Documents on Jewish History in Eastern Austria 1405-1418

Austria has a remarkably rich tradition of medieval charters that contain information on the history of Jews. The enterprise of publishing these sources, which form an indispensable basis for detailed research on the conditions of Jewish life, in the form of summaries has been conducted at the Institute for Jewish History in Austria for several years. In the course of previous FWF-sponsored projects, sources from the territory of today`s Republic of Austria were processed up to the year 1404. In the course of the project "Documents on Jewish History in Eastern Austria 1405-1418", this work will be continued for todays federal provinces of Vienna, Lower and Upper Austria and Burgenland up to 1418. Charters as well as contemporary narrative sources containing references to Jews (persons, buildings like synagogues, legal provisions etc.) will be collected and edited for the use in academic research. This material includes a number of texts which so far have not been published at all or without regard to the Jewish aspect. Archival investigations will be conducted both in Austria and abroad; besides that, material contained in earlier publications will also be collected. The publication will consist of a chronological series of document summaries. Additionally, an extensive index as well as commentaries added to the respective documents will make the source texts more easily accessible. The sources that will be processed cover a period in the history of Jews in Eastern Austria that has not been researched in detail yet. Albrecht V (1405-1439), who was duke of Austria at the time (although he did not come of age until 1411), later initiated the "Vienna Gesera"-persecution which brought about the violent end of Jewish settlement in the duchy of Austria in 1420/21. However, little is known about the situation of Albrecht`s Jewish subjects during the years of his minority and his early autonomous rule. Only the fire which broke out in the Viennese Jewish quarter in 1406 and the following anti-Jewish riots have long been the focus of research, but their long-term effects have not been determined yet because numerous sources from the years following the events of 1406 have so far not been identified and analysed. The sources that will be evaluated in the course of the project, among which business charters form the largest percentage, will allow for a detailed analysis of these developments and their consequences for the Jewish population as well as for insights into the legal, social and economic situation of the Eastern Austrian Jewry and their interactions with Christians. That way, the project will serve as a basis for the comprehensive study of Eastern Austrian Jewish history during this period.

The series "Regesten zur Geschichte der Juden in Österreich im Mittelalter" aims at providing a comprehensive collection of the vast source material on medieval Jewish history in Austria. Charters as well as historiographic and literary sources containing references to both Jews and Austria are being collected and processed. The publication consists of a chronological series of document summaries. Additionally, an extensive index as well as commentaries are added to the documents in order to make the source texts more readily accessible to the reader. Volumes 1-4 (published by Eveline Brugger and Birgit Wiedl) are the results of earlier FWF-sponsored projects; they cover the time period from the first appearance of Jews in Austrian sources up to the year 1404. In the course of the project "Documents on Jewish History in Eastern Austria 1405-1418", this work was continued for today's federal provinces of Vienna, Lower and Upper Austria and Burgenland up to the year 1418. Research was conducted in archives both in Austria and abroad; additionally, material contained in earlier publications was collected as well. The collected sources cover a period in the history of Jews in Eastern Austria that has not been researched in detail yet. It corresponds with the early years of the rule of Duke Albrecht V, who later became the first Austrian duke to actively initiate the persecution of Jews in his territory in the "Vienna Gesera" of 1420/21. However, the collected sources prove that during the timeframe covered in this project, the established Habsburg policy of protecting one's Jewish subjects against physical violence in order to profit from them financially was still upheld, even though the duke's authority could not prevent an outbreak of anti-Jewish violence in Vienna in 1406. The bulk of the collection consists of business charters. Most of them document moderate loans and similar financial transactions, since the financial exploitation by the Austrian dukes had pushed the Jewish business elite towards the limit of their economic capabilities. However, smaller-scale Jewish business operated by lower-class pawn brokers and moneylenders, whose clientele likewise counted among the lower classes of the Christian population, was still going strong. Jewish women regularly appear in these sources, proving that the role of businesswomen remained significant. The collection allows for insights into the legal, social and economic situation of the Jews in Eastern Austria and their interaction with Christians. It provides an indispensable basis for detailed research on Austrian Jewish history during the time period covered by the project, particularly in combination with the results gained in the course of the project P 28610-G28 (Documents on Jewish History in Southern and Western Austria 1405-1418), which will be published jointly in volume 5 of the series.