MÜHLBACHER, ENGELBERT. - Austrian historian, b. 4 Oct. 1843 at Gresten (Austria), d. 17 July 1903 at Vienna. He entered the abbey of St. Florian in 1862, of which he was a member until his death, although he did not take vows. He pursued his university studies at Innsbruck and at Vienna and was a pupil of Ficker and of Sickel. He was extraordinary professor of history at the University of Innsbruck in 1878 and at that of Vienna in 1881, and became full professor there in 1886.
A member of the Academies of Sciences of Vienna and Munich, from 1879 onward he directed the Mitteilungen des Instituts für österreichische Geschichtsforschung and from 1896 presided over the Institute for the study of Austrian history. A medievalist of distinction, particularly active in the study and editing of the sources of the history of the period to which he devoted his entire work, he was a member of the commission of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, edited the second edition of the 1st vol. of Böhm's Regesta Imperii (Die Regesten des Kaiserreichs unter den Karolingern, 751-918, 2 vols., 2nd ed., Innsbruck 1899-1908) and the Diplomata Karolinorum. Among his numerous works are remembered a German history in the age of the Carolingians (Deutsche Geschichte unter den Karolingern, Stuttgart 1896), as well as a monograph on the cultural importance of the abbey of St. Florian (Die literarischen Leistungen des Stiftes St. Florian, 1874; new ed. by O. Redlich in 1905).
Bibliography
Silvio Furlani