The "Wiener Handwerksordnungsbuch" (1364-1555). Edition and Commentary.

This publication presents one of the most important manuscripts kept by the Municipal and Provincial Archives of Vienna: the so-called Wiener Handwerksordnungsbuch. In 1430 Ulrich Hirssauer, town clerk of Vienna, compiled this manuscript using numerous older Viennese craft ordinances dating back to 1364. Originally part of a bigger rearrangement of the written records that were administrated by the Chancellery of Vienna, the Handwerksordnungsbuch was continued until 1555 with few supplements until the 17th century. It not only contains craft ordinances, but also provides information about the organisation of late medieval Viennese marketplaces, the arrangement of civic sentries and both the growing and serving of wine, the latter being one of the major economic factors concerning burghers of Vienna. Over time, numerous official and civic oaths were registered into the manuscript. On the one hand the oaths shed light on the duties of diverse urban officials, on the other hand they illustrate the vicissitude of Viennese history in the 15th century, as the burghers usually had to swear their civic oaths on the currently reigning town lord. For the first time in historical research all the texts covered by the Handwerksordnungsbuch are now assembled in one sole volume, edited according to modern standards and commented exhaustively. A detailed introduction both illustrates the political as well as the administrative context of the manuscript and informs on its content. The most important regulations concerning the three big groups of craftsmen apprentices, journeymen and master craftsmen are explained in detail. As the Handwerksordnungsbuch covers an investigation period of nearly 200 years, most of these regulations can be compared over a considerable stretch of time and therefore provides the possibility of tracing long-term developments within the late medieval and early modern Viennese craftsmanship. Considering the great variety of texts contained in the Handwerksordnungsbuch, the introduction also discusses ordinances with different topics such as urban guard duties and market organisation. In addition to this, the above-mentioned oaths are analysed and put into their political context. To facilitate the using of the introduction and the edition, the present book comes with a glossary of words, which are not generally intelligible nowadays, and provides indices of persons, places and subjects. The Wiener Handwerksordnungsbuch is a valuable source for the history of craftsmanship in general and for the normative organisation of daily life in late medieval Vienna. With both an in-depth-study and a commented edition the present publication opens the texts contained in the manuscript to a wider audience and encourages further research, particularly in comparison with other Austrian cities or on an European scale.