Placidus brown

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Memorial to Placidus Braun (1756–1829) in the vestibule of the St. Michael cemetery church on the Catholic cemetery on Hermanstrasse in Augsburg

Placidus Braun (born February 11, 1756 in Peiting , † October 23, 1829 in Augsburg ) was a German Benedictine priest and church historian .

Life

Braun was the son of a baker. He attended the St. Mang monastery school in Füssen , which aroused his interest in music. At the age of twelve he decided to move to the Benedictine abbey of St. Ulrich and Afra in Augsburg as a choirboy . Here he continued his education at the Jesuit high school in St. Salvator for six years. In 1775 he was admitted to the Benedictine monastery. His ordination is recorded from 1779. The Benedictines of the Reichsstift entrusted him with the maintenance of their library (from 1785 as the responsible librarian ) and the archive.

In 1796 he was entrusted with the care of the monastery finances as grand cellar . He also had to take care of French troops billeted during the Napoleonic Wars. Placidus Braun strongly resisted the secularization of the monastery. In 1803, after the monastery was cleared for secular purposes, he became a librarian and archivist in the Episcopal Ordinariate in Augsburg. He brought in books from the St. Ulrich and Afra monastery and from the St. Mang monastery in Füssen, which the last abbot Aemilian Hafner had given him. Braun found shelter with other monks near the monastery.

The motive to protect the bishops and the rights of the church from harm made him a historian. On August 3, 1808, the Bavarian Academy of Sciences appointed him as a member, which he had strived for. He now had access again to the historical documents of the Reichsstift confiscated by the kingdom.

Until his death, Braun is said to have attended early mass every day in the St. Ulrich and Afra basilica .

Works

A printed directory of all incunabula of the imperial abbey goes back to Braun . It was one of the first works of its kind. A six-volume printed inventory of all manuscripts followed. Descriptions of the life of the male diocesan patrons Ulrich von Augsburg and Simpert were his next works. The book with the cumbersome title “History of Conversion, Suffering and Invention of St. Martyr Afra, then of the holiness, glorification and fate of her tomb ” . Braun also wrote a history of the Augsburg collegiate monasteries St. Moritz, St. Georg and St. Gertrud.

Created after the abolition of the monastery

  • from 1813 to 1815 the four-volume "History of the Bishops of Augsburg"
  • 1817 the "History of the Church and the Monastery of Saints Ulrich and Afra in Augsburg"
  • 1822 the "History of the Jesuit College in Augsburg"
  • 1823 the two-volume "Historical-Topographical Description of the Diocese of Augsburg"
  • 1825 a "life story of all saints and blessed of the city and the diocese of Augsburg"

and in the series "Monumenta Boica" he edited the

  • Documents of the Hochstift Augsburg (5 volumes) and
  • Documents from the Reichsstift St. Ulrich and Afra (2 volumes).

His last work was published in 1829, “The Cathedral Church in Augsburg and the high and low clergy of the same” .

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Placidus Braun  - Sources and full texts (English)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ History of the Diocesan and Pastoral Library Augsburg , queried on August 10, 2009
  2. ↑ Article "History as Defense" in "Augsburger Allgemeine" from February 15, 2006
  3. ↑ Augsburger Stadtlexikon , queried on August 10, 2009
personal data
SURNAME Brown, Placidus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Benedictine and church historian
DATE OF BIRTH February 11, 1756
PLACE OF BIRTH Peiting
DATE OF DEATH October 23, 1829
Place of death augsburg