Dölger, Franz

Born Oct. 4, 1891, in Kleinwallstadt; died Nov. 5, 1968, in Munich. German Byzantine historian (Federal Republic of Germany).

From 1931 to 1959, Dölger was a professor at the University of Munich and director of the Munich Society for Byzantine Studies. He was the editor of Byzantinische Zeitschrift (1928-63). Dölger devoted himself to publishing historical documents and to Byzantine diplomatics. He wrote a number of works on Byzantine philology. In his historical studies Dölger analyzed the Byzantine financial system, agrarian relations, and political relations between the Byzantine Empire and European countries. Dölger led the philological-juridical school in Byzantine studies. He acknowledged the existence of feudalism in the Byzantine Empire and the economic similarity between the Byzantine votchina (patrimonial estate system) and the manorial system of Western Europe. Indescribing the Byzantine votchina, however, Dölger did not take into account Byzantine social development.