Matthias M. Tischler

Matthias Martin Tischler (born March 18, 1968 in Münchberg, 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 Eulàlia Vernet i Pons and is living with his family in Sant Cugat del Vallès, Barcelona and Hof, Bavaria.

Academic studies and professional career

Tischler has studied at the Universities of Heidelberg and Munich Classical Philology and Medieval Latin, Medieval and Modern History, Applied Historical Sciences and Romance Philology (1989–1995). After his Heidelberg PhD in 1998 (director: Walter Berschin) he was a Post-graduate Fellowship Holder at the Deutsches Historisches Institut in Paris (1998–1999) and in the University of Bamberg (1999–2001), and a Scientific Assistant, Collaborator and Lecturer at the Hugo von Sankt Viktor-Institut in Frankfurt/M. and the University of Frankfurt/M. (2001–2009). In Frankfurt/M. he then studied Philosophy and Theology (2001–2009) with Rainer Berndt, and Islam and Christian-Muslim Encounters (2003–2005) with Christian Troll. After his Dresden habilitation in 2009 (director: Gert Melville) he was a Senior Assistant 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 the Institut d’Estudis Medievals (IEM) of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). In the academic year 2014/2015 he has been a Visiting Professor at the École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris. In the academic year 2015/2016 he has been a Visiting Fellow at the Medieval Institute of the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. In 2016 he has accepted the prestigious position of a Senior Research Professor of ICREA (Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, English: Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies), Barcelona.

PhD and thesis of habilitation

Tischler has written his PhD on the production, transmission, reception and edition of Einhart's Vita Karoli in the Middle Ages and Modern Times. His thesis of habilitation deals with the biblical legacy of the Augustinian abbey of St. Victor in Paris, a centre of scholastic learning with Europe-wide attraction and radiance between 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, Central and Late Middle Ages. He is a worldwide leading specialist of the tradition of Carolingian culture in the Middle Ages. His more recent research interests are focussed on the role of Carolingian culture in processes of identity building in the peripheries of post-Carolingian Europe, 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. Tischler's central scientific aims are the further development of codicological, palaeographical and philological studies within transcultural history, following methodologically his academic grandfather Bernhard Bischoff and his academic father Walter Berschin, the establishment of codicologically and philologically grounded Transcultural Medieval Studies on the Iberian Peninsula, the Mediterranean World and beyond, and the development of a new master narrative of counteracting collective religious memories in the Middle Ages on the basis of Jan Assmann's and Aleida Assmann's concept of cultural memory and Johannes Fried's model of "historische Memorik", in order to sensitize the present times to Europe's religious and cultural plurality in a global world order.

New projects

Tischler has most recently finished 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 in the 12th and 13th centuries, which will be published soon. He is currently writing the first part of a trilogy of the history of Christian-Muslim encounters and entanglements in the medieval Iberian Peninsula 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 the Monumenta Germaniae Historica in Munich. From May 2015 onwards he is co-directing (together with Walter Pohl) the FWF-project "Bible and Historiography in Transcultural Iberian Societies, 8th to 12th Centuries" at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna. Since 2015, he is responsible (together with Armand Puig i Tàrrech) for the Latin section of the Corpus Biblicum Catalanicum, Barcelona. From 2016 to 2019 he co-directing (together with Stefan Esders, Berlin, Simon MacLean, St. Andrews, Sarah Hamilton, Exeter, and Max Diesenberger, Vienna) the new HERA-project "After Empire: Using and Not Using the Past in the Crisis of the Carolingian World, c.900‒c.1050" (UNUP). Tischler is also member of the new international network "The Transformation of the Carolingian World" (TCW).

Scientific activities

Tischler is the founder and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Transcultural Medieval Studies (JTMS), published by de Gruyter (Berlin - Munich - Boston) since 2014. He is furthermore co-editor of Medievalia. Revista d’Estudis Medievals, UAB, of Bibliotheca Philosophorum Medii Aevi Cataloniae, published by Obrador edèndum (Santa Coloma de Queralt), and of Rarissima Mediaevalia. Opera Latina, published by Aschendorff (Munster/W.).

Since 1992, Tischler has been invited for giving talks throughout Europe and North America, especially Austria (Vienna), Denmark (Odense), England (Leeds), France (Auxerre, Bordeaux, Nice, Paris and Tours), Germany (Berlin, Cologne, Dresden, Frankfurt/M., Hamburg, Heidelberg, Leipzig, Mainz, Rostock, Seligenstadt, Tübingen and Wolfenbüttel), Portugal (Lisbon), Spain (Barcelona, Córdoba, Girona, Lleida, Madrid, Murcia and Santiago de Compostela), Switzerland (Berne, Einsiedeln and Fribourg), Canada (Montréal) and USA (Ann Arbor 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 2013/2014, Tischler has initiated the donation of the private library of the German philosopher Kurt Hübner (1921–2013) to the Autonomous University of Barcelona (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 "Karl der Große" (2010–2012; script: Christian Weber, Taglichtmedia, Cologne; director: Gabriele Wengler, Munich). Together with Hans Daiber and Alexander Fidora, he is currently a scientific expert of the new documentary-drama "Lullius: Discovering Ramon Llull" (since 2016; producer: Òscar Palet Santandreu, Madrid).

Main publications

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