Based on its work on the wealth of Maximilian I’s documents and records, the SFB-sub-project “Writing Maximilian” dedicates this workshop to one of the most important instruments of late medieval and early modern rule – the work of chanceries, without which the efficient administration of a territory would hardly have been possible. Rather than focusing on the chancery staff themselves, the workshop will explore chancery practices and activities more broadly by going beyond the reign and countries of Maximilian in terms of topic and geography. At what point does a chancery emerge as an institution, and when can it properly be referred to as a chancery? How did the relationship between a ruler and his chancery operate in practice? What tasks did chanceries perform? Can we reconstruct the workflows of the chanceries themselves? What did the day-to-day operations within the chanceries actually entail? What continuities and systematic changes were there? How and in what ways did chanceries continue to influence each other? To what extent can modern DH-methods help historians to adequately record and analyse the dense written material of the late Middle Ages and the early modern period? The workshop aims to bring together innovative research discussions and classical methodological approaches and to develop new perspectives on the practice of written production and administration in the late Middle Ages and early modern period.

Programme :

Tuesday, 4 November 2025 (including a poster exhibition at the venue)

14:00 – 14:15 Introduction │ Andreas Zajic, Iris Palenik and Sonja Lessacher

14:15 – 15:30 Session 1 – New Methods and Old Problems in Dealing with Sources (chair: Philipp Laumer)

Magdalena Weileder (Technical University of Darmstadt): Who, to whom, when, where — or not? The Regesta Imperii of Ludwig IV the Bavarian and their Data

Ondřej Schmidt (Masaryk University, Brno / Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna): Ambassador’s Travel Records: Examining the Fragmented Correspondence of the Visconti Embassy to King Wenceslas, 1386–1387

Tobias Heil (Masaryk University, Brno): Kaiser Sigismund quittiert: Zwischenbericht aus einem digitalen Experiment

15:30 – 15:45 Coffee break

15:45 – 17:00 SESSION 2 – Chancery Practices through the Lens of its Personnel (chair: Sonja Lessacher)

Renáta Visegrádi (Hungarian Research Network, Debrecen): The Florentine Chancellorship under Coluccio Salutati

Bálint Lakatos (Hungarian Research Network, Budapest): Die königlichen Sekretäre, die Hofkanzlei und die zentrale Administration im Königreich Ungarn, 1490–1526

Iris Palenik (Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna): From Powerful Secretaries and Lowly Scribes – Exploring the Chancery Practices during the Rule of Maximilian I

17:00 – 17:30 Coffee break

17:30 – 18:30 Keynote Lecture / Talking Maximilian

Daniel Luger (University of Vienna): Archive – Amtsbücher – Algorithmen: Zu Stand und Perspektiven der Kanzlei- und Urkundenforschung im Spätmittelalter im Spiegel digitaler Zugänge

19:15 Dinner │ invitation only

Wednesday, 5 November 2025 (including a poster exhibition at the venue)

9:00 – 10:15 SESSION 3 – Textual Analysis: Style and Contents of Charters (chair: Iris Palenik)

Philipp Laumer (Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna): The Seventh Time is the Charm? Reflections on Multiple Copies of Charters in Sigismund of Luxembourg’s Chancery

Aliaksandra Valodzina (Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna): Between Dictamen and Affair: Latin and Medieval German Chancellery Departments of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Vytautas Writing on the Hussites’ Heresy

Markus Gneiß (Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna): „Das sie […] als sich geburet bestimbt sullen werden“. The Use and Compilation of Titles and Forms of Address in the Chanceries of Maximilian I

10:15 – 10:30 Coffee break

10:30 – 11:15 Session 4 – Queens and their Chancery Practices (chair: Julia Anna Schön)

Leonie Zelenka (Independent Researcher, Vienna): Kanzleipraxis und Handlungsspielräume: Die Urkundentätigkeit Kaiserin Eleonores von Portugal (1452–1467)

Sonja Lessacher (Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna): Blanca Maria manu propria – Observations on Bianca Maria Sforza’s Chancery Practices

11:15 – 12:00 Session 5 – Archiving Practices in the 15th/16th Century (chair: Markus Gneiß)

Nadja Krajicek-Seidl (Tiroler Landesarchiv, Innsbruck): Nur so am Rande? Spurensuche auf Archivgut aus der Zeit von Maximilian I. (1486–1519)

Ronald Kurt Salzer (Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna): Castles for Credit: Context, Script, and Codicology of the “Gedenkbuch No. 2”

12:00 – 13:15 Lunch │ invitation only

13:15 – 14:30 Session 6 – Text Production in Notary Offices (chair: Andrea Singh Bottanová)

Tomasz Walczak (Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History – Polish Academy of Sciences, Kraków ): The Role and Function of Notarial Instruments in the Governance of the Diocese of Kraków (1392–1488)

Tonija Andrić (Split University): Split Notary Office in the 15th Century. Palaeographic and Diplomatic Analysis of Notary Documents

Balázs Csiba (Comenius University, Bratislava): The Chancery of the Bratislava Chapter under the Notary Imre Pápoci (1504‒1547)

14:30 – 15:00 Résumé and Discussion │ Iris Palenik

Informations pratiques :

When: 4–5 November 2025

Where: in hybrid mode

Vienna, Alte PSK, Georg Coch Platz 2, 3rd floor, seminar rooms 1 + 2
online via Zoom
Workshop Languages: German and English

See Programme here.

Registration – If you would like to attend the workshop in person or online, please register by 31 October 2025 by emailing sonja.lessacher chez oeaw.ac.at. If you wish to attend via Zoom, we will send you the link in time. Please also let us know if you plan to join us for the keynote lecture, as an additional link will be provided for online participants.