BRAUN, Placidus. - Benedictine historian, b. at Peiting on 2 Jan. 1756, d. at Augsburg (Bavaria) on 23 Oct. 1829. He entered the Order in 1775 and in 1785 became librarian and later archivist of the monastery of St Ulrich and St Afra at Augsburg. He displayed great activity in the field of historical and diplomatic studies by cataloguing the manuscripts, precious incunabula and documents of the monastery; moreover, he pursued by all means the restitution of property to religious corporations which, by the Treaty of Ratisbon (1803), had been transferred to the State. A model religious, he obtained in 1820 the restoration of the Benedictine Order in Bavaria.
He published: Notitia historico-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., Augsburg 1788-89; Notitia historico-literaria de codicibus manuscriptis ecc., 6 vols., ibid. 1791-96; Geschichte der Bischöfe von Augsburg, 4 vols., ibid. 1813-15, accompanied by Codex diplomaticus episcopatus Augustani, in 2 vols., besides the life of St Silperto (1792), of St Ulrich (1796) and of St Afra (1804) and many other works on the ecclesiastical history of Augsburg.