Stiftungsarchiv (foundation archive)

The holdings were housed in the town hall in the 19th century as a "foundation archive", based on a pertinence arrangement and as part of the town of Wasserburg’s "old archive". Today it is indexed with 998 individually recorded documents (from the time from 1338 onwards), 324 files (from the 15th century onwards) and 2,601 title records of an extensive official book, account book and serial documents (since 1418).

With the exception of a small number of 290 documents, whose registers were published in the 1930s in the journal "Heimat am Inn" (cf. the issues accessible as PDF files), the rest of the holdings remained largely unexplored until 2018.

With the original arrangement of foundation archive’s holdings according to content having been incomplete, the "Stiftungsverwaltung des Rates der Stadt" (Town Council Foundation Administration) created a general provenance level with the re-indexing of the archival records based on a database and corresponding objects were virtually merged in this category. As a rule, the councillors named as administrators of the foundations were also indexed in the serial documents, as well as, for example, seal holders, which provide further clues as to who the holdings belong to. The indexing was also based on an institution- and task-related structure, which is represented in bavarikon by collections and hit lists.

The foundation archive’s most extensive sub-collections are the parish church and Frauenkirche foundation archive, which include the benefices, brotherhoods and Mass endowments sub-collections.

The Corporis Christi-Bruderschaft (Corporis Christi Brotherhood), the Heilig-Geist-Spital (Holy Ghost Hospital), the Leprosenhausstiftung St. Achatz (St. Achatz Leprosarium Foundation), the Bruderhaus (infirmary) and the Reichalmosen-Stiftung (Rich Almsgiving Foundation) stand out as foundation bodies administered by the council, all of which contributed to socially supporting the town’s society through the times of hardship in the late Middle Ages and early modern period and to meeting the resulting everyday and existential needs.

In the case of the archives of the Corporis-Christi-Bruderschaft, there are extensive references to the historical archive body; this also applies to the archives of the Reichalmosen-Stiftung, whose "administrators [...] handed over five chests, containing accounts and written documents [...] to the officers" in the 17th century (StadtA WS, I2b234).

In contrast to the files, the serial sources are dense and are usually preserved over the entire period of a foundation’s existence. Serial verifications for the accounts only appear from the 16th century onwards. Other official books such as manuals, sacristan books, wages books, urbaria (registers of possessions as well as expected income and services), the oldest from the 15th century, or land descriptions have occasionally survived.

The part collections of the collection "Stiftungsarchiv (foundation archive)" available on bavarikon

>> This collection is part of the collection "Holding I. Old archive’s “Kommunalarchiv” and “Stiftungsarchiv” (archives of the council or magistrate administration with church and foundation administration 14th-19th century)" of the Stadtarchiv Wasserburg am Inn (Wasserburg am Inn Municipal Archive).