MOHLBERG, KUNIBERT

Liturgist; b. Efferen, near Cologne, April 17, 1878;d. Maria Laach, May 21, 1963. In 1897 he entered the Abbey of maria laach and there, in 1898, was professed as a Benedictine. In 1905, after his philosophical and theological studies at Maria Laach and Beuron, he was sent to Louvain, where he completed his studies in 1911 and received the degree of Docteur en sciences morales et historiques. The years at Louvain were decisive for him. Under A. Cauchie (d. 1922) he learned all the subtle historical and technical methods of editing that he developed and improved during his later research. It was also in Louvain that he met the great teachers of his order: C. Butler and G. Morin, as well as the great English liturgist, E. Bishop. All of them encouraged and helped him, and thus through him influenced German scholarly liturgical research. With Morin's encouragement, he returned to his doctoral dissertation Radulph de Rivo, der letzte Vertreter der altrömischen Liturgie (2 v. Louvain 1911; Münster 1915). This topic led him to his special field of interest, namely, the problem of the ancient sacramen taries, the area between the libelli and the full Missals.

The first result of these studies was the publication of Des fränkische Sacramentarium Gelasianum in alamannischer Überlieferung (Liturgiegeschichtlich Quellen und Forschungen 1–2; Münster 1918) and a fundamental description of the objectives, problems, and methods of research, Ziele und Aufgaben der liturgiegeschichtlichen Forschung (Liturgiegeschichtlich Quellen und Forschungen 13; Münster 1919).

In the years after World War I he collaborated with his abbot Ildefons herwegen (d. 1946), Romano guardini, F. J. dÖlger (d. 1940), A. baumstark (d.1948), and A. Rücker (d. 1948) in many undertakings that became characteristic of German liturgical scholarship and renewal. He was called to work at the Vatican Library in 1924; from 1927 to 1939 he devoted himself to his first great series of liturgical editions, and in 1931 he was named professor for early church history, hagiography, and the history of liturgy at the Pontifical Institute for Christian Archeology. As early as 1921 he was a collaborator on the Ephemerides Liturgicae, and in 1927 he joined the editorial staff.

In 1927 Mohlberg already was working regularly during vacations on a catalogue of the medieval manuscripts at the University of Zürich; to this task he dedicated all his efforts when, at the outbreak of the war, he had to seek refuge in Switzerland. The catalogue, published in 1950, received warm praise and recognition, which in 1958 finally resulted in the bestowal on Mohlberg of an honorary doctorate by the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Zürich. His method of cataloguing became a model to others, made possible the ordering of liturgical manuscripts, and gave impetus to new scientific work in liturgy.

A last fruitful period of creative work started for Mohlberg in 1948, when he was called to the pontifical college of the Benedictine Order, Sant' Anselmo, where from 1950 to 1953 he taught liturgiology and methodology, and until 1962 directed the liturgical institute founded by his Abbot Primate Bernard Kaelin. With Peter siffrin and Leo Eizenhöfer he began the second important series of editions of the Roman Sacramentaries. In 1948, on the occasion of his 70th birthday, his former students published the Festschrift Miscellanea Liturgica in honorem L. Cuniberti Mohlberg (2 v. Rome 1948–49); this was an impressive witness to the kind of scholarship that Mohlberg encouraged.

Bibliography: h. schmidt, "Bibliographia L. Cuniberti Mohlberg," Miscellanea Liturgica in honorem L. Cuniberti Mohlberg, 2 v. (1948–49) 1:15–39. b. neunheuser, Ephemerides liturgicae 78 (1964): 58–62. e. von severus, Archiv für Liturgiewissenschaft 8 (1963): 5–8.

[e. von severus]