Metadata: Book Tyrol
Collection
- Country:
- Austria
- Holding institution:
- Tyrolean Regional Archive
- Holding institution (official language):
- Tiroler Landesarchiv
- Postal address:
- Michael-Gaismair-Straße 1; 6020 Innsbruck
- Phone number:
- 0043 512 508 3502
- Web address:
- https://www.tirol.gv.at/kunst-kultur/landesarchiv/
- Email:
- landesarchiv@tirol.gv.at
- Reference number:
- Oberösterreichische Regierung - Kopialbücher - Buch Tirol
- Title:
- Book Tyrol
- Title (official language):
- Buch Tirol
- Creator/accumulator:
- Austrian Superior Government
- Date(s):
- 1523/1665
- Language:
- German
- Extent:
- 24 volumes
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The collection “Book Tyrol” is a non-Jewish collection with an extensive number of Jewish-related documents. It covers the period from 1523 to 1665, including regularly created cartularies which contain transcriptions of outgoing documents of the Austrian Superior Government. These records deal with matters concerning the county Tyrol including orders and mandates by the authorities of Innsbruck which were addressed to subordinated offices with the Austrian Superior Government as executor and intermediary body. The collection does not include any records which were directed to superordinated bodies, such as the territorial Serenity or the Privy Council.
Each cartulary or volume includes its own index from A to Z which can be used to look for Jewish individuals under the letter I/J. One may find various documents about Jewish persons in almost every volume of this collection. Due to the extent of this collection, only some examples concerning Jewish life from selected cartularies and volumes can be detailed here. The cartularies mention Jewish persons in their indices, such as Sara of Bolzano, Samuel of Rovereto, Abraham of Bolzano and the business family May, including Moises, Samuel and Marx, who frequently appear in the context of mandates and orders of the highest authority in Innsbruck. Besides, there are also records about the elicitation of Jewish persons in the Austrian Superior and Anterior territories as well as mandates who are directed to Jews in general.
The collection includes records dealing with the expulsion and acceptance of Jews in Tyrol. In case of Sara of Bolzano and her son (whose name is not mentioned in the written source), the records of 1565 deal with their expulsion from Bolzano, as it is stated that she broke the rules for the reconfirmation of her privileges. It is mentioned that she harboured and hosted Jews in her house, which was not allowed, and she was also accused of dealing in stolen goods (“Hehlerei”).
Another record which mentions Samuel (of Bolzano) deals with his complaint to the authorities because his residence in Bolzano was not reconfirmed again. Therefore he sent a petition for granting and reconfirming his privileges. In this record, issued in 1567, the authorities of Innsbruck ordered their subordinated offices to investigate his behaviour, attitude and way of life to come to a fair decision.
Furthermore, there is a document from 1568 which was directed to the Austrian Superior Government with the order to inquire how many Jewish persons lived in the Austrian territories. The responsible officials should gather all important information and describe precisely, where, how and how many Jews, men, women and children, stayed or lived in the Austrian territories.
One may also find documents about Jews and their trading activities, such as files concerning the influential Jewish businessman Samuel May and the trader Abraham of Bolzano. Regarding Samuel May, there are two records from 1579 and 1599 about his trading activity in Innsbruck. Samuel May was an important Jewish businessman, whose fresh goods were highly appreciated by the members of the authority and the court. In 1599 his privileges and liberties were reconfirmed with the condition that he had to pay taxes and had to live unsuspiciously.
Additionally, the records about Abraham of Bolzano deal with his trading activity with goods of tanners, especially tawers. The products of skins and pelts were bought by Abraham and resold to his consumers, but as this trading activity was prohibited for Jews Abraham was breaking the territorial law code. It was ordered to gather information from Abraham, from whom and how many skin and pelt products he bought, where this tawers lived and where Abraham sold these products.
Similar to these documents there are records about the trading activity of Samuel May with skin and pelt products of bark tanners in Innsbruck. In 1609, the tawers and tanners sent a petition to the authorities of Innsbruck in which they requested permission for Samuel’s son Marx to conduct business transactions with their skin products. This petition was granted by the Government.
