Wilhelm von Giesebrecht

In 1841 he published his Jahrbücher des Klosters Altaich, a reconstruction of the lost Annales Altahenses, a medieval source of which fragments only were known to be extant, and these were obscured in other chronicles.

In the meantime he had been appointed Oberlehrer in the Joachimsthaler Gymnasium in Berlin; had paid a visit to Italy, and as a result of his researches there had published De litterarum studiis apud halos primis mediiaevi seculis (Berlin, 1845), a study upon the survival of culture in Italian cities during the Middle Ages, and also several critical essays upon the sources for the early history of the popes.

Largeness of style and brilliance of portrayal were joined to an absolute mastery of the sources in a way hitherto unachieved by any German historian.

Giesebrecht's history appeared when the new German empire was in the making, and became popular owing both to its patriotic tone and its intrinsic merits.

In 1895 Bernhard von Simson added a sixth volume to the Geschichte der deutschen Kaiserzeit, thus bringing the work down to the death of Emperor Frederick I in 1190.