Gustav Reinhold Röhricht (18 November 1842 – 2 May 1905) was a German historian of the

Crusades The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding t ...

Biography

He was born in Bunzlau in

Silesia Silesia (see names #Etymology, below) is a historical region of Central Europe that lies mostly within Poland, with small parts in the Czech Silesia, Czech Republic and Germany. Its area is approximately , and the population is estimated at 8, ...

(now

Bolesławiec Bolesławiec (pronounced , ) is a historic city situated on the Bóbr River in the Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. It is the administrative seat of Bolesławiec County, and of Gmina Bolesławiec, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, Gm ...

, Poland), the third son of a miller. He studied at the Gymnasium in Sagan (now

Żagań Żagań (French language, French and , ) is a town in western Poland, on the Bóbr river, with 25,731 inhabitants (2019), capital of Żagań County in the Lubusz Voivodeship, located in the historic region of Lower Silesia. Founded in the 12th ce ...

) from 1852 to 1862, and then attended the

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

Theological School, where he obtained his licentiate in 1866. He then taught at the Berlin School of Religion, teaching Hebrew and German to the upperclassmen and Latin and Greek to the younger students. From 1867 to 1868 he taught at the Dorotheenstädtische Realgymnasium, then at the Luisenstädtische

Realschule Real school (, ) is a type of secondary school in Germany, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. It has also existed in Croatia (''realna gimnazija''), the Austrian Empire, the German Empire, Denmark and Norway (''realskole''), Sweden (''realskola''), F ...

until 1875. From then until 1904 he taught at the Humboldtgymnasium, first as Oberlehrer and after 1882 as Professor. In 1904, due to poor health, the

Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...

n Ministry of Education forced him to retire with a pension. The pension was the same as that given to any other Gymnasium professor, and although it was surprising to others who were aware of Röhricht's fame and importance, he himself "ne sollicita point les hommages et ne rechercha pas les profitables honneures". He died the next year.

Crusade historian

Hans E. Mayer Hans Eberhard Mayer (2 February 1932 – 21 October 2023) was a German medieval historian who specialised in the Crusades. Life and career Hans Eberhard Mayer was born in Nuremberg on 2 February 1932. He was an international expert on the history ...

says, Röhricht was "an antiquarian rather than a historian", but nevertheless laid the "foundation of all modern crusade research". According to his obituary in ''

The American Historical Review ''The American Historical Review'' is a quarterly academic history journal published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical Association, for which it is an official publication. It targets readers interested in all period ...

'', "his most important work was almost wholly on the crusades, the eight main works published since 1874 comprising probably the most important contribution by any one scholar in this field." "Nul aujourd'hui", wrote the ''

Revue de l'Orient latin The ''Revue de l'Orient Latin'' is a 12-volume set of medieval documents which was published from 1893–1911. It was a continuation of the ''Archives de l'Orient Latin'', two volumes of which were published from 1881–1884. Various medieval docum ...

'', "ne pourrait occuper avec les mêmes titres et la même autorité qui lui la grande place qu'il laissera vide dans le domaine spécial de nos études." His scholarly reputation was such that in 1940 American historian John L. La Monte described his ''Geschichte des Königreichs Jerusalem'' as "a masterful history which left little to be desired", although it was written in "ponderous German"; La Monte favoured it in comparison to the recently published French history by

René Grousset René Grousset (; 5 September 1885 – 12 September 1952) was a French historian who was curator of both the Cernuschi Museum and the Guimet Museum in Paris and a member of the prestigious Académie française. He wrote several major works on ...

.La Monte, J. (1940)
Some Problems in Crusading Historiography
Speculum, 15(1), 57-75. Although the ''Geschichte'' is now out of date, Röhricht's other ''magnum opus'', the ''Regesta Regni Hierosolymitani'', remains useful to modern crusade historians; it is a collection of over nine hundred charters and other documents issued from the royal chancery of the

Kingdom of Jerusalem The Kingdom of Jerusalem, also known as the Crusader Kingdom, was one of the Crusader states established in the Levant immediately after the First Crusade. It lasted for almost two hundred years, from the accession of Godfrey of Bouillon in 1 ...

, which, until edited and published by Röhricht, had remained scattered throughout dozens of other medieval cartularies. He was also the first historian to collect all the medieval material pertaining to the

Fifth Crusade The Fifth Crusade (September 1217 - August 29, 1221) was a campaign in a series of Crusades by Western Europeans to reacquire Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land by first conquering Egypt, ruled by the powerful Ayyubid sultanate, led by al- ...

