[2] He studied history and classical philology at the University of Vienna from 1881 to 1884, and until 1887 at the Institut für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, which prepared students for work in archives, libraries, and museums.
There he met two historians who would be of great importance later in his life: Theodor von Sickel and Engelbert Mühlbacher.
[4] Tangl was aided in the compilation of this work by his discovery of a 1560 book in the Barberini library that recorded events and transactions of the Apostolic Chancery going back to the Avignon papacy.
He worked as a civil servant for the archives of the Austrian ministry of the Interior, and later that of Finances; during this time he published his only essay on a more recent topic, the Italian writer Silvio Pellico.
[7] In 1892 he began editing the deeds of the early Carolingians, and published, after the death of Mühlbacher, the first volume in 1906.