29 Facts About Walter Horn

Walter William Horn was a German-American medievalist scholar noted for his work on the timber vernacular architecture of the Middle Ages.

Walter Horn's most celebrated exploit was the recovery of the crown jewels of the Holy Roman Empire, known as Charlemagne's Imperial Regalia.

Walter Horn was present as a guest of Austria at the reopening of the rooms dedicated to the Reglia at the Hofburg Museum in 1987.

Walter Horn was born in the town of Waldangelloch in rural Baden as Walther Wilhelm Adolf Walter Horn.

Walter Horn's mother was Matilde Peters; she married Karl Horn, a Lutheran minister.

Walter Horn attended a Gymnasium in nearby Heidelberg and went on to study art history at the University of Heidelberg and the University of Berlin.

Walter Horn earned his doctorate in 1934 at the University of Hamburg, studying under Erwin Panofsky.

Walter Horn's dissertation, Die Fassade von Saint-Gilles, on the facade of Saint-Gilles, Gard, was published in 1937.

Walter Horn continued his studies from 1934 to 1937 as a research associate at the German Institute for the History of Art in Florence, Italy.

In 1938, Walter Horn moved to the United States and began his long association with the University of California, Berkeley, as a lecturer.

Walter Horn became a naturalized citizen in 1943, dropping the forename Adolf because of its associations with the war.

In 1945, Walter Horn succeeded in recovering the Imperial Regalia of Charlemagne, the crown, sceptre, and jewels of the Holy Roman Empire.

Walter Horn appears in narratives about the lance's retrieval from the possession of Adolf Hitler in works by occultists and conspiracy theorists.

Kantorowicz presented a letter from Walter Horn, who had signed the oath under protest.

Walter Horn's specialty was three-aisled timber structures in medieval churches, market halls and manor halls.

Walter Horn was known for arriving at a precise dating of medieval buildings through studying their technologies and observing the physical evidence, drawing on scientific disciplines; he dated timber structures with reference to radiocarbon analysis and dendrochronological tables.

In 1958, Walter Horn published what is considered his most important article, "On the Origins of the Medieval Bay System" in the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians.

Walter Horn argued that bay-divided medieval churches derived from Germanic timber buildings and represented a continuous tradition of vernacular architecture in transalpine Europe.

Walter Horn was the first to assemble the known timber examples, which dated from as early as 1200 BC and extended into the medieval period.

The 1958 article was significant in that it marked Walter Horn's first collaboration with Ernest Born, the San Franciscan architect and draftsman with whom he was to author a series of books and articles over the next twenty years.

In 1957, Walter Horn had participated in an international congress on the plan, and his interest in its guest and service buildings led to his survey of medieval structures in France and England.

In 1965, Walter Horn and Born contributed to the creation of a scale model of the 40 buildings rendered on the plan.

The most controversial aspect of the work was Walter Horn's major thesis: that the plan was a copy of a lost master plan dating to 816 or 817 that would have been part of documents pertaining to the official monastic reform movement under Louis the Pious at Aachen.

Walter Horn's last article on the plan, "The Medieval Monastery as a Setting for the Production of Manuscripts," was a response to this criticism.

In 1974, Walter Horn retired to emeritus status after 36 years at the University of California.

Walter Horn was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the Medieval Academy of America.

Walter Horn was an active supporter of arts institutions outside academia, serving as trustee of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and chairman of the museum's acquisitions committee.

Walter Horn died at home of pneumonia on Tuesday, 26 December 1995, at Point Richmond, California.

Walter Horn was survived by his wife, Alberta; his son, Michael; two daughters, Rebecca and Robin; and grandchildren, Matthew and Dulce.