Common index for the first three series of the Hanserezesse

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Horst Wernicke
• Subject Area: Medieval History ; Early Modern History
• Term: from 2015 to 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 280014940

The historical research on the Hanseatic League can make use of plenty of written sources. But these records are spread over many archives in Western, Northern and Eastern Europe. Therefore, source editions play an important role. Especially the edition of the Hanserezesse, i. e. the minutes of the Hanseatic towns meetings, has to be pointed out. Until today it is the biggest and, despite some lacks in the editorial work, one of the most important collections of sources on the social, economic, legal, constitutional, shipping and cultural history of the region between Portugal in the West and Russia in the East respectively the Scandinavian countries in the North and the Republic of Venice in the South. At present it consists of 26 volumes distributed among four series, which cover the period between 1256 and 1537. As regards content, it has the character of a codex diplomaticus, because it goes far beyond the minutes of the Hanseatic towns meetings.In one aspect the edition of the Hanserezesse does not fulfil modern scientific requirements: The 24 volumes of the first three series, which were published between 1870 and 1913 and contain 15.709 pages of text, are indexed by persons and places, but not by concepts. In consequence, a suitable tool for directed search is lacking. The users are forced to work through all 24 volumes to finding relevant entries for their research work.Meanwhile all volumes have been digitized and are available as PDF-files on the Internet. Some of the digital images are connected with a full-text search. But this tool cannot substitute an index, because the language of the Hanseatic region, medieval Low German, did not have a standardized written form and the writing of words varies a lot. Furthermore, wrong written words and synonymous terms cannot be found at all by a full-text search. The aim of the planned project is to index the rich content of the first 24 volumes of the Hanserezesse and thus to facilitate future research on Hanseatic history considerably by a more efficient search.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants