Medievalist and one of the founders of cultural history who began his career writing art history. Lamprecht was the son of a Lutheran minister, also named Karl Lamprecht. After attending the Volksschule and Gymnasium in Wittenberg, Lamprecht entered the famous Gymnasum boarding school at Schulpforta in 1866. Graduating in 1874, he began university studies (in history) the same year in Göttingen, where the courses of Ernst Bernheim (1850-1942) and philosopher Rudolf Hermann Lotze (1817-1881) were significant.