Lorsch codex

The Lorsch Codex ( Codex Laureshamensis Latin ) is a roughly between the years 1170 and 1195 was tied up in the Imperial Abbey of Lorsch manuscript. It contains a comprehensive history of the monastery, a cartulary of over 3800 documents as well as some Urbare. The special value especially the Kopialbuches is that the transcripts contained therein represent the only surviving tradition of completely lost original documents that had once been in the archives of the major imperial abbey.

Today, the Codex is preserved in the State Archives of Würzburg (Bavarian State Archives with the Regierungsbezirk Lower Franconia as competence ).

Contents of the Lorsch Codex

The Codex was created in order to document the rights and possessions of the monastery of Lorsch and to secure the long-term Abbey. The Code was compiled in the 12th century, when the Lorsch power was diminishing. It consists of 3836 documentary entries ( notes tradition ) a legal process (for example, purchase, gift ) with the associated documents cited ( by kings, popes and others). These documents were reproduced greatly shortened. The oldest transactions are described and recorded from the year 764. Furthermore, the Codex contains two patrons directories and a Äbtechronik. This Äbtechronik serves primarily as a source for the architectural history and development of the church treasure. Only the initial letter of the first page is illuminated. The text of the codex is written in Carolingian minuscule.

Since the Lorsch codex contains the first mention of many communities - over 1,000 places are mentioned in it - he is referred to by some local history interested anachronistic as the land register. The Lorsch Codex is the oldest written historical source for hundreds of places.

In Codex Laureshamensis the monks of the monastery of Lorsch recorded next purchase and exchange contracts the monastery made ​​donations of villages, farms, lands, and all sorts of other estimable things according to the present original documents to them. In this book, the first gifts of emperors and princes are mentioned and then some of the people, the latter ordered by districts, the Wormsgau ( where the monastery had about 1,180 items ), the Speyergau, Lobdengau, Rheingau, Maingau, Neckargau, Kraichgau and other. The Electoral Palatinate Academy was founded by Elector Karl Theodor in Mannheim of Sciences was in the years 1768-1770 the work first published in print.