to share with students his own fascination with the precision of the legalistic presentational style habitually involved with constitutional history. In 1904 Kern moved to the Friedrich Wilhelm University (as the Humboldt was known at that time) in Berlin. Here he passed through the school of Karl Zeumer (1849 - 1914), a noted specialist in legal history. Another tutor at Berlin by whom he was particularly strongly influenced was Dietrich Schäfer, an old fashioned German nationalist whose lectures on medieval history positively glowed with enthusiasm as he related the deeds and exploits of the more heroic among the German emperors of the medieval period. Schäfer was an unapologetic advocate of the "Greater Germany" solution to the problem (from the perspective of Berlin) of what to do about Austria. On 15 August 1906, still aged only 22, Kern received his doctorate at Berlin for a piece of work entitled "Dorsualkonzept und Imbreviatur. Zur Geschichte der Notariatsurkunde in Italie". His dissertation earned him a "magna cum laude" certification from the assessors and a "valde laudabilis" commendation from his own supervisor. It was published towards the end of that same year as a book. His doctoral research concerned the history of deeds issued by notaries in Italy: it was supervised by Michael Tangl (1864 – 1921). Academic progression Over the next two and a half years Kern made a number of lengthy "archive study trips", visiting France and England in 1908 and, possibly most importantly, Italy during the first part of 1909. Between 1906 and 1908, working under the auspices of Karl Zeumer he was employed as a research assistant for the long-running Monumenta Germaniae Historica project, on which scholars were by this time working on the third volume. Kern's old tutor, Karl Zeumer, had taken responsibility for the period covered by the reign of Charles IV - roughly the third quarter of the fourteenth century. Zeumer was in failing health and losing his sight. Kern provided extensive practical help in terms of collating, transcribing and publishing primary source document. During his foreign visits over this period he was able to work both on the Monumenta Germaniae Historica and on his own complementary researches which concerned the evolution of state institutions and political developments more generally in Medieval France. His marriage towards the end of 1909 prompted the realisation that he could not afford to lead a life of total independence. Fritz Kern