WERMINGHOFF, Albert. - Historian and jurist, b. 3 Aug. 1869 at Wiesbaden, d. 2 Feb. 1923 at Halle.
A pupil of Scheffer-Boichorst in Berlin, from his very first work (the dissertation on the pledges of the imperial cities of the middle and lower Rhine in the 13th and 14th centuries) he took a special interest in the juridical-institutional aspects of medieval history. In 1896 he began his collaboration with the MGH and edited with exemplary diligence the Concilia aevi Karolini (1904-1908). Meanwhile he had qualified in medieval history at the University of Greifswald and in 1907 was appointed full professor at Königsberg. The study of medieval canon law led him naturally to the composition of Geschichte der deutschen Kirchenverfassung im Mittelalter (Hanover 1905; 2nd ed. under the title Verfassungsgeschichte der deutschen Kirche im Mittelalter, Leipzig 1913), still today a fundamental work on the subject. At the same time, together with Stutz, he directed the canonistic section of the Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte. Called to the University of Halle in 1913, in the last years of his life he devoted himself to studies on the German fifteenth century. His Ludwig Eyb der Ältere (1919) is indeed a notable contribution to the history of humanism in Germany. In 1921 the University of Leipzig called him to its academic body, but a severe liver ailment, which prevented him from teaching, led to his death.