Regesta Imperii
The Regesta Imperii, often abbreviated RI, are a basic work on German and European history in the form of a set of registers.
They are a chronologically arranged inventory of all documentary and historiographical sources of the Roman-German kings from the Carolingians to Maximilian I as well as the popes of the early and high Middle Ages. The sources are collected and arranged as regalia, which are an exact reproduction of the form and content of the documents and the historiographical news in an abbreviated version. Thus, the Regesten are not an independent scientific-critical edition of the sources, but a tool to access such.
The project was founded by the Frankfurt city librarian Johann Friedrich Böhmer, who began collecting and documenting charters of the German emperors and kings in 1829. This collection, originally intended as a preliminary work for the editions of charters within the framework of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, developed into the Regesta Imperii as an independent work. While the Document editions use the form of the Kurzregest, the form of the Vollregest was developed for the Regesta Imperii. The older volumes only document the deeds of the German kings and emperors. The more recent ones also document chronical source documents and charters of other issuers concerning the history of the empire. In the case of Louis the Bavarian, Frederick III and Wenceslaus, historiographical sources are again not included due to the abundance of material. The registers of these rulers are published according to archives and libraries. In the case of Maximilian I, only a selection of about one fifth of the entire material will be processed.
The project includes the RI-Opac literature database, which currently contains more than 2.40 million title references, primarily on the medieval history of the entire European region.
The majority of the volumes published in print are available in digital form and are freely accessible online. In addition, access to images of the print edition is possible.
The new edition of the Regesta Imperii is a task of the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz (AdW-Mainz) and the working group Regesta Imperii in the Institute for Medieval Studies of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna.
External links
- Official website
- RI-Opac (Online Public Access Catalogue)
