RAUSCHEN, GERHARD. - German ecclesiastical historian, b. at Heinsberg on 13 Oct. 1854, d. at Bonn on 12 Apr. 1917. He studied theology and philology at Bonn and became professor of Church history there in 1902.
In 1890 he published a critical edition of the Vita Karoli Magni and the Descriptio qualiter Karolus Magnus clavum et coronam Domini a Costantinopoli Aquigrani (sic) detulerit qualiterque Karolus Calvus hec ad s. Dyonium retulerit, accompanied by an excursus on the canonization of Charlemagne in the time of Frederick Barbarossa (Die Legende Karls des Grossen im 11. und 12. Jahrhundert, ed. G. Rauschen, Leipzig 1890). He subsequently devoted himself especially to the study of the ancient history of the Church and of patristics, also founding in 1904 the series Florilegium patristicum, of which he himself published 11 fascicles. His Grundriss der Patrologie, first published in 1903, is well known; it went through several editions (the 11th, edited by B. Altaner, dates from 1931) and was also translated into Italian (Manuale di patrologia, Florence 1905).