German instead of Latin – early examples of vernacular charters

Latin was the predominant language of the chanceries until the middle of the 13th century. During this time, however, charters were increasingly written in (Middle High) German. The decisive factor for this change was that more and more legal transactions were being documented and contracting parties were more and more often (canonical) lay people without any knowledge of Latin. King Konrad IV (born 1228, ruled 1237-1254) was one of the first to take this into account in 1240. The contracting parties at the time probably both had no command of the Latin language. The king provided assistance and had the charter written in the vernacular.

The situation is similar with the charters concerning the Wertach bridge toll: traditionally, city and bridge tolls were under the administrative jurisdiction of the bishop. In 1282, however, representatives of Augsburg’s citizens were given a say in setting new customs tariffs, so that two conflicting interest groups now clashed – the bishop, who as the recipient of customs revenues naturally wanted to levy the highest possible customs duties, and the representatives of the imperial city, who were interested in flourishing trade and wanted to strengthen it with the lowest possible customs duties.

On a linguistic level, the citizens of the imperial city also stood up for their interests against the church. Eventually, customs tariffs played a central role in the day-to-day business of Augsburg’s merchants, as it was only advantageous if they could also read the relevant regulations themselves. As a result, the contract was then written in German instead of Latin. It is remarkable when one considers that Latin has been preserved in some ecclesiastical documents up to the present day. From a purely visual point of view, the greater importance of the contract for the imperial city can be seen in the extremely good state of preservation of the charter and also in the more elaborate sealing compared to the other copies.

Julia Kessler