Metadata: Files of the Great Council
Collection
- Country:
- Switzerland
- Holding institution:
- State Archive of Aargau
- Holding institution (official language):
- Staatsarchiv Aargau
- Postal address:
- Entfelderstrasse 22, CH-5001 Aarau
- Phone number:
- +41 62 835 12 90
- Email:
- staatsarchiv@ag.ch
- Reference number:
- AG
- Title:
- Files of the Great Council
- Title (official language):
- Akten des Großen Rats
- Creator/accumulator:
- Great Council; Jewish community of Lengnau; Jewish community of Endingen
- Date(s):
- 1803/2002
- Language:
- German
- Extent:
- 158.2 shelf metres
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The collection contains the files of the Grand Council of the Canton of Aargau from 1803 to 2002. There are several interesting files relating to Jewish history. The fonds includes a list of Jews living in Lengnau and Oberendingen from 1805, a draft law on the civil and political condition of Jews from 1804, but also a petition written by the Israelite religious communities of Endingen and Lengnau against the peddling ban of Jews from 1840. The holdings also include several files documenting the development of Jewish emancipation in the 19th century. There is also a file on the immigration police law from 1846 that aimed to improve the civic conditions of the Aargau Jews. A further file contains a request from the heads of the Jewish communities of Lengnau and Endingen concerning the freedom of settlement of Jews in 1848, and another document concerning a law of 1855 on the slaughter of cattle by Aargau Jews and the corresponding law of 1867 repealing the restrictive provisions on cattle slaughter that had been in force until then. There are several additional files on the slaughter of animals in this collection.
[AG 34.45; AG 34.64; AG 34.114; AG 34.799; AG 34.1025; AG 34.1072; AG 34.1244; AG 34.1469; AG 34.1849; AG 34.6709]
- Archival history:
- The Council‘s documents are gradually being transferred to the State Archive.
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
The name Grosser Rat (French: Grand Conseil, Italian: Gran Consiglio, Romansh: Cussegl grond) is the official name of the respective cantonal parliament in some German-speaking and most Latin-speaking Swiss cantons. In the other cantons it is called cantonal council, district council or (in the canton of Jura) parliament.
After the foundation of the Canton of Aargau in 1803, the Registrar of the State Chancellery in Aarau was responsible for organising and archiving the files produced by the new legislative and executive authorities. In the early years, these were housed in one of the lower rooms of the old town hall, which had been made available to the cantonal government by the Helvetic authorities. In the 1820s the archive moved to the new government building in the front suburb. In 1959, the State Archive and the Cantonal Library moved into a new building designed especially for them. The organisational separation of the two institutions in 1967 was also spatially completed in 1998 when the State Archive moved to the new Buchenhof administration building. The move to the new building brought about a marked improvement in internal operational processes. The archive users have a modern and purpose-oriented working environment in the Buchenhof.
- Finding aids:
- An online finding aid is available, although the information is often rudimentary.
- Links to finding aids:
- https://www.ag.ch/staatsarchiv/suche/suchinfo.aspx
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Museum Hohenems
- Author of the description:
- Severin Holzknecht; Jewish Museum of Hohenems; 2020
