Engelbert Mühlbacher was an Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n historian

Historian

A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

.

Born in Gresten

Gresten

Gresten is a municipality in the district of Scheibbs in Lower Austria, Austria....

, he received his classical education in Linz

Linz

Linz is the third-largest city of Austria and capital of the state of Upper Austria . It is located in the north centre of Austria, approximately south of the Czech border, on both sides of the river Danube. The population of the city is , and that of the Greater Linz conurbation is about...

, Upper Austria being his family's home region. In 1862 he became a novice among the Austin Canons in Sankt Florian

Sankt Florian

Sankt Florian is a town in Upper Austria, Austria. It is 10 miles from Linz, with a population of 5,500 and an elevation of 296 meters above sea level.-St. Florian's Priory and basilica:...

. After completing his theological studies there, he was ordained priest in 1867. As Alfred Ritter von Arneth

Alfred Ritter von Arneth

Alfred Ritter von Arneth , Austrian historian, born at Vienna, was the son of Joseph Calasanza von Arneth , a well-known historian and archaeologist, who wrote a history of the Austrian Empire and several works on numismatics and brother of Doctor Franz Hektor von Arneth .Alfred Arneth studied...

 relates in his memoirs, historical studies had been successfully cultivated at St. Florian's since Provost Arneth's time, and Mühlbacher was soon active in this domain. Among his writings are articles on St. Florian's Gerhoh von Reichersberg, and the literary productions of St. Florian's.

In 1872 he was studying history under Julius von Ficker

Julius von Ficker

Julius von Ficker was a Roman Catholic German historian.-Career:Born at Paderborn, Ficker studied history and law at Bonn, Münster, and Berlin, and during 1848-49 lived in Frankfurt, where he was closely associated with the noted historian, Johann Friedrich Böhmer, who proved himself a generous...

 in Innsbruck

Innsbruck

- Main sights :- Buildings :*Golden Roof*Kaiserliche Hofburg *Hofkirche with the cenotaph of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor*Altes Landhaus...

, where after two years he received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...

. He then hastened to Vienna to finish his historical training under Theodor von Sickel

Theodor von Sickel

Theodor von Sickel was a German-Austrian historian who was born in Aken, Saxony-Anhalt. He specialized in early European medieval history, and is considered to be the founder of modern diplomatics ....

's guidance. When Ficker entrusted the youthful scholar with the revision of the Carolingian

Carolingian

The Carolingian dynasty was a Frankish noble family with origins in the Arnulfing and Pippinid clans of the 7th century AD. The name "Carolingian", Medieval Latin karolingi, an altered form of an unattested Old High German *karling, kerling The Carolingian dynasty (known variously as the...

 period of Böhmer

Johann Friedrich Böhmer

Johann Friedrich Böhmer was a German historian. His historical work was chiefly concerned with collecting and tabulating charters and other imperial documents of the Middle Ages.-Biography:...

's "Regesta", he was directing him to a domain in which he was to do much work. In 1878 he was formally received as academical lecturer into the philosophical faculty of the University of Innsbruck, and between 1880 and 1889 published his edition of the imperial "Regesta" of the Carolingian period. As Joseph Redlich says, "the technique of compiling regesta received exemplary development at Mühlbacher's hands, and his work served as a model for the entire new edition of the imperial Regesta".

In 1892 Mühlbacher was entrusted with the editing of the Carolingian charters for the Monumenta Germaniæ Historica. At the same time it became necessary to bring out a new edition of his Carolingian "Regesta". The two works proved of mutual assistance. He was able to see only the first part of each work through the press, but left considerable material for the use of his successors. No other German scholar was so well qualified to write the Deutsche Geschichte unter den Karolingern, which appeared in 1896. After 1879 Mühlbacher edited the Mitteilungen des Instituts für österreichische Geschichtsforschung

Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung

Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung is an Austrian academic journal published since 1880 by the Institut für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung . Recent editors include Anton Scharer, Georg Scheibelreiter and Andrea Sommerlechner.-Further reading:*Stoy, Manfred...

(Publications of the Institute for Austrian Historical Research). In 1881 he was appointed extraordinary, and in 1896 ordinary professor at Vienna. In 1895 Ficker turned over to him the management of the Regesta Imperii. He took in hand the arrangement of the Austrian State Archives, and the preparation of the more recent history of Austria. He was chosen an active member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Vienna.

When Mühlbacher died in Vienna in the age of only 59 years of pneumonia (an illness made worse by neglect and his enthusiasm for his work), he left the almost completed manuscript of his edition of the charters of Pepin the Short, Carloman I and Charlemagne

Charlemagne

Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...

. This volume was published posthumously in 1906 (Die Urkunden Pippins, Karlmanns und Karls des Großen, MGH Diplomata Karolinorum I, book in digital form) and is the authoritative edition of the charters of these three kings until today.