August Potthast (13 August 1824,

Höxter Höxter () is a town in eastern North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany on the left bank of the river Weser, 52 km north of Kassel. It lies the heart of the Weser Uplands, and is the seat of the Höxter district. The district of Höxter has a popul ...

Province of Westphalia The Province of Westphalia () was a Provinces of Prussia, province of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Free State of Prussia from 1815 to 1946. In turn, Prussia was the largest component state of the German Empire from 1871 to 1918, of the Weimar ...

13 February 1898, Leobschütz), 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 species; as well as the ...

, was born at

, and was educated at

Paderborn Paderborn (; Westphalian language, Westphalian: ''Patterbuorn'', also ''Paterboärn'') is a city in eastern North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, capital of the Paderborn (district), Paderborn district. The name of the city derives from the river Pade ...

Münster Münster (; ) is an independent city#Germany, independent city (''Kreisfreie Stadt'') in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also a ...

and Berlin. He assisted GH Pertz, the editor of the ''

Monumenta Germaniae Historica The (Latin for "Historical Monuments of Germany"), frequently abbreviated MGH, is a comprehensive series of carefully edited and published primary sources, both chronicle and archival, for the study of parts of Northwestern, Central and Souther ...

'', and edited the ''

Regesta Papal regesta are the copies, generally entered in special registry volumes, of the papal letters and official documents that are kept in the papal archives. The name is also used to indicate subsequent publications containing such documents, in c ...

pontificum romanorum, 1198-1304'' (Berlin, 1874–1875). From 1874 to 1894 he was librarian of the German '' Reichstag''. Potthast is chiefly known through his monumental
Bibliotheca historica medii aevi
' (1862), a guide to the sources of

European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD 500), the Middle Ages (AD 500–1500), and the modern era (since AD 1500). The first early Eu ...

in the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

. The work, in the form of an index, gives particulars of practically all the historical writers of Europe and their work between 375 and 1500. A new and enlarged edition appeared at Berlin in 1896.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Potthast, August 1824 births 1898 deaths Historians from the Kingdom of Prussia People from Höxter People from the Province of Westphalia 19th-century German historians 19th-century German male writers 19th-century German writers German male non-fiction writers