Records from the Stadtarchiv Nördlingen

The Stadtarchiv Nördlingen (Nördlingen Town Archive) is one of the best preserved town archives in Germany. It holds about 12,000 documents from the 13th to the 19th century. In addition, it has serial records of official books. For example, the series of tax books begins in 1404, the series of town chamber accounts in 1399, and the series of pledge or town books in the middle of the 14th century. The records on criminal and civil jurisdiction are of particular interest. The missives or missive books (the town’s correspondence) begin in the middle of the 14th or 15th century. The council library is a collection rarely found in archives. It contains numerous incunabula, manuscripts and scientific works from the late 15th to the early 19th century. The picture archive and graphics collection round off the archive’s total holdings. All in all, the archive covers a period from the early 13th century to the present day.

The Nördlingen town musicians’ files are arranged chronologically and were subsequently combined into four volumes for the period from 1522 to 1809. Many insights into the life of the town musicians can be gained from the very different documents, all of which are addressed to the Nördlingen town council: for example, at the beginning of the 16th century, despite a fixed salary, the profession of town musician was apparently not enough to support a family in the long term, which is why the Georg Merwolt mentioned here also pursued his trade as a cloth cutter. The written oath that the town piper Georg Raiger had to take in 1631, in which he committed himself to the town and its citizens, is also noteworthy. In contrast, the enclosure of letters of recommendation when applying for a municipal position, as Peter Klotz did in 1643, is related to modern customs. And the fact that the town musicians also received fees for their participation in church music, in addition to the municipal salary, is proven by a list of payments from 1787, in which a conspicuous number of members of the Hetsch family of musicians are mentioned.

To chapter: Records from Stadtarchiv Dinkelsbühl