Klosterneuburger Traditionsbuch

The Klosterneuburg Traditionsbuch is one of the most important sources on Austrian medieval history. The manuscript, which is now kept in the Augustinian canons` archive at Klosterneuburg, contains over 800 records of the canonry`s legal transactions, ranging from its foundation by the Babenberg Leopold III and his wife Agnes at the beginning of the 12th century to the middle of the 13th century. The Latin verb tradere to hand over, to give appears in about half of the notes. This is why such works are usually called tradition books, i.e. donation books. Concern for the salvation of souls is usually given as the motive for a donation. A few times, the donor`s proximity to death is explicitly mentioned. However, it can be seen more or less clearly that the note often only contains a small portion of previous legal and economic negotiations and that the donation represented the final part of several transactions. The texts contain first mentions of many Lower Austrian places and give important socio- historical information on the founding of the monastery at the new castle and the development of the Austrian duchy. It is also a key source for the early history of Vienna. Maximilian Fischer, the abbey archivist at the time, published a first commendable edition in 1851. Since then important studies have appeared on its contents. The new edition makes the results of more than 150 years of research accessible not only for regional history, but also for supra-regional and international comparison, for which this source has hitherto been given far too little attention. A detailed introduction explains the historical background, the context of the source material and also explicates the content of the edition; the indexes not only provide access to the text, but also convey philological references with the variants of the names. The new edition is expected to provide impulses for social and cultural history in particular, as the manuscript contains information on a broad spectrum of persons of both genders and from various social backgrounds, ranging from members of noble elites to craftspeople and legally dependent (unfree) men and women, many of whom have received little attention to date.