There are also records about legal rights as well as taxes and funds which Jews had to pay for granting or reconfirming privileges and liberties. For example, Jewish traders had to pay a certain amount to have access to the market of Bolzano and for being protected on their journey. The privileges of one Jewish person could not be extended after death to other related Jewish persons. The collection includes a record from 1620 which details that each Jewish individual had to pay certain funds and taxes, and beside regular privileges there were safe conducts, which granted royal mercy to certain Jews.
Furthermore, there is a record about Jews and their employment of Christian attendants and Christian nannies. This document shows that sometimes closer connections or relations between Jewish and Christians were possible, but the authorities of Innsbruck attempted to prohibit these connections under threat of punishment. Finally, there is a transcription of a mandate which was directed at Jews and “gypsies” (“Zigeuner”) and which deals with the expulsion and refusal of toleration of those groups in the Austrian territories. This document was issued on 28 December 1524, i.e. in the context of the Turkish wars, which was a time when prejudices against foreigners increased.
NB: The super-ordinated repertories to this collection are Rep. B. 53 and Rep. B. 48. In the former repertory there are no references to Jewish persons and the latter only includes three references concerning Jewish life. To guarantee successful research one must consult each cartulary of this collection, because each book includes its own index from A to Z. Under the letter I/J one may find references to Jewish individuals in almost every cartulary. There are folio or page numbers next to the entries, which are needed to find the relevant document in the same book.
In general, one should bear in mind when researching the extensive cartulary collection of the Austrian Superior Government that it is very difficult to associate and compare the various Jewish-related records with each other, because the documents are collected according to their provenance, not their pertinence. Therefore, one has to be careful if one tries to associate, interpret or analyse the records together. It has to be considered that both the cartulary series (“Kopialbuchserien”) and the collection account books (“Raitbücher”) of the Austrian Superior Government, the Court Chamber and the Privy Council that cover the 16th and 17th century consist of at least 2000 books or volumes. (Cf. Albrich (ed.), Jüdisches Leben im historischen Tirol, Vol. 1 Vom Mittelalter bis 1805, 138.) Furthermore, to guarantee successful research one should also consider the large collection “Records” of the Austrian Superior Government and should try to associate its content with the cartularies of the government.
- Archival history:
- This collection was transferred to the Tyrolean Regional Archive as part of the regular document transfer process stipulated by national archival regulations.
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
The accumulator or creator of the collection “Book Tyrol” was the Austrian Superior Government as the highest administrative authority in Tyrol and Further Austria, established by emperor Maximilian I in the year 1490. In the second half of the 16th century and at the beginning of the 17th century this authority was subordinated to the Privy Council, but equivalent and related to the Austrian Superior Chamber.
The commission of the Austrian Superior Government, consisting of twelve councillors, was responsible for the judiciary and administration of Further Austria, which was the collective name for the early possessions of the Habsburgs in Vorarlberg in western Austria, in parts of Switzerland, Swabia in south-western Germany, in the Alsace region in eastern France, Baden-Württemberg and Belfort in eastern France. There were administrative bodies in the western part of Further Austria which were subordinated to the Austrian Superior Government in Innsbruck, while the eastern part was directly administrated by the Government itself. This authority was not only the highest administrative agency, as mentioned above, but also the highest judicial agency and was responsible in matters of fief in Tyrol and Vorarlberg as well. In 1749 the main jurisdictions of the Government shifted to the new institution called “Representation and Chamber” (“Repräsentation und Kammer”) until it was dissolved a few years later in 1782. (Cf. Beimrohr, Das Tiroler Landesarchiv und seine Bestände, 68-70; Köfler, Verwaltungsgeschichte Tirols, https://www.tirol.gv.at/fileadmin/themen/kunst-kultur/landesarchiv/downloads/verwaltungsgeschichte.PDF)
- Access points: persons/families:
- May, Marx
- May, Moises
- May, Samuel
- System of arrangement:
- The collection consists of regularly created cartularies with transcriptions of outgoing originals. Each book includes an index from A to Z.
- Access, restrictions:
- Public access
- Finding aids:
- Finding aids: Rep. B 53 (Index), volume indices.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Museum Hohenems
- Author of the description:
- Rebecca Muršec, October 2017
