As of October 2018 Thomas Ertl is professor of the High and Late Middle Ages at the Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut (FMI). Before his professorship at the Freie Universität, he was a professor of social and economic history at the University of Vienna. He completed his dissertation in 1999 at the University of Vienna on the subject of the chancellory and diplomacy of Emperor Heinrich VI. His habilitation followed in 2006, completed at the Freie Universität Berlin on the topic of religion and discipline, specifically the self-interpretation and world order of early German Franciscans. In 2007 Ertl was a visiting lecturer at the Deutsches Historisches Institut in Rome. Following, he filled vacant professorships in Göttingen (2008-9) and in Erlangen (2010). Thomas Ertl is a member of the Konstanzer Arbeitskreis für mittelalterliche Geschichte e.V. He is an editor for both The Medieval History Journal (2010-18) and the Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte (since 2018). His research focuses on the economic and social history of Europe from 1000 to 1500 as well as the global linkages before 1800.