Franz Mone


Franz Josef Mone was a historian and archaeologist.
He attended the gymnasium at Bruchsal and in 1814 entered Heidelberg University, where in 1817 he was appointed a lecturer in history, in 1818 a secretary at the university library, in 1819 an associate professor, in 1822 a full professor, and in 1825 head of the university library. From 1827 to 1831 he was a professor at the Catholic University of Leuven. On his return to Baden, he edited for a period the Karlsruher Zeitung; in 1835 he became archivist and director of the General National Archives in Karlsruhe, and retired in 1868.

Publications

  • His works on early history have been criticised for a tendency to trace most phenomena to a Celtic origin.
  • His works on literary history include:
  • * Einleitung in das Nibelungenlied ;
  • * Geschichte des Heidentums im nördlichen Europa ;
  • * Otnit ;
  • * Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte der deutschen Literatur und Sprache
  • * Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der deutschen Heldensage ;
  • * Uebersicht der niederländischen Volksliteratur älterer Zeit.
  • In the Anzeiger für Kunde des deutschen Mittelalters, he calls attention to a mass of unknown materials.
  • On the history of drama are his editions of Altdeutsche Schauspiele and Schauspiele des Mittelalters.
  • His works, Lateinische und griechische Messen and Lateinische Hymnen, advanced the knowledge of liturgy and ecclesiastical poetry, and offered liturgical documents not published elsewhere.
  • On the history of his native region:
  • * Badisches Archiv ;
  • * Quellensammlung der badischen Landesgeschichte ;
  • * the second volume of the Episcopatus Constantiensis of Trudpert Neugart
  • * the Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins, which was founded by Mone, and in which most of the articles during these early years were from his pen. It was continued subsequently by the General Archives and by the Historical Commission of Baden. In his works the economico-historical interest is always in the foreground.
  • He was an earnest Catholic, and took part in the Baden ecclesiastical-political strife during the forties, publishing the two aggressive anonymous pamphlets, Die katholischen Zustände in Baden.