Matthias Tischler Aufnahme von Ernst-Dieter Hehl

Matthias Martin Tischler (born March 18, 1968, in

Münchberg Münchberg is a small town in Upper Franconia (Bavaria), Germany. It is sometimes referred to as the ''Textile Town of Bavaria''. Its sister city is Jefferson City, Missouri, United States. Geography The town districts History The first set ...

, Bavaria) is a German palaeographer, philologist and historian, stemming from a multinational and -confessional family with Austrian, Bohemian, French and Hungarian origins. He is married to the Catalan philologist and linguis
Eulàlia Vernet i Pons
and lives with his family in

L'Ametlla del Vallès L'Ametlla del Vallès () is a village in the Provinces of Spain, province of Province of Barcelona, Barcelona and autonomous community of Catalonia, Spain. The municipality covers an area of and the population in 2022 was 9,020. References

...

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

and

Academic studies and professional career

Tischler studied Classical Philology and Medieval Latin, Medieval and Modern History, Applied Historical Sciences and Romance Philology at the Universities of

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; ; ) is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fifth-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, and with a population of about 163,000, of which roughly a quarter consists of studen ...

and

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

(1989–1995). After his Heidelberg PhD in 1998 (director: ) he was a Post-graduate Fellow at the

German Historical Institute Paris The German Historical Institute Paris (GHIP) or Institut historique allemand (IHA) is an international research institute situated in Paris, France. Overview As one of eleven research institutes in humanities worldwide funded by the German Fed ...

(1998–1999) and at the

University of Bamberg The University of Bamberg () in Bamberg, Germany, specializes in the humanities, cultural studies, social sciences, economics, and applied computer science. Campus The university is partly housed in historical buildings in Bamberg's Old Town. ...

(1999–2001), and a Scientific Assistant, Collaborator and Lecturer at th
Hugo von Sankt Viktor-Institut
in

Frankfurt Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...

and the

Goethe University Frankfurt Goethe University Frankfurt () is a public research university located in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It was founded in 1914 as a citizens' university, which means it was founded and funded by the wealthy and active liberal citizenry of Frankfurt ...

(2001–2009). In Frankfurt he then studied Philosophy and Theology (2001–2009) wit
Rainer Berndt
and Islam and Christian-Muslim Encounters (2003–2005) with . After his Dresden habilitation in 2009 (director: ) he was an Associate Professor of Medieval and Transcultural History at the University of Dresden up to 2012. Since 2013 he has been a Research Professor of Transcultural Medieval History at th
Institut d’Estudis Medievals
(IEM) of the

Autonomous University of Barcelona The Autonomous University of Barcelona (; Spanish: ; ; UAB) is a public university mostly located in Cerdanyola del Vallès, near the city of Barcelona in Catalonia, Spain. , the university consists of 57 departments in the experimental, lif ...

(UAB). In the academic year 2014/2015 he was visiting professor at the

École Pratique des Hautes Études École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * Éco ...

, Paris. In the academic year 2015/2016 he was visiting fellow at th
Medieval Institute
of the

University of Notre Dame The University of Notre Dame du Lac (known simply as Notre Dame; ; ND) is a Private university, private Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, United States. Founded in 1842 by members of the Congregation of Holy Cross, a Cathol ...

Indiana Indiana ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Michigan to the northwest, Michigan to the north and northeast, Ohio to the east, the Ohio River and Kentucky to the s ...

. In 2016, he accepted the position of a Senior Research Professor of

ICREA ICREA, Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies, is a foundation jointly promoted by the Catalan Government through its Department of Innovation, Universities and Enterprise, and the Catalan Foundation for Research and Innovation (FCRI) ...

Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats
English
Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies
,

. In spring term 2019 he was a short-term visiting fellow of the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry located in Princeton, New Jersey. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholars, including Albert Ein ...

, Princeton. In January 2020 he was a senior research fellow at the

Herzog August Bibliothek The Herzog August Library ( — "HAB"), in Wolfenbüttel, Lower Saxony, known also as ''Bibliotheca Augusta'', is a library of international importance for its collection from the Middle Ages and early modern Europe. The library is overseen ...

in Wolfenbüttel and in November 2024/February 2025 a senior research fellow at th
DFG Center for Advanced Studies "Migration and Mobility in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages"
at the

University of Tübingen The University of Tübingen, officially the Eberhard Karl University of Tübingen (; ), is a public research university located in the city of Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The University of Tübingen is one of eleven German Excellenc ...

. Since spring 2024 he has been a guest professor for research at th
Technische Universität Dresden
Since summer 2020 he has been an elected member of the

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of humanities, letters, law, and sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europe ...

member no 5397
.

PhD and thesis of habilitation

Tischler wrote his PhD on the production, transmission, reception and edition of Einhart's Vita Karoli in the Middle Ages and Modern Times. His habilitation thesis deals with the biblical legacy of the Augustinian abbey of St. Victor in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, a centre of scholastic learning with Europe-wide influence from the 12th to the 15th centuries.

