LAPPENBERG, Johann Martin (1794-1865), a German historical writer, was born July 30, J79 4, at Hamburg, where his father held a good official position; early in life he began to study medicine, and afterwards history, at Edinburgh. The latter pursuit he continued in London and at the universities of Berlin and Göttingen, graduating as doctor of laws of Göttingen in 1816. He was forthwith sent by the Hamburg senate as resident minister to the Prussian court, where he remained till 1823, when he became keeper of the Hamburg archives, an office in which he had the amplest opportunities for the cultivation and exercise of those habits of laborious and critical research on which his highly respectable reputation as an historian rests. He continued to hold this post until 1863, when a serious affection of the eyes compelled him to resign. In 1850 he had the honour of representing Hamburg at the Frankfort conference. His death took place on November 28, 1865.

Lappenberg's most important contribution to literature, and that by which he is best known outside of Germany, was his Geschichte von England (2 vols., Hamburg, 1834-37), which was translated by Thorpe (1845-57) and continued by Pauli (from 1160). His other works include a continuation of the Geschichte des Ursprungs der deutschen Hansa of Sartorius, 1830; Hamburgisches Urkundenbuch, 1842; Hamburger Rechtsalterthümer, 1845; Chroniken der Stadt Hamburg in niederdeutscher Sprache, 1852-61; Quellen zur Geschichte des Erzbisthums u. der Stadt Bremen, 1841; editions of Thietmar of Merseburg, Adam of Bremen, Helmold, and Arnold of Lübeck in the Monumenta of Pertz, and an edition of Th. Marner’s Till Eulenspiegel, 1853.