KNÖPFLER, ALOIS. - Ecclesiastical historian, b. 29 Aug. 1847 at Schomburg (Württemberg), d. there 14 July 1921. Ordained priest in 1874, he became professor of Church history and patrology at the Lyceum of Passau in 1881. He succeeded Döllinger as professor of ecclesiastical history at Munich and taught there until 1917. He founded the Seminary of Ecclesiastical History, which he brought to great prosperity.
He edited the German edition of vol. XXIII of Rohrbacher’s Storia universale della Chiesa and the 2nd ed. of vols. V and VI of Hefele’s Storia dei Concili, as well as those of Valafrido Strabone’s De exordiis et incrementis in 1890 and Rabano Mauro’s De institutione clericorum
in 1900. Also important is his Lehrbuch der Kirchengeschichte, first published in 1895, which went through several editions and was translated into Hungarian and Spanish.