Karl Krumbacher (23 September 1856 – 12 December 1909) was a German scholar who was an expert on Byzantine culture.
He was born at Kürnach im Allgäu in Bavaria, and was educated at the Universities of Munich and Leipzig, and held the professorship of the middle ages and modern Greek language and literature in the former from 1897 to his death.
His greatest work is his Geschichte der byzantinischen Literatur von Justinian bis zum Ende des Ostroemischen Reiches (History of Byzantine literature from Justinian to the fall of the Eastern Empire, 1453), a second edition of which was published in 1897, with the collaboration of Albert Ehrhard (section on theology) and Heinrich Gelzer (general sketch of Byzantine history, AD 395-1453). The value of the work is greatly enhanced by the elaborate bibliographies contained in the body of the work and in a special supplement.
Krumbacher also founded the Byzantinische Zeitschrift (1892) and the Byzantinisches Archiv (1898). He travelled extensively and the results of a journey to Greece appeared in his Griechische Reise (1886). Other works by him are: Kassia (1897), a treatise on a 9th century Byzantine poetess, with the fragments; Michael Glykas (1894); Die griechische Litteratur das Mittelalters in Paul Hinneberg’s Die Kultur der Gegenwart, i.8 (1905); Das Problem der neugriechischen Schriftsprache (1902), in which he strongly opposed the efforts of the purists to introduce the classical style into modern Greek literature, and Populäre Aufsätze (1900).