RANKE, LEOPOLD VON

Historian; b. Wiehe (Thuringia), Germany, Dec. 21, 1795; d. Berlin, May 23, 1886. He descended from a long line of Lutheran pastors and studied theology and classical philology at the University of Leipzig (1814–18), where his reading of Thucydides and Barthold Niebuhr turned his main interest to history. After a long period of doubt, Ranke had moved by 1818 toward a synthesis of Lutheran mysticism, Neoplatonism, humanism as propounded by Goethe and Herder, and the pantheism of Fichte. While teaching at a secondary school (gymnasium) at Frankfort on the Oder (1818–25), he completed the first part of his Geschichten der romanischen und germanischen Völker (1824). This won him a professorship at the University of Berlin (1825–71). His accomplishments included the discovery of the invaluable records of the Venetian ambassadors; lectures on the history of Italian poetry (1833), which inspired a new school of historiography; and joint editorship of the Historisch-Politische Zeitschrift, founded in 1833 to combat revolutionary extremism. He was named official Prussian historiographer (1841), served as president of the Munich Historical Commission beginning in 1858, and gained the Prussian prefix of nobility "von" (1865).

Ranke was the most influential and widely read historian of his century, noted for pioneer work in the systematic exploitation of archival sources and in the creation of the modern scientific approach to history. The "Columbus of modern history," as Lord Acton termed him, took as the apt motto of his extremely industrious life, Labor ipse voluptas. His prodigious scholarly output spanned modern European history and continued for six decades until the eve of his death, which found him, half blind, at work on the sixth volume of a world history, begun in his 82d year. Although many sections of his works are outdated, many of his profound observations in them remain valid. His aim was to write history "as it actually happened," avoiding political partisanship, nationalistic narrowness, moral judgments, and religious enthusiasm. His universalistic and unitary view of European history was admirable, although not devoid of his conservative Prussian political commitment. To him the driving forces of modern history have been the European states. He was a leading exponent of historicism and rejected the notion of progress. History to him was a hieroglyph of God, and Christian hope and belief in Divine Providence were dominant in his outlook. Each era, he believed, is directed to God and is fulfilled in itself, not in later generations. He tended, however, to center history too much on great personages and to concentrate on diplomatic questions to the neglect of social and juridical ones.

Chief among Ranke's books were his three volumes on Prussian history (1847–48), five volumes on French history (1852–61), and seven volumes on English history (1859–68). His five-volume history of Germany in the Reformation period (1839–47) revealed a Lutheran sympathy evident elsewhere in his treatment of religious topics. Ranke first won fame with his three-volume history of the popes during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (1834–39), which he extended to include Vatican Council I (1869–70) in the 6th edition (1874) and later ones. It was based on extensive archival research, although it did not include the Vatican Archives, which were not then opened to scholars. Although it overemphasized papal political and diplomatic activity, it was a masterpiece of historiography and raised this subject from its hitherto polemical level. Protestants criticized it as too favorable to Catholics; Rome placed it on the Index (Sept. 16, 1841).

Bibliography: Sämtliche Werke, 54 v. (Leipzig 1867–90); ed. p. joachimsen et al. (Munich 1952–); Das Briefwerk, ed. w. p. fuchs (Hamburg 1949); Neue Briefe, ed. b. hoeft and h. herzfeld (Hamburg 1949). h. f. helmolt, L. von Rankes Leben und Wirken (Leipzig 1921). g. p. gooch, History and Historians in the Nineteenth Century (2d ed. London 1952). f. schnabel, Deutsche Geschichte im 19. Jahrhundert, 4 v. (Freiburg 1927–37) 3:86–101. t. h. von laue, Leopold Ranke, the Formative Years (Princeton 1950). h. von srbik, Geist und Geschichte vom Deutschen Humanismus bis zur Gegenwart, 2 v. (Munich 1950–51) 1:239–292. h. heuser, L. von Rankes protestantisches Geschichtsbild (Zurich 1950). c. hinrichs, Ranke und Die Geschichtstheologie der Goethezeit (Göttingen 1954). f. baethgen, "Zur geistigen Entwicklungsgeschichte Rankes in seiner Frühzeit," Deutschland und Europa, ed. w. conze (Düsseldorf 1951) 337–353. f. meinecke, Die Entstehung des Historismus, ed. c. hinrichs (3d ed. Munich 1959). h. lutz, "Ranke und das Papsttum" Rivista di storia della Chiesa iri Italia 16 (1962): 439–450. k. kupisch, Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 7 v. (3d ed. Tübingen 1957–65) 5:778–779. s. skalweit, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, 10 v. (Freiburg 1957–65) 8:990–991.

[s. j. tonsor]