Karl Borromäus Thumann

Karl Borromäus Thumann was born in Bamberg in 1820, approximately seventeen years after the area had been annexed by Bavaria. On leaving school he attended Bamberg's Ernestine seminary^[2] and Munich University, studying philosophy and Catholic theology.^[1] On 2 March 1844 he was ordained into the priesthood,^[1] and he received his doctorate in theology in 1845.^[2] His first incumbency was as a vicar at Zeuln.^[1] Just two years later, however, despite his youth he was appointed, on 14 October 1846, to the post of "regent" of the Ducal Georgianum (seminary), which had been relocated from Landshut to Munich twenty years earlier.^[1] On 8 October 1855 he was promoted to the directorship of the Georgianum, at the same time being appointed to a full teaching professorship in pastoral theology, liturgy, homiletics, and catechetics at the University.^[2]

He resigned from his Munich work due to nervous exhaustion and returned to Bamberg, taking a job in the cathedral chapter on 29 May 1863. In 1869 he was appointed Vicar general for the diocese.^[2] Thumann died on 15 May 1874, five months short of his fifty-fourth birthday.^[1]