Alfons Dopsch, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

Alfons Dopsch

Austrian social and economic historian

Date of Birth: 14-Jun-1868

Place of Birth: Lovosice, Ústí nad Labem Region, Czech Republic

Date of Death: 01-Sep-1953

Profession: historian, university teacher, medievalist, economic historian, social historian

Nationality: Austria

Zodiac Sign: Gemini

Alfons Dopsch (14 June 1868 in Lobositz, Bohemia - 1 September 1953 in Vienna) was an Austrian social and economic historian who specialised in the history of medieval Europe.
He studied at Institut fur Osterreichische Geschichtsforschung and was a Professor at the University of Vienna, 1898-1936. Dopsch, using archaeological evidence, rejected the highly defined periodization of other scholars in favour of an emphasis on long term continuity and gradual change.
He argued that the collapse of the Roman Empire in Western Europe was not as catastrophic as had previously been thought and that the Middle Ages had evolved in an orderly way as the Germans absorbed and developed Roman culture.
Some of his views have since been rejected by modern scholars but his work continues to represent an important perspective on the debate about the effects of the collapse of the empire on Western Europe.