secretary of the Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde. He was also archivist and then librarian of the city of Frankfort. Böhmer had a great dislike of Prussia and the Protestant faith, and a corresponding affection for Austria and the Roman Catholic Church, to which, however, he did not belong. His critical sense was, perhaps, somewhat warped; but his researches are of great value to students. He died unmarried, at Frankfort, on the 22nd of October 1863. Böhmer’s historical work was chiefly concerned with collecting and tabulating charters and other imperial documents of the middle ages. First appeared an abstract, the Regesta chronologico-diplomatica regum atque imperatorum Romanorum 911–1313 (Frankfort, 1831), which was followed by the Regesta chronologico-diplomatica Karolorum. Die Urkunden sämtlicher Karolinger in kurzen Auszügen (Frankfort, 1833), and a series of Regesta imperii. For the period 1314–1347 (Frankfort, 1839) the Regesta was followed by three, and for the period 1246–1313 (Frankfort, 1844) by two supplementary volumes. The remaining period of the Regesta, as edited by Böhmer, is 1198–1254 (Stuttgart, 1849). These collections contain introductions and explanatory passages by the author. Very valuable also is the Fontes rerum Germanicarum (Stuttgart, 1843–1868), a collection of original authorities for German history during the 13th and 14th centuries. The fourth and last volume of this work was edited by A. Huber after the author’s death. Other collections edited by Böhmer are: Die Reichsgesetze 900–1400 (Frankfort, 1832); Wittelsbachische Regesten von der Erwerbung des Herzogtums Bayern bis zu 1340 (Stuttgart, 1854); and Codex diplomaticus Moeno-Francofurtanus. Urkundenbuch der Reichsstadt Frankfurt (Frankfort, 1836; new edition by F. Law, 1901). Other volumes and editions of the Regesta imperii, edited by J. Ficker, E. Mühlbacher, E. Winkelmann and others, are largely based on Böhmer’s work. Böhmer left a great amount of unpublished material, and after his death two other works were published from his papers: Acta imperii selecta, edited by J. Ficker (Innsbruck, 1870); and Regesta archiepiscoporum Maguntinensium, edited by C. Will (Innsbruck, 1877–1886).
See J. Janssen, J. F. Böhmers Leben, Briefe und kleinere Schriften (Freiburg, 1868).
BOHN, HENRY GEORGE (1796–1884), British publisher, son of a German bookbinder settled in England, was born in London on the 4th of January 1796. In 1831 he started as a dealer in rare books and “remainders.” In 1841 he issued his “Guinea” Catalogue of books, a monumental work containing 23,208 items. Bohn was noted for his book auction sales: one held in 1848 lasted four days, the catalogue comprising twenty folio pages. Printed on this catalogue was the information: “Dinner at 2 o’clock, dessert at 4, tea at 5, and supper at 10.” The name of Bohn is principally remembered by the important Libraries which he inaugurated: these were begun in 1846 and comprised editions of standard works and translations, dealing with history, science, classics, theology and archaeology, consisting in all of 766 volumes. One of Bohn’s most useful and laborious undertakings was his revision (6 vols. 1864) of The Bibliographer’s Manual of English Literature (1834) of W. T. Lowndes. The plan includes bibliographical and critical notices, particulars of prices, &c., and a considerable addition to the original work. It had been one of Bohn’s ambitions to found a great publishing house, but, finding that his sons had no taste for the trade, he sold the Libraries in 1864 to Messrs. Bell and Daldy, afterwards G. Bell & Sons. Bohn was a man of wide culture and many interests. He himself made considerable contributions to his Libraries: he collected pictures, china and ivories, and was a famous rose-grower. He died at Twickenham on the 22nd of August 1884.
