The New International Encyclopædia/Sybel, Heinrich von

SYBEL, zḗ'bĕl, Heinrich von (1817-95). A German historian, born at Düsseldorf, December 2, 1817. He studied four years at Berlin and at Bonn, and in 1841 published his first work, the Geschichte des ersten Kreuzzugs. In 1844 he was made professor extraordinary at Bonn and two years later went to Marburg as professor in ordinary. It was there that he wrote his Geschichte der Revolutionszeit von 1789 bis 1795 (1853-58), the most important of his works with one exception. In 1856 he became professor at Munich, where he instituted the historical commission of the Royal Bavarian Academy and founded the Historische Zeitschrift, and in 1861 was appointed professor at Bonn. He was made director of Prussian archives in 1875 and thus had access to the most valuable material for his chief work, Die Begründung des deutschen Reichs (Munich, 1889-94; trans. by Perrin, New York, 1890-97). Sybel was from 1862 to 1864 and from 1874 to 1880 a member of the Prussian Diet, and in 1867 was elected to the Constituent Reichstag of the North German Confederation. He died at Marburg, August 1, 1895. — His son Ludwig (1846—) is an archæologist, professor at Marburg since 1877, and author of: Die Mythologie der Ilias (1877); Kritik des ägyptischen Ornaments (1883); Weltgeschichte der Kunst im Altertum (2d ed. 1902), and others.