Die deutschen Königspfalzen

The German royal palaces. Repertory of the Palaces, Royal Courts and Other Places where Kings Stayed in the German Middle Ages.

The German royal palaces. Repertory of the Palaces, Royal Courts and Other Places where Kings Stayed in the German Middle Ages.

One of the medieval research projects of the Max Planck Institute for History in Göttingen (1956-2006) besides the "Germania Sacra" was the project "Die deutschen Königspfalzen: Repertorium der Pfalzen, Königshöfe und übrigen Aufenthaltsorte der Könige im deutschen Reich des Mittelalters" (The German royal palaces. Repertory of the Palaces, Royal Courts and Other Places where Kings Stayed in the German Middle Ages). The aim is to record, in a regionally ordered manner, all sovereign visits to sites established as sojourns before 1198 up to about 1250/54 in the territory of the present-day Federal Republic of Germany. This is done with the help of numerous external editors and the coordinating support of some regional historical research institutions. Heimpel's successors Josef Fleckenstein (1971-1990, † 2004) and Otto Gerhard Oexle (1990-2004), as directors at the Max Planck Institute for History, continued the Palatine Project as a medievalist research project; the editorship was in the hands of Thomas Zotz (until 1983), Lutz Fenske (until 2004, † 2006), and finally Caspar Ehlers (until 2006). After extensive preparatory work, such as the establishment of an almost complete card index of the places to be edited as well as detailed itinerary lists and also maps, the first delivery of the complete work, which was planned to consist of about 14 volumes, was published in 1983.

After the closure of the Göttingen Institute, the project "Die deutschen Königspfalzen" was integrated into the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History, now for Legal History and Theory, and transferred to new structures under the editorial direction of Caspar Ehlers. With the support of directors Marie Theres Fögen, Michael Stolleis, Thomas Duve (since 2009) and Stefan Vogenauer (since 2015), and Marietta Auer (since 2020), it has thus been possible to publish further deliveries and volumes. Thomas Zotz from Freiburg, who has been involved in the project from the beginning, is the second editor.

As things stand at present, the repertory will cover a total of 355 sites within the borders of the Federal Republic, of which 53 are in Baden-Württemberg, 75 in Bavaria, 35 in Hesse, 40 each in Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia, 39 in Rhineland-Palatinate, 37 in Saxony-Anhalt, 12 in Saxony, Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, and 24 in Thuringia.

All publications of this project have been published by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, since the beginning.

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