Ludwig Traube (1861-1907)
Ludwig Traube was the holder of the first chair for Medieval Latin in Germany. From 1904 until his early death in 1907, he held a full professorship for Medieval Latin philology at the University of Munich.
Traube met Theodor Mommsen (1817-1903) at his parents' house in Berlin and so had early contact with the Monumenta Germaniae Historica (MGH). He studied classical philology in Munich and obtained his doctorate in 1883. A year later, he worked on the publication of the Poetae latini aevi carolingici as part of the MGH. He qualified as a professor in 1888, but as a Jew he was only able to obtain a regular, paid professorship at a very late stage.
Traube is regarded as the founder of Medieval Latin as a university subject. This was due in part to his exclusive concentration on medieval Latin authors, but above all to his research into late antique and medieval palaeography, which opened up an illustrious circle of students for him. Paul Lehmann (1884-1964), his later successor, was among his students, as was E. A. Lowe (1879-1969), who completed his doctorate under Traube with his groundbreaking work on the Beneventana.
Traube was a proof reader at the Thesaurus from 1900 until his death. He was also an associate member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities from 1896 and a full member from 1899. We have chosen him as the namesake in order to recall the close connection between the Thesaurus and other ancient studies projects of the "great science" founded by Theodor Mommsen and to honour a scholar who succeeded in opening up new perspectives for Latin research.