MEISTER, Alois. — German Catholic historian, b. Dec. 7, 1866 at Frankfurt am Main, d. Jan. 28, 1925 at Münster. He studied at the University of Strasbourg and was a pupil of Scheffer-Boichorst.
In 1892 he was appointed at the Roman Historical Institute of the Görres-Gesellschaft, particularly focusing on the nunciature of Cologne from 1584 to 1590, a topic on which he published a volume in collaboration with S. Ehses in 1895. He obtained his habilitation at Bonn in 1894 and from 1899 onward was professor of history at the University of Münster. In 1906 he founded and edited a series of introductory manuals for the study of German medieval and modern history, which proved very successful; he himself published two volumes in the series, one on the foundations of the historical method (Grundzüge der historischen Methode, 1906) and another on the history of German medieval constitutional history (Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte des Mittelalters, 1907). He took a keen interest in the history of ciphers in diplomacy. Among his writings are: Die Hohenstaufen im Elsass (1890); Der Strassburger Kapitelstreit (1890); Die Fragen der Libri VIII miraculorum des Césariums von Heisterbach (1901); Die Anfänge der modernen diplomatischen Geheimschrift (1902); Die Geheimschrift im Dienste der päpstlichen Kurie (1906); Friedrich der Grosse und das preussische Westfalen (1912); Frankreich und das Saargebiet (1922).