The Augsburg Master Builder’s Ledgers

The "Augsburger Baumeisterbücher" (BMB), which have been preserved almost undamaged, are of inestimable value for the economic, financial, social and cultural history of the Middle Ages and the early modern period. So far, they have only been accessible to visitors to the Augsburg City Archives. A digital full-text edition of all volumes from the years 1320 to 1466 is now available to anyone interested free of charge on the Internet. It not only documents all the income and expenses of the imperial city between 1320 and 1800, but the entries sometimes provide a clear picture of life in Augsburg.

The Digital Full-text Edition of Life in the Imperial City of Augsburg between 1320 and 1800 is Created

For the digital recording process, the Trier Center for Digital Humanities (TCDH) took over the adaptation of the virtual research environment FuD and the transcription tool Transcribo. In this respect, the recording, commenting and analysis of the volumes could be made accessible using the “native digital” approach “work in progress” and successively published in the online edition. The registers already contain more than 4500 key words, which allow an insight into the wealth of content of the source. The word-by-word linking to dictionaries available online makes the Middle High German original easier to understand.

The web presentation of the master builder's ledges provided by the "Digital Academy" of the Academy of Sciences in Mainz allows for research independent of time and place, but also offers numerous additional functions that support and enrich the research. The transcription and thus the full-text indexing of the microfilm images of the master builder's ledges was done with the Transcribo tool. The online publication offers a link to the microfilm images provided by the Augsburg City Archives and provides numerous text accesses based on the full text: Various search options, indices and glossaries as well as links within the portal and to external online offers, such as in reference works and databases, support the comprehensive research. Export functions in XML and PDF complete the offer.

The research focus on historical cultural studies at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz performed the editorial work, while the Trier Center for Digital Humanities, as a research partner, implemented the adaptation of the FuD and Transcribo programs used to meet mediaeval requirements. The Mainz University Library ensures that the results are saved in the long term.