Research fields and publications

Tischler has published in various languages (Catalan, English, French, German, Italian and Spanish) on the dissemination and use of Ostrogothic, Visigothic and Carolingian biographical, historiographical, juridical and philosophical texts and their effects on religious, social and political identity building, on the role of the Jews’, Christians’ and Muslims’ sacred and polemical texts from comparative intra- and transcultural standpoints and on central aspects of the intellectual history of individual scholars and religious orders in the Early, High and Late Middle Ages. He has worked on the tradition of Carolingian culture in the Middle Ages. His more recent research interests are focused on the role of Carolingian culture in processes of identity building in the peripheries of post-Carolingian Europe (e.g. in Septimania and Catalonia), on the interrelationship between the medieval edition of biblical manuscripts and historiographical writing in transcultural societies, and on the transfer and transformation of scholasticism in European centres and peripheries of learning (e.g. in Franconia, Saxonia, Catalonia and Aragón). Tischler's scholarly agenda revolves around developing codicological, palaeographical and philological studies within transcultural history, following methodologically his academic grandfather

Bernhard Bischoff Bernhard Bischoff (20 December 1906 – 17 September 1991) was a German historian, paleographer, and philologist; he was born in Altendorf (administrative division of Altenburg, Thuringia), and he died in Munich. Biography He was the son of Em ...

and his academic father , the establishment of codicologically and philologically grounded Transcultural Medieval Studies on the

Iberian Peninsula The Iberian Peninsula ( ), also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in south-western Europe. Mostly separated from the rest of the European landmass by the Pyrenees, it includes the territories of peninsular Spain and Continental Portugal, comprisin ...

, the Mediterranean World and beyond, and the development of a new master narrative that accommodates medieval collective religious and ethnic memories conflicting with each other, in order to historically anchoring Europe's religious, cultural, and political plurality in a global world order.

Projects

Tischler is just finishing a comprehensive monograph on the more or less unknown transfer of early scholastic learning from Northern France to the North-Eastern peripheries of the

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages, and lasted for a millennium ...

in the 12th and 13th centuries. In addition, he is writing the first part of a trilogy of the history of Christian-Muslim encounters and entanglements in the medieval

between the 8th and 15th centuries. In March 2014, he has been installed as the official editor of the new critical edition of Einhart's Vita Karoli, which will be published by th
Monumenta Germaniae Historica
in Munich. From May 2015 to April 2019, he co-directed (together with

Walter Pohl Walter Pohl (born 27 December 1953) is an Austrian historian who is Professor of Auxiliary Sciences of History and Medieval History at the University of Vienna. He is a leading member of the Vienna School of History. Biography Walter Pohl was b ...

) the FWF-projec
"Bible and Historiography in Transcultural Iberian Societies, 8th to 12th Centuries"
at the

Austrian Academy of Sciences The Austrian Academy of Sciences (; ÖAW) is a legal entity under the special protection of the Republic of Austria. According to the statutes of the Academy its mission is to promote the sciences and humanities in every respect and in every fi ...

, Vienna. Since 2015, he is responsible for the Latin section of th
Corpus Biblicum Catalanicum
Barcelona. From September 2016 to August 2019, he co-directed (together with , Berlin

St. Andrews
Sarah Hamilton
Exeter, an
Max Diesenberger
Vienna) the HERA-project
After Empire: Using and Not Using the Past in the Crisis of the Carolingian World, c.900‒c.1050
(UNUP). Since December 2019, he is director of the four-years project "Preaching Christ from a Transcultural Standpoint" which is preparing the critical edition of the Homiliary of Luculentius, the oldest indigenous work of Carolingian text culture in early medieval Catalonia (ca. 900). From September 2020 to August 2024, he co-directed (together with

) the four-years FWF-Project
Carolingian Culture in Septimania and Catalonia: The Transformation of a Multi-Ethnic Middle Ground of the Euro-Mediterranean World
. Tischler is also member of the international network
The Transformation of the Carolingian World
(TCW).

Scientific activities

Tischler is the founder and editor-in-chief of th
Journal of Transcultural Medieval Studies
(JTMS), published by

de Gruyter Walter de Gruyter GmbH, known as De Gruyter (), is a German scholarly publishing house specializing in academic literature. History The roots of the company go back to 1749 when Frederick the Great granted the Königliche Realschule in Be ...

(Berlin - Munich - Boston) since 2014, which has been transformed into the Serie
Transcultural Medieval Studies
published by

Brepols Brepols is a Belgian publishing house. Once, it was one of the largest printing companies in the world and one of the main employers in Turnhout (Belgium). Besides its printing business, Brepols is also active as a publisher. Formerly well known ...

(Turnhout) from 2019 onwards. He is furthermore co-editor o
Medievalia
Revista d’Estudis Medievals, UAB, o
Arxiu de textos catalans antics
of the

Institut d'Estudis Catalans The Institute for Catalan Studies ( ), also known by the acronym and initialism, acronym IEC, is an academic institution which seeks to undertake research and study into "all elements of Catalan culture". It is based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spai ...

