Metadata: Imperial County of Hohenems
Collection
- Country:
- Austria
- Holding institution:
- National Archive of Vorarlberg
- Holding institution (official language):
- Vorarlberger Landesarchiv
- Postal address:
- Kirchstrasse 28; 6900 Bregenz
- Phone number:
- +43 5574 511 45 012
- Email:
- landesarchiv@vorarlberg.at
- Reference number:
- HoA
- Title:
- Imperial County of Hohenems
- Title (official language):
- Reichsgrafschaft Hohenems
- Creator/accumulator:
- Imperial Counts of Hohenems
- Date(s):
- 1617/1806
- Language:
- German
- French
- Latin
- Yiddish
- Extent:
- 300 boxes and 387 manusrcipts
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The collection holds the records of the Imperial Counts of Hohenems and their officers. It is a non-Jewish collection but it holds a variety of documents concerning the Jewish community of the town of Hohenems that was founded in 1617. The records of the collection date from the early 16th century to the end of the county in 1805/06.
The collection holds a variety of documents; mainly the correspondence of the Imperial Counts and their officers but also other administratively important documents regarding the Imperial County as well as the Christian and Jewish community of the imperial county. Besides, it holds a large number of records regarding different legal cases.
The documents concerning the Jewish settlement and community in Hohenems are not a cohesive unit but a scattered over a number of different clusters, some smaller and some larger. The collection holds many letters of several Jewish individuals and merchants. Most of them contain negotiations about purchases of land and goods or discussions about the handling of debts. The Jews of Hohenems sometimes lent money to their Christian neighbours.
Another large cluster is about the so called “Judenprozesse” (trials against Jews). Beside these fascicles, there are many other records about juridical conflicts with Jewish participation (as the accused or the accusers) or the banning of Jews from certain areas of the Imperial County (i.e. the Tiergarten of the imperial counts). One of the main records regarding the Jewish history are the “Schutzbrief” (writ of protection) of 1617 (the original is at present in the Jewish Museum of Hohenems) and the “Schutzbriefe” that ensued this “Schutzbrief”. Besides that, the collection contains a list of the first 12 to 14 Jews that settled in Hohenems in 1617 and a list of all the Jews living in the imperial county of Hohenems by the year of 1696. The rabbi and author Aron Tänzer (1871-1937), who lived and worked in Hohenems between 1896 and 1905, published this list in his book “Geschichte der Juden in Hohenems” (A history of Jews in Hohenems), which is unfortunately only available in German.
In addition to this, there are many records about the Jewish community in general, such as records about obligations, accounts, correspondence and other business of the community. These records are pretty much scattered across the whole collection. Beside these fascicles the collection of the imperial counts of Hohenems contains a collection of 387 “Handschriften” (manuscripts). These manuscripts include many “Raitbücher” or “Rechnungsbücher” (account books), accounts and many “Verhörprotokolle” (interrogation protocols). A “Raitbuch” of the merchant Mair bar Jakob for example contains notes about his business of buying and selling horses in the region. The book is dated between 1736 and 1743 and is written in Hebrew letters in western Yiddish.
Note: The protocol of an interrogation of Marx Schlesinger and Salomon Levi from 1777 is not to be found. A dispensation of the protection money from 1751 has been lost since 1991.
- Archival history:
- The collection was probably acquired around 1900. The exact date is not known.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- The Imperial County of Hohenems existed between 1560 and 1765 and was only accountable to the Emperor (as were all the Imperial Counties). The Imperial Count Kaspar of Hohenems (1573-1640) allowed Jews who were driven out of the Habsburg Margraviate of Burgau to resettle in Hohenems. Several times during the 17th century the Jews of Hohenems were forced to leave their homes and relocate (many to the nearby town of Sulz). After the end of the expulsions the Jewish community flourished. In 1765, the Imperial County of Hohenems became a part of the Habsburg domains except the years between 1805 and 1814 when Hohenems (and the rest of Vorarlberg) was part of the Kingdom of Bavaria. In 1867, the Jews of Austria were allowed to settle were they wanted (at least in theory). This started the decline of the Jewish community of Hohenems as many members of the community relocated to other parts of the empire or other countries.
- Access points: persons/families:
- Brettauer
- Levi
- Mair bar Jakob
- Mayer
- Mayr
- Moos
- Schlesinger
- Uffenheimer
- Ulmer
- Access, restrictions:
- No restrictions on access.
- Finding aids:
- There are three finding aids. The first one is the Reichsgrafschaft Hohenems Aktenplan. It's an overview of the arrangement of the files. The second finding aid is the Reichsgrafschaft Hohenems Konkordanz (Schachtel- und Aktennummern). There you will find a list of the boxes and the numbers of the files that are stored there. The third aid is the Reichsgrafschaft Hohenems Akten. There you will find a detailed list of the files, including the Aktennummer (file number) and the contents of every file.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Museum Hohenems
- Author of the description:
- Severin Holzknecht, Jewish Museum of Hohenems, 2017