Michael Matheus


Michael Matheus is a German historian.
Born in 1953 in Graach. After acquiring his university entrance qualification at the Friedrich Wilhelm High School in Trier, he studied History, Political Science, and German at the universities of Trier, Bonn, and Münster. After passing the state examination and completing his doctorate, Matheus worked as a research associate in the Department of Medieval History at Trier University. From 1986 to 1988, he was in receipt of a scholarship from the German Research Foundation and the German Historical Institute in Rome.
In 1990, Matheus received his postdoctoral lecturing qualification in Medieval History and Historical Regional Studies from Trier University. In 1990/91, he was a guest lecturer at the German Historical Institute in Rome and also taught at the Sapienza University of Rome. After working as a lecturer at Trier University in 1993, Matheus was appointed Professor of Medieval History at the University GHS Essen.
In 1994, he was appointed to the Chair of Medieval and Early Modern History and Comparative Regional History at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and became Director of Section III at the Department of History; from 1994 to 2003 and again since 2013, he was also first Chairman and Director of the Institute of Historical Regional Studies at Mainz University. From 2002 to 2012, he was Director of the German Historical Institute in Rome. Since 2011, Professor Dr. Matheus has been one of the directors of the . He has again worked as a professor and Director of the Medieval and Early Modern History and Comparative Regional History section at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz from 2012 until 2018. In 2013 he was elected president of the .
Specific research interests:
Comparatist studies of the history of Germany and Italy in the high and late middle ages in the following research areas: the history of rural and urban settlements, the history of wine, the history of education and universities, the history of technology, the history of hospitals and welfare institutions, the history of pilgrims, the history of national research cultures in a European context, Christians and muslims in Southern Italy, the papacy, the curia and Rome in the Renaissance. Frequently, these studies consider processes of cultural transfer, of interconnection, of networking and of perception.
In 2013 the German publishing house Schnell & Steiner published a in German language, describing the stations of his life and honouring his merits for the historical sciences.

Editorship

As Author

A complete list of his editorship can be found on the website of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz.