Judges' notes in the long 16th century
Summary
The project aims to examine for the first time the decision-making process of judges at the Imperial Chamber Court on the basis of personal notes by judges newly discovered by the applicant.
Until now, this has not been possible due to a lack of sources, as the relevant official records were burned in 1689/90. The aim is to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the political function of law during the formation and heyday of the court in the 16th century based on the judges' decision-making process. This will be achieved by evaluating the judges' personal notes on the most frequently mentioned and most topical issues of the time – proceedings, religion, subjects and Jews – in combination with other sources. The project also aims to make the difficult source genre of ‘judge's notes’ more accessible to future generations of researchers. To this end, the unique protocol book of Mathias Neser (judge from 1536 to 1543), which also describes in detail the court's extrajudicial proceedings due to the judge's close connection to the emperor and his councillors during the Schmalkaldic League, is being edited in a synoptic presentation.