lexicographer linguist university professor
This dictionary was founded upon the base of the Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch by Benecke, Müller and Zarncke, completed in 1866 in three volumes. Matthias Lexer received a Doctor of Philosophy in a lexicological subject at age 30 in 1860 at the University of Erlangen, where one of his teachers was the historian Karl von Hegel.
Between 1855 and 1857, Lexer worked as a teacher at the German School in KrakóWest Later he studied at Berlin. In the following years, he worked for a Hungarian royal family as Hofmeister.
On the recommendation of the historian Georg Waitz and specialist in German studies Viktor Müllenhoff he was a philological employee at the successful edition project "The Chronicles of the German Cities" under the leadership of the German historian Karl von Hegel.
1860, he received his Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Erlangen under submission of its now completed Kärntischen dictionary. Lexer researches in this period can be traced in his extensive correspondence with Karl von Hegel.
"The Middle High German dictionary is noted for its admirably comprehensive coverage of the language of courtly literature.. gaps in its medical and scientific vocabulary, and the coverage of legal terminology.".
