After a short period of study in Paris on the French Revolution, he spent some time working in the archives of Baden and Bavaria, and published in 1845 Die Geschichte der rheinischen Pfalz, which won for him a professorship extraordinarius at Heidelberg.
These are Franconia (Franken), which embraces the districts of Bamberg, Schweinfurt and Wurzburg on the upper Main; Swabia (Schwaben), in which is included Wtirttemberg, parts of Bavaria and Baden and Hohenzollern; the Palatinate (Pfalz), embracing Bavaria west of the Rhine and the contiguous portion of Baden; Rhineland, applied to Rhenish Prussia, Nassau, Hesse-Darmstadt and parts of Bavaria and Baden; Vogtland, the mountainous country lying in the south-west corner of the kingdom of Saxony; Lusatia (Lausitz), the eastern portion of the kingdom of Saxony and the adjacent portion of Prussia watered by the upper Spree; Thuringia (Thulingen), the country lying south of the Harz Mountains and including the Saxon duchies; East Frlesland (Ost Friesland), the country lying between the lower course of the Weser and the Ems, and Westphalia (Westfalen), the fertile plain lying north and west of the Harz Mountains and extending to the North Sea and the Dutch frontier.
Here are the rock of the siren Lurlei or Lorelei; the old castles of Stahleck and Pfalz, which belonged to the Counts Palatine of the Rhine; and the quaint medieval towns of Caub and St Goarshausen.