BÖHTLINGK, OTTO VON (1815–1904) German Sanskrit scholar, was born on the 30th of May (11th of June O.S.) 1815 at St Petersburg. Having studied (1833–1835) Oriental languages, particularly Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit, at the university of St Petersburg, he continued his studies in Germany, first in Berlin and then (1839–1842) in Bonn. Returning to St Petersburg in 1842, he was attached to the Royal Academy of Sciences, and was elected an ordinary member of that society in 1855. In 1860 he was made “Russian state councillor,” and later “privy councillor” with a title of nobility. In 1868 he settled at Jena, and in 1885 removed to Leipzig, where he resided until his death there on the 1st of April 1904. Böhtlingk was one of the most distinguished scholars of the 19th century, and his works are of pre-eminent value in the field of Indian and comparative philology. His first great work was an edition of Panini’s Acht Bücher grammatischer Regeln (Bonn, 1839–1840), which was in reality a criticism of Franz Bopp’s philological methods. This book Böhtlingk again took up forty-seven years later, when he republished it with a complete translation under the title Paninis Grammatik mit Übersetzung (Leipzig, 1887). The earlier edition was followed by Vopadevas Grammatik (St Petersburg, 1847); Über die Sprache der Jakuten (St Petersburg, 1851); Indische Sprüche (2nd ed. in 3 parts, St Petersburg, 1870–1873, to which an index was published by Blau, Leipzig, 1893); a critical examination and translation of Chhandogya-upanishad (St Petersburg, 1889) and a translation of Brihadaranyaka-upanishad (St Petersburg, 1889). In addition to these he published several smaller treatises, notably one on the Sanskrit accents, Über den Accent im Sanskrit (1843). But his magnum opus is his great Sanskrit dictionary, Sanskrit-Wörterbuch (7 vols., St Petersburg, 1853–1875; new ed. 7 vols., St Petersburg, 1879–1889), which with the assistance of his two friends, Rudolf Roth (1821–1895) and Albrecht Weber (b. 1825), was completed in twenty-three years.
BOHUN, the name of a family which plays an important part in English history during the 13th and 14th centuries; it was taken from a village situated in the Cotentin between Coutances and the estuary of the Vire. The Bohuns came into England at, or shortly after, the Norman Conquest; but their early history there is obscure. The founder of their greatness was Humphrey III., who in the latter years of Henry I., makes his appearance as a dapifer, or steward, in the royal household. He married the daughter of Milo of Gloucester, and played an ambiguous part in Stephen’s reign, siding at first with the king and afterwards with the empress. Humphrey III. lived until 1187, but his history is uneventful. He remained loyal to Henry II. through all changes, and fought in 1173 at Farnham against the rebels of East Anglia. Outliving his eldest son, Humphrey IV., he was succeeded in the family estates by his grandson Henry. Henry was connected with the royal house of Scotland through his mother Margaret, a sister of William the Lion; an alliance which no doubt assisted him to obtain the earldom of Hereford from John (1199). The lands of the family lay chiefly on the Welsh Marches, and from this date the Bohuns take a foremost place among the Marcher barons. Henry de Bohun figures with the earls of Clare and Gloucester among the twenty-five barons who were elected by their fellows to enforce the terms of the Great Charter. In the subsequent civil war he fought on the side of Louis, and was captured at the battle of Lincoln (1217). He took the cross in the same year and died on his pilgrimage (June 1, 1220). Humphrey V., his son and heir, returned to the path of loyalty, and was permitted, some time before 1239, to inherit the earldom of Essex from his maternal uncle, William de Mandeville. But in 1258 this Humphrey fell away, like his father, from the royal to the baronial cause. He served as a nominee of the opposition on the committee of twenty-four which was appointed, in the Oxford parliament of that year, to reform the administration. It was only the alliance of Montfort with Llewelyn of North Wales that brought the earl of Hereford back to his allegiance. Humphrey V. headed the first secession of the Welsh Marchers from the party of the opposition (1263), and was amongst the captives whom the Montfortians took at Lewes. The earl’s son and namesake was on the victorious side, and shared in the defeat of Evesham, which he did not long survive. Humphrey V. was, therefore, naturally selected as one of the twelve arbitrators to draw up the ban of Kenilworth (1266), by which the disinherited rebels were allowed to make their peace. Dying in 1275, he was succeeded by his grandson Humphrey VII. This Bohun lives in history as one of the recalcitrant barons of the year 1297, who extorted from Edward I. the Confirmatio Cartarum.
