnitz
Leibnitz (Slovenian: ''Lipnica'') is a city in the Austrian state of Styria and on 1 Jan. 2017 had a population of 12,176. It is located to the south of the city of Graz, between the Mur and Sulm rivers.
The town is the capital of the Leibni ...
marked the site of the Roman town
Flavia Solva Flavia Solva was a municipium in the ancient Roman province of Noricum. It was situated on the western banks of the Mur river, close to the modern cities of Wagna and Leibnitz in the southern parts of the Austrian province of Styria. It is the only ...
. His first major paper, published in 1848, presented such convincing epigraphic proof to this effect that the predominant academic opinion which had tentatively located Flavia Solva in the
Zollfeld
Zollfeld ( sl, Gosposvetsko polje) is a slightly ascending plain in Carinthia, Austria. It is one of the oldest cultural landscapes in the East Alpine region.
Geography
It is from to wide and about long, with an elevation between above sea ...
in
Carinthia
Carinthia (german: Kärnten ; sl, Koroška ) is the southernmost States of Austria, Austrian state, in the Eastern Alps, and is noted for its mountains and lakes. The main language is German language, German. Its regional dialects belong to t ...
(actually the site of
Virunum
Claudium Virunum was a Roman city in the province of Noricum, on today's Zollfeld in the Austrian State of Carinthia. Virunum may also have been the name of the older Celtic-Roman settlement on the hilltop of Magdalensberg nearby.
Virunum (''Viru ...
), quickly accepted it.
From this time onward Knabl published significant findings from his research on an almost yearly basis, earning himself a reputation as one of his period's most important investigative historians of Roman times in the eastern Alpine region. Among other things, he was particularly interested in Roman traffic routes. He investigated the Roman road that had connected Claudia Celeia (now
Celje
)
, pushpin_map = Slovenia
, pushpin_label_position = left
, pushpin_map_caption = Location of the city of Celje in Slovenia
, coordinates =
, subdivision_type = Cou ...
) and Poetovio (now
Ptuj
Ptuj (; german: Pettau, ; la, Poetovium/Poetovio) is a town in northeastern Slovenia that is the seat of the Municipality of Ptuj. Ptuj, the oldest recorded city in Slovenia, has been inhabited since the late Stone Age and developed from a Roman ...
) and also the transalpine road from Virunum to Ovilava (now
Wels
Wels (; Central Bavarian: ''Wös'') is a city in Upper Austria, on the Traun River near Linz. It is the county seat of Wels-Land, and with a population of approximately 60,000, the eighth largest city in Austria.
Geography
Wels is in the H ...
), frequently combining epigraphy and numismatics with additional sources such as the
Tabula Peutingeriana
' (Latin Language, Latin for "The Peutinger Map"), also referred to as Peutinger's Tabula or Peutinger Table, is an illustrated ' (ancient Roman road map) showing the layout of the ''cursus publicus'', the road network of the Roman Empire.
The m ...
. However, the central project of his life - a codex of all epigraphic finds from antiquity made in the area encompassing today's Austrian province of Styria and northern Slovenia, documenting about 600 inscriptions at 183 sites on its 728 pages - remained unpublished; the manuscript is kept at the University of Graz.
Reception by academic historians
Knabl's painstaking work, sustained over three decades and always adhering to the scientific standards of his time, earned him acceptance among accomplished historians such as
Alfred von Arneth
Alfred Ritter von Arneth (10 July 181930 July 1897) was an Austrian historian. His principal scholarly work is a ten-volume biography of the Habsburg Empress Maria Theresa, first published in installments from 1863 to 1879 and still regarded as ...
and
Theodor Mommsen
Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen (; 30 November 1817 – 1 November 1903) was a German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician and archaeologist. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest classicists of the 19th cent ...
who in their official statements spoke highly of him. However, when they expressed their opinions in private, academic arrogance sometimes showed. For example, Mommsen (then a 40-year-old assistant professor in Berlin) wrote in a letter to a friend dated 8 September 1857:
"Number One among the sages in Graz is the priest Knabl, an aged type of 65 who has applied himself to the stones in his late years. If he learns of a Roman stone somewhere in Styria he will instantly travel there with comical enthusiasm, and will then lie there reading for two or three days; with a strong pretense at scholarship, but with even stronger respect shown towards myself whom he eagerly kisses the hands, collecting fragments for my biography. (...) However, his hobby is indeed useful and he has advanced historical knowledge by a good bit, although he did it more with his short legs than with his thick head..."[Wickert L.: Theodor Mommsen. Eine Biographie. Bd. III: Wanderjahre. Ed.: Klostermann V., Frankfurt/M. See p. 603]
Honors
In 1861 the
University of Graz
The University of Graz (german: link=no, Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, ), located in Graz, Austria, is the largest and oldest university in Styria, as well as the second-largest and second-oldest university in Austria.
History
The unive ...
honored Knabl with a doctorate. The Austrian emperor awarded him the Golden Service Medal in 1862 and the Austrian Medal for Science in 1864, and named him Imperial Counsellor in 1868. Knabl reciprocated by donating his numismatic collection to the University of Graz in 1867, followed by his remaining antiquities on 15 April 1868. When Knabl died in 1874, aged 85 years, the university collected his library of 1,456 volumes as per his testament.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Knabl, Richard
1789 births
1874 deaths
Writers from Graz
19th-century Austrian historians
Epigraphers
University of Graz alumni
19th-century Austrian Roman Catholic priests
Clergy from Graz