Charters of Frederic III. (1458-1466)

In the "Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv" of Austria we can find more than 3000 original charters of the late medieval emperor Frederic III. (1440-1493); the overwhelming part of this source material is still unknown. Because it is the archive of the Habsburg family, there are a lot of "Public" and "Private" texts which can`t be found in any other source-collection in Europe. Making Vaccessible these particular charters has been an important goal of medieval research for many years. In Previous projects, the material for the period 1440-1457 has been worked through in the form of "Regesten" and Partially published. It is the aim of the submitted project, aside from the complete registration and preparation of the charters through the period 1458-1466, to Present some approaches for a content-based evaluation of this unique body of sources in the context of late medieval history. For example these sources offer new insight on the great conflict between the emperor`s and the archbishop of Salzburg, the emperor`s dispute with his brother, duke Albrecht VI., until the latter`s death in 1463, and the new direction in the relations to the papacy, following the death of Pius II. in 1464. Along with this it will be possible to obtain many new results to questions about the organisation of sovereign power in the late middle ages, noble identity and central European diplomacy during this period. This leads to an examination of the role of texts, which can be divided into three processes, namely "making", "using" and "keeping". The project will therefore aim at providing new elements for a methodology of late medieval charters and a history of the royal chancellery. One of the results of these studies to be expected are new insights into the political history of the reign of emperor Frederic III. and the role texts of public and private charters played in it. It will be possible to show that information in these texts can not only be interpreted as a reflection of political reality, but must also be seen as very important elements of the social construction and the establishment of a public and private discourse by the ruler of a territory.