''Bibliotheca Geographica Palaestinae''

Among the books on Palestine, ''Bibliotheca Geographica Palaestinae: Chronologisches Verzeichniss der auf die Geographie des heiligen Landes bezüglichen Literatur von 333 bis 1878 und Versuch einer Cartographie'' (Berlin, 1890), enumerates 3515 books, issued between AD 333 and 1878. A contemporary notice in ''The Church Quarterly Review'' characterized the book thus:

Works

Books

*''Beiträge zur Geschichte der Kreuzzüge'' (2 vols., Berlin and Leipzig, 1874–1878)
online
*''Quinti Belli sacri scriptores minores'' (Geneva, 1879)
online
*''Arabische Quellenbeiträge zur Geschichte der Kreuzzüge'' (1879)
online
*''Études sur les derniers temps du royaume de Jérusalem'' (1881)
online
*''Testimonia minora de quinto bello sacro'' (1882)
online
*An edition of the ''

Annales de Terre Sainte Annals are a concise form of historical writing which record events chronologically, year by year. The equivalent word in Latin and French is ''annales'', which is used untranslated in English in various contexts. List of works with titles conta ...

'', 1095–1291 (Paris, 1884), with Gaston Raynaud
online
*''Das Reisebuch der Familie Rieter'' (Stuttgart, 1884)
online
*''Bibliotheca geographica Palaestinae'' (Berlin, 1890)
online
*''Kleine Studien zur Geschichte der Kreuzzüge'' (Berlin, 1890) *''Studien zur Geschichte des fünften Kreuzzuges'' (Innsbruck, 1891)
online
*''Die Deutschen im Heiligen Lande'' (Innsbruck, 1894) *''Geschichte der Kreuzzüge im umriss'' (1898)
online
*''Geschichte des Königreichs Jerusalem'' (1100–1291) (Innsbruck, 1898)
online
*''Geschichte des ersten Kreuzzuges'' (Innsbruck, 1901)
online
*''Deutsche Pilgerreisen nach dem heiligen Lande'' (1900)
online
*''Regesta Regni Hierosolymitani'', 1097–1291 (Innsbruck, 1893), with Additamentum (1904)
online

Articles

*"Der Kreuzzug Königs Andreas II von Ungarn", ''Forschungen zur deutschen Geschichte'' 16 (1876) *"Der Kinderkreuzzug von 1212", ''

Historische Zeitschrift ''Historische Zeitschrift'', is a German scholarly journal of history and historiography. Founded in 1859 it was the first and for a time the foremost historical journal in Europe. It is published by Akademie Verlag GmbH, a subsidiary of Oldenbou ...

'' 36 (1876) *"Acte de soumission des barons du royaume de Jérusalem à Frédéric II (7 mai 1241)", '' Archives de l'Orient latin'' 1 (1881), pp. 395–402
online
*"Burgundisches", ''Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde'' 8 (1883), pp. 194–6 *"Hans Hundts Rechnungsbuch (1493-1494)", ''Neues Archiv für sächsische Geschichte und Altertumskunde'' 4 (1883), pp. 37–100 *"Lettres de Ricoldo de Monte-Croce sur la prise d'Acre (1291)", '' Archives de l'Orient latin'' 2 (1884), pp. 258–296
online
see pp. 765 ff. of Google PDF) *"Die Pastorellen (1251)", ''Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte'' 6 (1884) *"Zur Geschichte der Kreuzzüge", ''Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde'' 11 (1886) pp. 571–9 *"Aus den Regesten Honorius III.", ''Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde'' 12 (1887), pp. 415–8 *"Zur Geschichte der Kirche S. Maria Latina in Jerusalem", ''Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde'' 15 (1890) pp. 203–6 *"Die Jerusalemfahrten der Grafen Philipp, Ludwig (1484) und Reinhard von Hanau (1550)", ''Zeitschrift des Vereins für hessische Geschichte und Landeskunde'' 26 (1891) *"Bemerkungen zu Schillerschen Balladen", ''Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie'' 26 (1894) *"Karten und Pläne zur Palästinakunde aus dem 7.-16. Jahrhunderts", ''Zeitschrift des deutschen Palästina-Vereins'' 18 (1895) *"Marino Sanudo sen. als Kartograph Palästinas", ''Zeitschrift des deutschen Palästina-Vereins'' 21 (1898), pp. 84–126

References

External links

Obituary
from the Revue de l'orient latin (at the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

)
Biography
by Dr. William Purkis, from crusaderstudies.org.uk {{DEFAULTSORT:Rohricht, Reinhold 1842 births 1905 deaths 19th-century German historians Historians of the Crusades Historians of the Children's Crusade People from Bolesławiec People from the Province of Lower Silesia German male non-fiction writers