BRAUN, PLACIDUS. - Benedictine historian, b. at Peiting on 2 Jan. 1756, d. at Augusta (Bavaria) on 23 Oct. 1829. He entered the Order in 1775 and in 1785 became librarian and subsequently archivist of the monastery of SS. Ulrico and Afra at Augusta. He displayed the greatest activity in the field of historical and diplomatic studies, making known the manuscripts, precious incunabula, and documents of the monastery; moreover, by every means he pursued the restitution of the property to the religious corporations which, by the Treaty of Ratisbona (1803), had been transferred to the State. An exemplary religious, in 1820 he obtained the restoration of the Benedictine Order in Bavaria.
He published: Notitia historica-literaria de libris usque ad annum 1479-1500 impressis in bibliotheca liberi ac imperialis monasterii ordinis s. Benedicti ad SS. Ulricum et Afram Augustae exstantibus, 2 vols., Augusta 1788-89; Notitia historico-literaria de codicibus manuscriptis etc., 6 vols., ibid. 1791-96; Geschichte der Bischöfe von Augsburg, 4 vols., ibid. 1813-15, accompanied by the Codex diplomaticus episcopatus Augustani, in 2 vols., in addition to the lives of s. Silperto (1792), s. Ulrico (1796), and s. Afra (1804), and many other books on the ecclesiastical history of Augusta.