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Making the written heritage of the Aulic Council accessible


Links to the project

Over a period of three centuries - from the first half of the 16th century until 1806 - the imperial Aulic Council was one of the most important institutions of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. As high court, supreme feudal house, administration institution of the imperial privileges and as political advisory body of the emperor the institution shaped the destiny of Central Europe in the early modern era.


Making the written heritage of the Aulic Council accessible

Making the written heritage of the Aulic Council accessible

Host Academy
Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Lower Saxony

Location and federal state
Göttingen, Lower Saxony

Type
Editions: Medieval and (Early) Modern History

Project number
II.D.27


The written heritage of the Aulic Council, that today is stored by the Austrian State Archive in the department “Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv”, therefore has a high source value for the Legal History and the general Early Modern Research. After all, it forms the most comprehensive coherent archive collection that the Old Empire left behind. Next to the Academy of Sciences and Humanities Göttingen, the University of Vienna and the Austrian State Archives are also involved in the German-Austrian joint project. Within this project, the systematic indexing of the inventory started in 2007. The files of the 16th and 17th century, which provide important insight into the history of the empire and its territories in the “Confessional Age” and during the Thirty Years’ War are at the focal aspects.

The publication of the indexing-results takes place via the online database of the Austrian State Archive and in shape of printed inventories, which are published at regular intervals by the Erich Schmidt Verlag Berlin since 2009.

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