Old Archives until 1868
The Old Archives comprise stocks of municipal, ecclesiastical and private provenance from the Middle Ages to the Introduction of the Prussian City Government Constitution of 1868. The Old Archives do not contain Frankfurt ’s first documentation of 794. This document, which merely mentions Frankfurt as a trade fair venue, can be found at the Bayerische Hauptstaatsarchiv (the Main Bavarian State Archives) in Munich.
The oldest document in Frankfurt comes from the archives of St. Bartholomew’s Convent (Bartholomäusstift). It is a privilege granted by the Emperor Charles III for the Saviour’s Convent (Salvatorstift, called Bartholomäusstift / St. Bartholomew’s Convent since the 13th century). At the time Frankfurt was still an imperial residence. With increasing secularization in the early 19th century, the archives of St. Bartholomew’s Convent and those of the Ladies’ and St. Leonhard’s Convents (Liebfrauenstift and Leonhardsstift) as well as the archives of the Dominican and Carmelite Monasteries were taken over by the city authorities, while the Barefoot Monks’ Monastery (Barfüsserkloster), St. Catharine’s Convent (Katharinenkloster) and the White Women’s Convent (Weissfrauenkloster) had already been secularized during the Reformation.
Municipal records started for the first time with Privilege No. 1 of August 15, 1219 , when the Emperor Frederick II recognized the citizenry of Frankfurt for the first time as a legal entity, thus giving them freedom. Further imperial privileges followed, so that Frankfurt gradually developed into an imperial city. The beginnings of municipal self-administration go back to the creation of the Citizens’ Books (Bürgerbücher) in 1311, which also constituted the beginning of Frankfurt ’s series of official city records.
Due to Frankfurt ’s political and economic significance as an imperial city, trade fair city and election and coronation venue for kings and emperors, the stocks of the Old Archives are of interest for research not only into the history of Frankfurt and its surrounding area, but also into the history of the German Empire. This applies particularly to imperial letters and the almost complete series of Imperial Diet (Reichstag) files. In 1944 two thirds of all stocks were destroyed, including quite a few important records (such as tax books, account books, construction records, Senate acts, etc.). Nevertheless, the Institut für Stadtgeschichte (Institute for Municipal History) with over 3,000 metres of shelves with mediaeval and early modern records is among Germany ’s most important municipal archives.
