Bernhard Bischoff
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Bernhard Bischoff (20 December 1906 – 17 September 1991) was a German
historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...
,
paleographer Palaeography ( UK) or paleography ( US; ultimately from grc-gre, , ''palaiós'', "old", and , ''gráphein'', "to write") is the study of historic writing systems and the deciphering and dating of historical manuscripts, including the analysi ...
, and
philologist Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...
; he was born in Altendorf (administrative division of Altenburg,
Thuringia Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million. Erfurt is the capital and lar ...
), and he died in
Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...
.


Biography

He was the son of Emil Bischoff and Charlotte von Gersdorff, who died giving birth to him. He received a Pietistic education during his youth. He married Hanne Oehler in 1935 and lived the majority of his life in
Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...
outside of academia. Before he earned his doctorate in 1933, under the direction of
Paul Lehmann Paul Lehmann (13 July 1884 – 4 January 1964) was a German paleographer and philologist.Memoir by Harry Caplan, Taylor Starck, and B. L. Ullman in ''Speculum'' Vol. 40, No. 3, Jul. 1965, p. 583 Biography Paul Lehmann was the son of business ...
, he was recruited by the American paleographer E. A. Lowe as an assistant for the '. He would work on this achievement until 1972, cataloging Latin
manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in ...
s of the 9th century. He began to teach at the
University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It is Germany's sixth-oldest university in continuous operatio ...
in 1947, receiving the Chair of Medieval Latin Philology under his instructor, Lehmann, succeeding Ludwig Traube. In 1974 he became emeritus. In 1953, Bischoff was elected to the general editorship of the ' (MGH). In the last years of his life, he worked on cataloging nearly 7,000 9th-century
medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
Latin manuscripts, published by the
Bavarian Academy of Sciences The Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities (german: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften) is an independent public institution, located in Munich. It appoints scholars whose research has contributed considerably to the increase of knowledg ...
. Bischoff was most influential in the field of paleography, specifically in his expertise in dating and localizing medieval manuscripts. His work on the subject, ''Latin Paleography: Antiquity and the Western
Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
'', is a fundamental work for the discipline. It has been translated into English by Daíbí Ó Cróinín and David Ganz, and into French by
Jean Vezin Jean Vezin (30 July 1933 – 30 August 2020) was a French librarian and medievalist historian, specializing in Latin palaeography and codicology. Biography Vezin was born in Vannes. A student at the École Nationale des Chartes, he obtained the ...
and Harmut Atsma. Bischoff received four degrees honoris causa at the Universities of
Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...
(1962),
Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
(1963),
Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...
, and
Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...
. He was a member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences (1956), of the Royal Irish Academy (1957), of the
Medieval Academy of America The Medieval Academy of America (MAA; spelled Mediaeval until c. 1980) is the largest organization in the United States promoting the field of medieval studies. It was founded in 1925 and is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The academy publishes ...
(1960), German Archeological Institute (1962), the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...
(1968), and the
American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
(1989).


Principal Works

* ''The Southeast Writing Schools and Libraries in the Carolingian Era, Part I: The Bavarian Dioceses''. Leipzig 1940 (Second edit.) Wiesbaden 1960 3rd edit. (Wiesbaden 1974); Part II: The Predominantly Austrian Dioceses, Wiesbaden 1980. * ''Medieval Studies: Selected Articles on the Font Customer and Literary History'', 3 Vols. Hiersemann, Stuttgart, 1966–1981. * ''Catalogue of the Continental Manuscripts of the Ninth Century'' (with the exception of the Visigothic & publications of the Commission for the Publication of the German and Swiss Medieval Library Catalogues, Part 1: Aachen – Lambach. (). * ''Catalogue of the Continental Manuscripts of the Ninth Century'' (with the exception of the Visigothic (Edition by Birgit Ebersperger (Publications of the Commission for the Publication of the German and Swiss Medieval Library Catalogues/ published by the
Bavarian Academy of Sciences The Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities (german: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften) is an independent public institution, located in Munich. It appoints scholars whose research has contributed considerably to the increase of knowledg ...
). Part 2. Laon – Manuscripts and libraries in the Age of Charlemagne, Tradition and Edit. By Paderborn. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2004. (ISBN 3-447 -04750-X). * ''Manuscripts and Libraries in the Age of Charlemagne, Tradition & Edition'' by Michael Gorman (''Cambridge Studies in Paleography and Codicology'' 1), Cambridge University Press: Cambridge 1994, () Recension. * ''Paleography of Roman Antiquity and of the Western Middle Ages''. 3rd Edition. Berlin 2004. (Basics of the German language and literature 24). ().


References


Notes


Bibliography

* François Chamoux, ''Allocution à l'occasion du décès de M. Bernard Bischoff, associé étranger de l'Académie'', Comptes-rendus des séances de l'année... - Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres, 135e année, N. 3, 1991, p. 51. * Heinrich Fichtenau, ''Bernhard Bischoff †'', Almanach der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1991/92, 142 année, (Wien 1992), pp. 505–510. * Horst Fuhrmann, ''Bernhard Bischoff, Menschen und Meriten.'' Eine persönliche Portraitgalerie, C. H. Beck: München 2001, pp. 300–310. * Sigrid Krämer, ''Bibliographie Bernhard Bischoff und Verzeichnis aller von ihm herangezogenen Handschriften (Fuldaer Hochschulschriften 27)'', Knecht: Frankfurt am Main 1998, (). Recension * Sigrid Krämer: ''Bernhard Bischoff zum 100. Geburtstag'', Akademie aktuell – Zeitschrift der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Heft 20, 01/2007, pp. 56–58, ISSN 1436-753X * Gabriel Silagi: ''Bernhard Bischoff'', Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters, 48 (1992), pp. 411–413. * Notice du Catalogue général de la BnF * Photographie et biographie en allemand * page des Monumenta Germaniae Historica {{DEFAULTSORT:Bischoff, Bernhard 1906 births 1991 deaths 20th-century philologists German antiquarians German classical philologists German Latinists German male non-fiction writers German medievalists German palaeographers German philologists People from Altenburg Corresponding Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class) Knights Commander of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Corresponding Fellows of the British Academy 20th-century antiquarians Members of the American Philosophical Society