Documents on Jewish History in S- and W-Austria 1419-1437

The Institute for Jewish History in Austria (St. Pölten) has been engaged in documenting the vast number of charters and narrative sources on medieval Jewish history for several years. These sources are being published in the form of summaries of the legal content; this series (four volumes so far) is an essential basis for any research on Austrian Jewish history. In the course of several FWF-projects, the source material that concerns Jews from today`s Republic of Austria has been collected and processed up to the year 1418. This project plans to continue this work for the federal provinces of Styria (including Lower Styria in today`s Slovenia), Carinthia, Salzburg, Tyrol and Vorarlberg up to 1437. The sources that contain references to Austrian Jews as well as those that mention edifices (e.g., synagogues, houses owned by Jews) or legal provisions concerning Jews will be collected and processed for academic use. The material includes many texts which have not been published at all, or have been treated with no regard to the Jewish aspect so far. Research will be conducted in archives in Austria and abroad; besides, material contained in earlier publications will be collected as well. The publication consists of a chronological series of document summaries. To facilitate the use of the collection for the reader, an extensive index as well as commentaries will be added to the respective documents. Most of the history of the Jews in Southern and Western Austria in the project`s timeframe has not been researched in detail until now. The time after the war-like struggles among the Habsburg family branches was characterised by the assertion of the rulers` power in the different territories; this project will examine to what extent the Jews of these territories were affected by the political and economic measures taken out by the respective dukes (Ernst and Friedrich V in Inner Austria, Friedrich IV in Tyrol and Further Austria). The project also aims at closing the considerable research gaps on the forced migration of Austrian Jews in the course of their expulsion in 1420/21 ("Vienna Gesera") and the effects the probable influx of Jewish refugees had on the Jewish communities in the other Habsburg territories, namely in Styria and Carinthia. In the archbishopric of Salzburg, a tentative resettlement had begun only a few years after the persecution of 1404; the sources collected in this project will show whether these were isolated cases or whether Jewish existence was re-established on a broader scale. Likewise, it is currently assumed that there is little material on Jews in Tyrol; the project`s results will either confirm or qualify this assumption.

No additional funding sources recorded.