The Viennese Stadtzeichnerbuch 1678-1685

Not only in recent times but also in the past, the topic of beggars played an important role in the city of Vienna. From 1443 to 1693 apart from a short interruption begging in Vienna was restricted to those with beggars` badges ("Stadtzeichen") granted by the authorities that marked official permission to beg. Five beggars` directories dating from the 16th and 17th century, created in that specific context and preserved in the Vienna City and State Archive ("Wiener Stadt- und Landesarchiv"), are important sources for the history of poverty until now an often neglected type of source. The present book that will be published in the series "Editions of Sources from the Institute for Austrian Historical Research" ("Quelleneditionen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung") contains the edition of one of these beggars` directories. In the introduction, the beggars` badges and the beggars` directories of Vienna are examined within the specific Viennese as well as within the general European context of the history of poverty. An overview of the history of beggars` badges in Europe and Vienna and of the administrative background of the Viennese "Stadtzeichen" is followed by the analysis of poor and beggars` directories as a type of primary source. At the conclusion of the introduction, the focus is placed on the Viennese "Stadtzeichnerbücher" and especially on the manuscript description of the directory reaching from 1678 to 1685 which was chosen for the edition. This most recent directory contains 920 different beggars with begging permission ("Stadtzeichner"), 536 women and 384 men. The information about the individual persons occurs in a standardised form: The first and family name are followed by the place of origin, the age, the duration of the stay in Vienna (for non-Viennese people), the marital status, information about the marital partner and children, former field of employment, the reason why the person is unable to work, sometimes information about the appearance, the place of residence and in some cases the landlord and the assigned begging place. Furthermore, notes in the margins added later help to reconstruct the further administrative steps and regulating interferences into the lives of the people with badges. Following the presentation of the editorial principles employed and the edition itself, the analysis of the information provided in the beggars` directory form the third and last section of the book. The beggars` general living environment become tangible through the statistical analysis of the individual lives documented in the edition. Glossaries of "jobs, working occupations, positions and functions" as well as of "illnesses, afflictions and injuries" complete the notes made in the edition, which can themselves be accessed with the help of three detailed indices of persons and places.