Philipp Jaffé was a German historian and philologist. The Schwersenz (then Prussia

Prussia

Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...

) native, despite discrimination against his Jewish religion, was one of the most important German medievalists of the 19th century.

After graduating from the gymnasium at Posen

Poznan

Poznań is a city on the Warta river in west-central Poland, with a population of 556,022 in June 2009. It is among the oldest cities in Poland, and was one of the most important centres in the early Polish state, whose first rulers were buried at Poznań's cathedral. It is sometimes claimed to be...

 in 1838 he went to Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, entering a banking-house. Two years later he abandoned commercial life and studied at Humboldt University of Berlin

Humboldt University of Berlin

The Humboldt University of Berlin is Berlin's oldest university, founded in 1810 as the University of Berlin by the liberal Prussian educational reformer and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt, whose university model has strongly influenced other European and Western universities...

 (Ph.D.

Doctor of Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...

 1844). Seven years later appeared his great work, "Regesta Pontificum Romanorum ab Condita Ecclesia ad Annum p. Ch. n. 1198," containing 11,000 papal documents, Berlin, 1851 (2d ed. by Löwenfeld, Kaltenbrunner, and Ewald, Leipzig, 1885-88). This work made him well known, but he had still to earn a livelihood; he therefore again entered the university, this time as a student of medicine, at Berlin and later at Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

. Graduating as M.D.

Doctor of Medicine

Doctor of Medicine is a doctoral degree for physicians. The degree is granted by medical schools...

 from Berlin in 1853, he engaged in practise in that city for a year, and then became one of the editors of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica

Monumenta Germaniae Historica

The Monumenta Germaniae Historica is a comprehensive series of carefully edited and published sources for the study of German history from the end of the Roman Empire to 1500.The society sponsoring the series was established by the Prussian reformer Heinrich Friedrich Karl Freiherr vom...

. This position he resigned in 1863, his chief work having been vols. xii, xvi, xvii, xviii, xix, and xx of the "Scriptores."

In 1862 Jaffé was appointed assistant professor of history at Humboldt University of Berlin, where he lectured on Latin paleography and Roman

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 and medieval chronology

Chronology

Chronology is the science of arranging events in their order of occurrence in time, such as the use of a timeline or sequence of events. It is also "the determination of the actual temporal sequence of past events".Chronology is part of periodization...

. In 1868 he became a Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

. During the last year of his life he suffered from delirium persecutionis.

Jaffé wrote, in addition to the above-mentioned works, Geschichte des Deutschen Reiches unter Lothar dem Sachsen, Berlin, 1843; Geschichte des Deutschen Reiches unter Konrad III. Hanover, 1845; and Bibliotheca Rerum Germanicarum, ib. 1864-71. Jaffé furthermore collaborated with Wilhelm Wattenbach

Wilhelm Wattenbach

Wilhelm Wattenbach , was a German historian.He was born at Ranzau in Holstein. He studied philology at the universities of Bonn, Göttingen and Berlin, and in 1843 he began to work upon the Monumenta Germaniae Historica...

 in editing the Ecclesiæ Metropolitanæ Coloniensis Codices, which was published (Berlin, 1879) by Wattenbach after Jaffé's death. Jaffé committed suicide at Wittenberge

Wittenberge

Wittenberge is a town of twenty thousand people on the lower Elbe in the district of Prignitz , Brandenburg, Germany.-History:...

on April 3, 1870.