History of the silver- and coppermines in Schwaz in Tirol

At the end of the 15th century you found in Schwaz about 85 % of European silver. Corresponding to this enormous silver discovery a lot of miners - about 20.000 men - were employed in the silver- and coppermines in Schwaz. The Tyrolean sovereign released in the 15th and 16th century several miningorders. These miningorders or mining laws let prove themselves as a filiation of a miningorder of Trient. But where did the mining law of Trient come from? Is it a German, a Roman or a Canon law? We even do not know, what was added to the miningorders in the time of emperor Maximilian I.? Above all we do not know, how the miningorders developped after the year 1449? We do not know anything e.g. about the sharelagal rules in the mines of Schwaz. How far the miningadministration of the Tyrolean sovereign engaged in the mining in Schwaz, will be a desideraturn of research. In Tirol at that time, there were highly pronounced sovereigns, who tried to share in the administration of mines. The food-supply of about 20.000 miners was aqnother great problem. In one week about 90 oxen were killed by the butchers of Schwaz. These oxen came as living cattle from the east of Austria or from Hungury. They had special ways from Vienna to Schwaz. The grain supply functioned - as far as we know - from Bavaria. Otherwise it is totally unclear, where the other agricultural products came from. In the Tyrolean archieves, there lies till today a very big amount of material about the mining in Schwaz in the 15th and 16 th cerntury, which till now has held off researchers, to engage themselves with Schwaz. Here, it should be tried pointly with aimed economy of work, to clear up at least the legal history of the silver- and coppermines in Schwaz.

The FWF-project on the historical research into silver and copper mining activities in the area of Schwaz in the Tyrol (P14928 and P1725 respectively) has two main objectives, which are the compilation of an overall edition of texts of law decreed by the emperor Maximilian I. concerning the mining law in Schwaz in the early modern times as well as the compilation of a complete chronological list of all magistrates, who were active in the court of law for mining affairs in Schwaz from the end of the 15th century to the middle of the 16th century. The research for resources concerning the project P14928 was therefore focused on the scientific editing of the codes of mining laws decreed by the emperor Maximilian between 1490 and 1513. The triage of the "TLA- Kammerkopialbuchreihen" further aims to register all those entries, which contained information concerning the succession of magistrates in the mining region of Schwaz and the various administrative offices of the specific magistrates. The first phase of the Project P17259 will be devoted to the chronological collection of the entries in the "TLA- Kammerkopialbuchreihen" concerning the structuring and the specific duties of the mining magistrates. The systematic structuring and the editing of this primary collection of texts is scheduled for the second phase of the current project.