Franz Staab


Franz Staab was a German historian.

Life

Franz Staab was born on 21 November 1942 in Budenheim. He married Jane Darby, née Anderson, with whom he had one son and one daughter.
Staab completed his studies and doctorate at the University of Mainz, where he worked as a research assistant and university assistant from 1971 to 1985. His dissertation was published in 1972 under the title Untersuchungen zur Gesellschaft am Mittelrhein in der Karolingerzeit. His written habilitation of 1984, Das Erzstift Mainz im 10. und 11. Jahrhundert was published in 2008 by the Vereinigung der Heimatfreunde am Mittelrhein. After a professorship in Mainz from 1985 to 1987 he became a professor at the University of Education in Landau.
Staab was President of the Pfälzischen Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften from 1998 and vice-chairman of the from 1997. From 2001 until his death, he also served as President of the ; he is also listed as an author in the Neue Deutsche Biographie.
His special interest as a medievalist was the early and high medieval history of the present-day federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate. In meticulous essays, he often succeeded in expanding limited source material through discoveries in early modern manuscripts. Staab's last work was a biography of Hildegard von Bingen.
As a wine historian Franz Staab introduced experimental historical research on wine, reviewing the production of wines as documented in ancient writings and suggesting means of reproducing ancient types of wine.
Staab was buried in Hauptfriedhof Mainz, Mainz's main cemetery. From the estate of Franz Staab, the Mainz City Library acquired approximately 1500 books.

Writings

  • Untersuchungen zur Gesellschaft am Mittelrhein in der Karolingerzeit . Volume 11. Franz Steiner, Wiesbaden 1975, ISBN 3-515-01910-3.
  • Das Erzstift Mainz im 10. und 11. Jahrhundert. Vereinigung der Heimatfreunde am Mittelrhein, Bingen 2008.
  • Hildegard von Bingen. Fragmente einer Biographie der Heiligen. From the estate of Franz Staab. The "canonisation" of Hildegard of Bingen by Georg May. With annexes by Teresa Tromberend and Werner Lauter. Vereinigung der Heimatfreunde am Mittelrhein, Bingen 2012.

  • Literature

  • Pirmin Spiess: In memoriam Franz Staab. 56, p. 551–553.