| Encyclopaedia Britannica 11th Edition | Public Domain via Project Gutenberg |
(1840- ), German historian, was born at Wels in Upper Austria on the 22nd of June 1840. After studying at the universities of Vienna, Göttingen and Berlin, he became professor at the university of Lemberg in 1866, and in quick succession held similar positions at Prague, Strassburg and Berlin. From 1872 Brunner devoted himself especially to studying the early laws and institutions of the Franks and kindred peoples of western Europe, and on these subjects his researches have been of supreme value. He also became a leading authority on modern German law. He became a member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences in 1884, and in 1886, after the death of G. Waitz, undertook the supervision of the Leges section of the Monumenta Germaniae historica. His chief works are: Die Entstehung der Schwurgerichte (Berlin, 1872); Zeugen und Inquisitionsbeweis der karolingischen Zeit (Vienna, 1866); Das anglonormännische Erbfolgesystem, nebst einem Excurs über die älteren normännischen Coutumes (Leipzig, 1869); Zur Rechtsgeschichte der römischen und germanischen Urkunde (Berlin, 1880); Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte (Leipzig, 1887-1892); Mithio und Sperantes (Berlin, 1885); Die Landschenkungen der Merowinger und Agilolfinger (Berlin, 1885); Das Gerichtszeugnis und die fränkische Königsurkunde (Berlin, 1873); Forschungen zur Geschichte des deutschen und französischen Rechts (Stuttgart, 1894); Grundzüge der deutschen Rechtsgeschichte (Leipzig, 1901).