MUHLBACHER, ENGELBERT. - Austrian historian, b. 4 Oct. 1843 at Gresten (Austria), d. 17 July 1903 at Vienna. In 1862 he entered the abbey of St. Florian, of which he remained a member until his death, though he did not take vows. He pursued his university studies at Innsbruck and Vienna and was a pupil of Ficker and Sickel. He became extraordinary professor of history at the University of Innsbruck in 1878 and at that of Vienna in 1881, and ordinary professor in 1886.
A member of the Academies of Sciences of Vienna and Munich, from 1879 onwards he directed the Mitteilungen des Instituts für österreichische Geschichtsforschung and presided from 1866 over the Institute for the Study of Austrian History. A distinguished medievalist, particularly active in the study and publication of sources for the period to which he devoted his entire work, he was a member of the commission for the Monumenta Germaniae Historica. He edited the second edition of the first volume of Böhmer’s Regesta Imperii (Die Regesten des Kaiserreichs unter den Karolingen, 751-918, 2 vols., 2nd ed., Innsbruck 1899-1908) and the Diplomata Karolinorum. Among his numerous works are a history of Germany in the Carolingian age (Deutsche Geschichte unter den Karolingen, Stuttgart 1896) and 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).