Johannes von Gmunden received the degree of a Master of Arts at the University of Vienna in 1406.
From 1420, Johannes was permitted to restrict his teaching to the specialized field of the mathematics of astronomy, focusing on Euclid's Elements and the Sphaera materialis of John Holywood.
With the aid of students (Weidler's 1741 Historia astronomiae names Georg Pruneck of Ruspach, Georg of Neuenburg, Johannes Schinkel and Johannes Feldner) he compiled voluminous astronomical tables.
Georg von Peuerbach succeeded him at Vienna University in 1450.
He was probably born in Gmunden, Upper Austria, but there were also suggestions connecting him with Gmünd, Lower Austria, or that he was a Swabian from Schwäbisch Gmünd who studied in Ulm in his youth, based on a document written at Ulm in 1404 by one "Johannes Wissbier de Gamundia".