Dümmler, Ernst Ludwig

Dümmler, Ernst Ludwig (1830-1902), German historian, the son of Ferdinand Dümmler (1777-1846), a Berlin bookseller, was born in Berlin, on the 2nd of January 1830. He studied at Bonn under J.W. Löbell (1786-1863), under L. von Ranke and W. Wattenbach, and his doctor’s dissertation, De Arnulfo Francorum rege (Berlin, 1852), was a notable essay. He entered the faculty at Halle in 1855, and started an historical Seminar. In 1858 he became professor extraordinary, in 1866 full professor. In 1875 he became a member of the revised committee directing the Monumenta Germaniae historica, himself undertaking the direction of the section Antiquitates, and in 1888 became president of the central board in Berlin. This was an official recognition of Dümmler’s leading position among German historians. In addition to numerous critical works and editions of texts, he published Piligrim von Passau und das Erzbistum Lorch (1854), Über die älteren Slawen in Dalmatien (1856), Das Formelbuch des Bischofs Salomo III. von Konstanz (1857) and Anselm der Peripatetiker (1872). But his great work was the Geschichte des ostfränkischen Reiches (Berlin, 1862-1865, in 2 vols.; 2nd ed. 1887-1888, in 3 vols.). In conjunction with Wattenbach he completed the Monumenta Alcuiniana (Berlin, 1873), which had been begun by Philipp Jaffé, and with R. Köpke he wrote Kaiser Otto der Grosse (Leipzig, 1876). He edited the first and second volumes of the Poëtae latini aevi Carolini for the Monumenta Germaniae historica (Berlin, 1881-1884). Dümmler died in Berlin on the 11th of September 1902.

His son, Ferdinand (1859-1896), who won some reputation as an archaeologist and philologist, was professor at the university of Basel from 1890 until his death on the 15th of November 1896.