Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1913 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XXII MINOR COUNTRIES I In Austria historical production of a high quality is of very CHAP, recent date. When Pertz sought collaborators for the Monumenta XXII at Vienna, Gentz replied that the formation of a society for the study of German history could not be agreeable to the Emperor. The censorship was active and vigilant, and the archives were only opened to men whose dynastic and religious orthodoxy was beyond question. Thus Bucholtz compiled a vast work on Ferdinand I, and Chmel wrote a history of Frederick III and his son Maximilian. Hurter,1 a Swiss convert who had won fame as the biographer of Innocent III, was invited to Vienna and appointed Imperial Historiographer. His labours on the Thirty Years War were embodied in his colossal life of Ferdinand II and his studies of Wallenstein. All these works bore a semi-official character. Welcomed by scholars for their glimpses into a jealously guarded treasure-house, they were rather the raw material for history than history itself. The most important work produced during the dictatorship of Metternich, Hammer's massive history of the Ottomans, was based chiefly on material collected beyond the frontier. A more liberal policy was adopted when Count Leo Thun became Minister of Education after the year of revolution. He summoned Ficker to Innsbruck, Aschbach and Max Budinger to Vienna. Thus the scholarship of Germany was grafted on the culture of Austria. It was not, however, till Arneth3 became Director of the Archives that the Metternich system was finally discarded. On visiting London he was struck by the liberality with which the archives were opened to every student, while his own country forbade the inspection even of its minor treasures. 1 See H. Hurter, F. Hurter, 2...
