Johann Martin Lappenberg

Johann Martin Lappenberg (July 30, 1794 - November 28, 1865), was a German historian.

Biography

He was born at Hamburg, where his father, Valentin Anton Lappenberg (1759-1819), held an official position. He studied medicine, and afterwards history, at the University of Edinburgh. He continued to study history in London, at Humboldt University, Berlin and at Göttingen, where he graduated as doctor of laws in 1816. In 1820 he was sent by the Hamburg senate as resident minister to the Prussian court. In 1823 he became keeper of the Hamburg archives; an office in which he had the fullest opportunities for the laborious and critical research work upon which his reputation as an historian. rests. He retained this post until 1863, when a serious eye problem compelled him to resign. In 1850 he represented Hamburg in the German parliament at Frankfurt, and he died at Hamburg.

Lappenberg's most important work is his "Geschichte von England", which deals with the history of England from the earliest times to 1154, and was published in two volumes at Hamburg in 1834-1837. It has been translated into English by Benjamin Thorpe as "History of England under the Anglo-Saxon Kings" (1845), and "History of England under the Norman Kings" (Oxford, 1857), and was continued in three additional volumes from 1154 to 1509 by R Pauli.

His other works deal mainly with the history of Hamburg, and include:
*"Hamburgische Chroniken in niedersächsischer Sprache" (Hamburg, 1852-1861)
*"Geschichtsquellen des Erzstiftes und der Stadt Bremen" (Bremen, 1841)
*"Hamburgisches Urkundenbuch" (Hamburg, 1842)
*"Urkundliche Geschichte des Hansischen Stahlhofes zu London" (Hamburg, 1851)
*"Hamburgische Rechtsalterthümer" (Hamburg, 1845)
*"Urkundliche Geschichte des Ursprunges der deutschen falanse" (Hamburg, 1830), a continuation of the work of GF Sartorius.

For the "Monumenta Germaniae historica" he edited the "Chronicon" of Thietmar of Merseburg, the "Gesta Hammenburgensis ecclesiae pontificum" of Adam of Bremen and the "Chronica Slavorum" of Helmold, with its continuation by Arnold of Lübeck. Lappenberg, who was a member of numerous learned societies in Europe, wrote many other historical works.

References

*1911