Arthur Wyss (archivist)

Arthur Franz Wilhelm Wyss (born April 5, 1852 in Homburg vor der Höhe , † November 24, 1900 in Frankfurt am Main ) was the Grand Ducal Hessian Second House and State Archivist in Darmstadt , editor of the Limburg Chronicle of Tilemann Elhen von Wolfhagen and a document book of Deutschordensballei Hessen . As a critical reviewer, he also used the pseudonym Wanbald .

Life

Arthur Wyss was born on April 5, 1852 in Homburg vor der Höhe as the only son of the Strasbourg- based watchmaker and later bank clerk Johann Joseph Wyss and Marie Friederike (née Haas). He attended the secondary school there and received special lessons in the ancient languages ​​from a high school teacher from the summer of 1867. In 1869 he and his mother, now widowed, moved to Marburg , where he attended grammar school and passed the Matura exam in 1871. He studied Classical Philology and History at the University of Marburg . In the fifth semester he decided on a career in archives and was accepted as a volunteer at the Marburg State Archives on December 1, 1873 . On October 6, 1874, he was employed as an unskilled worker. After completing his doctorate in 1875, with a thesis on the Limburg Chronicle, Wyss became archive assistant on January 1, 1876, and archive secretary on July 1, 1877. On July 4, 1879, he moved from the Prussian ( Hesse-Nassau province ) to the Hessian ( Hesse-Darmstadt ) archival service and took on the newly created position of second house and state archivist in Darmstadt. On July 11, 1894 he was given the character of archivist. In May 1898, Wyss became mentally ill, on July 8, 1899 he was retired and awarded the Knight's Cross First Class of the Order of Merit of Philip the Magnanimous . On November 24, 1900, he died in the asylum for the insane and epileptic in Frankfurt am Main as a result of an old heart condition. He was buried next to his mother in the Darmstadt cemetery.

plant

From the work on the Limburg Chronicle published in 1875, the first part of which Wyss submitted as a dissertation, the 1883 edition of this chronicle for the Monumenta Germaniae Historica grew . He was able to complete the first volume of the document book of the Deutschordensballei Hessen in Marburg in May 1879; the printing of the last sheets of the third volume had to be monitored by others in 1899 due to his illness. He published the volumes of 1879 and 1880 of the quarterly journals of the historical association for the Grand Duchy of Hesse , to which he also contributed several essays and reviews, including a first review and treatise on Johannes Gutenberg , which was to be followed by several more until Wyss's death. He wrote several articles for the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie , including about the late medieval chronicler Eberhard Windeck , on which he also published another essay and a review. He placed very high demands on his own work as well as on others, which is also evident in his numerous, sometimes very detailed reviews. In the historical magazine alone he published about 40 reviews under the pseudonym Wanbald.

Fonts (selection)

• Critical discussions about the Limburg Chronicle. First part. Marburg 1875 (dissertation).
• The Limburg Chronicle examined. With unedited fragments of the chronicle and four documents. Marburg 1875.
• Document book of the Deutschordens-Ballei Hessen. 3 volumes ( Hessisches Urkundenbuch. First department ) ( publications from the K. Prussian State Archives ) Leipzig 1879–1899.
• German chronicles and other history books of the Middle Ages 4.1: The Limburg Chronicle of Tilemann Elhen von Wolfhagen. Published by Arthur Wyss . Hanover 1883 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitized version )
• The latest German research on the Gutenberg question . In: Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen , Vol. 7 (1890), pp. 407-428 ( online ).
• Eberhard Windeck's book about the emperor Sigmund and its tradition. Leipzig 1894.
• A German Cisianus printed by Gutenberg for 1444. Strasbourg 1900.

literature

• ( Gustav Nick ): Archives Councilor Dr. Arthur Wyss, born in Homburg vor der Höhe April 5, 1852, died in Frankfurt am Main November 24, 1900. Necrology. In: Quarterly sheets of the historical association for the Grand Duchy of Hesse. New series 2/4, No. 20, 1900, pp. 839–850 Commons .
• Hans Ferdinand Helmolt : Wyss, Arthur Franz Wilhelm . In: Biographisches Jahrbuch and Deutscher Nekrolog. Volume 6, 1904, pp. 482-483 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
• Wolfgang Leesch : The German archivists 1500–1945. Volume 2: Biographical Lexicon. Saur, Munich a. a. 1992, ISBN 3-598-10605-X , p. 687.

Web links

Commons : Category: Arthur Wyß  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Wikisource: Arthur Wyß  - Sources and full texts

• Publications by Arthur Wyss in the Opac der Regesta Imperii