Ullmann, Walter (1910–1983)

Austrian-born English medieval historian, an acknowledged expert in the history of medieval Europe and particularly of the medieval papacy.

Ullmann was educated at the universities of Vienna, Innsbruck, and Munich. He taught at the University of Vienna from 1935 until the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938, when he moved to England. There, his first appointment was as lecturer in medieval history at the University of Leeds (1947–49), before moving to Cambridge, where he remained in various posts for the rest of his career. His works, which stress the legalistic elements and the importance of ideology in history, include The Medieval Idea of Law (1946), The Origins of the Great Schism (1948), The Growth of Papal Government in the Middle Ages (1955), and A Short History of the Papacy in the Middle Ages (1974).