, o
Bibliotheca Philosophorum Medii Aevi Cataloniae
published b
Obrador edèndum
(Santa Coloma de Queralt), and o
Rarissima Mediaevalia. Opera Latina
published by (Munster/W.). Since 1992, Tischler has been invited for giving talks throughout Europe and North America, especially Austria (Vienna, Zwettl), Denmark (Odense), England (Exeter and Leeds), France (Auxerre, Bordeaux, Fanjeaux, Nice, Paris, Toulouse and Tours), Germany (Berlin, Cologne, Dresden, Frankfurt/M., Hamburg, Heidelberg, Ingelheim, Leipzig, Mainz, Reichenau, Rostock, Seligenstadt, Tübingen, Weingarten and Wolfenbüttel), Greece (Rethymno), Italy (Rome, Spoleto and Vatican City), Portugal (Lisbon), Scotland (Edinburgh and St Andrews), Spain (Barcelona, Bellaterra, Córdoba, Girona, Lleida, Madrid, Murcia and Santiago de Compostela), Switzerland (Berne, Einsiedeln, Fribourg and Spiez), Canada (Montréal) and USA (Ann Arbor, Kalamazoo and Princeton). Tischler has been a scientific consultant in the preparation of several historical exhibitions ("Kaiser Heinrich II.", Bamberg, July 9 – Oktober 20, 2002; "Canossa 1077. Erschütterung der Welt. Geschichte, Kunst und Kultur am Aufgang der Romanik", Paderborn, July 21 – November 5, 2006). In September 2013, Tischler initiated the donation of the private library of the German philosopher (1921–2013) to the

(UAB). In November 2019, he has initiated an official exchange of publications (journals, book series) between th
Institut d’Estudis Medievals
(IEM) of the

(UAB) and the Forschungsstelle für vergleichende Ordensgeschichte
FOVOG
of the University of Dresden. In May 2023, Tischler together wit
Alexander Fidora
acquired a special book collection on Islamic thought, Arabic philosophy, and Ramon Llull owned by the German Arabist Hans Daiber for the

(UAB).

Media activities

Tischler has been the scientific expert of the radio report "Einhart in Hessen", Hessischer Rundfunk, HR 2 Kulturradio (2002; script and moderation
Andreas Horchler
Frankfurt/M.) and of the successful European documentary-drama

(2010–2012; script: Christian Weber
Taglichtmedia
Cologne; director: Gabriele Wengler, Munich). Together with Hans Daiber an
Alexander Fidora
he was a scientific expert of the documentary-drama
Lullius: Discovering Ramon Llull
(2016; producer
Òscar Palet Santandreu
Madrid).

PhD students and habilitated scholar

PhD Students of Tischler ar
Patrick S. Marschner
(Vienna)
Ekaterina Novokhatko
(Bellaterra, now Paris), Óscar Armando Perdomo Ceballos (Berlin/Bellaterra) and Silke Engelhardt (Heidelberg/Bellaterra). Tischler is one of the directors of the thesis of habilitation defended b
Britta Müller-Schauenburg
(Frankfurt, now Munich).

Main publications

*Einharts Vita Karoli. Studien zur Entstehung, Überlieferung und Rezeption (MGH. Schriften 48, I–II), Hanover 2001 . *Die Christus- und Engelweihe im Mittelalter. Texte, Bilder und Studien zu einem ekklesiologischen Erzählmotiv (Erudiri Sapientia. Studien zum Mittelalter und zu seiner Rezeptionsgeschichte 5), Berlin 2005 . *(together wit
Alexander Fidora
, Christlicher Norden – Muslimischer Süden. Ansprüche und Wirklichkeiten von Christen, Juden und Muslimen auf der Iberischen Halbinsel im Hoch- und Spätmittelalter (Erudiri Sapientia. Studien zum Mittelalter und zu seiner Rezeptionsgeschichte 7), Munster/W. 2011 . *(together with Michael Borgolte), Transkulturelle Verflechtungen im mittelalterlichen Jahrtausend. Europa, Ostasien, Afrika, Darmstadt 2012 . *Die Bibel in Saint-Victor zu Paris. Das Buch der Bücher als Gradmesser für wissenschaftliche, soziale und ordensgeschichtliche Umbrüche im europäischen Hoch- und Spätmittelalter (Corpus Victorinum. Instrumenta 6), Munster/W. 2014 . *(together wit
Hanns Peter Neuheuser
an
Ralf M. W. Stammberger
, Diligens scrutator sacri eloquii. Beiträge zur Exegese- und Theologiegeschichte des Mittelalters. Festgabe für Rainer Berndt SJ zum 65. Geburtstag (Archa Verbi. Subsidia 14), Munster/W. 2016 . *(together wit
Patrick S. Marschner
, Transcultural Approaches to the Bible: Exegesis and Historical Writing across Medieval Worlds (Transcultural Medieval Studies 1), Turnhout 2021 . * After the Carolingians: Catalonia and Europe in Transformation Early Medieval Europe 30, 4 (2022) London et al. 2022 . * Carlemany a Europa: història i memòria (Filologia UB), Barcelona 2022 .