Regesta Imperii - Online Quellen zur Reichsgeschichte

RI Online

Leitung:

Prof. Dr. Andreas Kuczera

Mitarbeitende:

• Yannick Pultar, M.A. (Arbeitsstellenleitung)
• Dominik Kasper
• Anna Prusova
• Dr. Dieter Rübsamen

Anschrift:

Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur

Uferstraße 31

D-55131 Mainz

Telefon:

work +49(0)6131-577-211

E-Mail:

• yannick.pultar@adwmainz.de
• Andreas.Kuczera@adwmainz.de

Already in the 1990s the project was planning the publication of their research results. In the first instance a CD-version of the cumulated first ten regesta issues of the department Frederic III was realised in 1998. In order to use the quickly developing Internet technology for research purposes, all regesta volumes published to this date were retrodigitised in a DFG-project in cooperation with the Bavarian State Library (BSB) in 2001. Since then the RI Online has been available for the general public.

I. Regesta Database

In the Regesta Database all volumes of the regesta imperii published since 1839 are available in full text. Thus more than 140.000 regesta of ruler and papal deeds from the Carolingians up to Maximilian I. (751-1519) are researchable. All forthcoming publications are made digitally available as soon as possible.

The database is freely accessible, unrestrictedly searchable and covered by a CC BY 4.0 International licence. The data is available via a REST interface and the RI Lab also offers the research data for download in CSV format. In addition, the RI Lab also offers Cypher scripts for importing into the Neo4j graph database.

The content of the printed volumes were copied unaltered in order to maintain long-term transparency and citeability. To nevertheless compensate the heterogeneity of the underlying data and to facilitate working with the entire database, attempts were made to align design and structure of the presentation as far as possible. Thus subdivisions into regesta texts, tradition and commentary are to be found to a large extent. Additionally the dating and the place of issue are always indicated. Gradually original dating, chancery memorandums, witnesses, incipits etc. are being optically processed and being made searchable separately.

The database's various search functions can also compensate for the disadvantages of the Regesta of Louis the Babarian, Sigismund and Frederick III, which are published in issues according to provenance. Since 2009, the up-to-dateness of the content has been ensured by a addenda tool, which now makes over 2,500 comments and suggestions for improvement from our users visible to the general public after they have been checked by the editors. Published corrections by the volume editors themselves have also been integrated into the corresponding records under the heading "Verbesserungen und Zusätze".

In comparison to the printed volumes, the database also offers the option of directly linking the named literature to the entries in the RI OPAC and thus resolving ambiguous short titles. Links are also provided to other registers and to external services that offer document images or editions. In addition to the offers of our partners, reference is also made to digitized editions such as the "Lünig'sches Reichs-Archiv" (1710-1722). The links to the Abbildungsverzeichnis Europäischer Kaiser- und Königsurkunden (AVEKK) also make it possible to find illustrations of documents that have only appeared in print. These links can be found in the individual view of the respective regest under "Further information" in the right-hand column.

II. register data in RI Lab

Registers of persons and places are an essential tool when working with regesta. They are vital for research in the regesta database, as the problem of variants and linguistic diversities becomes apparent here. Within the full-text search entries may be overlooked, which the register by corresponding references to all entries belonging to a regest records. The registers, which were previously only available as PDFs, are currently being prepared as computer-readable research data. On the register page, a database version of the combined register of all issues relating to Emperor Frederick III is integrated into the regesta search, so that name variants can also be included. In the RI Lab, the edited registers for Conrad II, Henry IV, Henry VII, Louis the Bavarian and Frederick III are also available as data sets for subsequent use.

registers as PDF documents

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III. RIplus

After long preliminary works RI Online will enrich the regesta database under the label “RIplus” from mid-2015 onwards with regesta, which have not been published in the printed volumes of the Regesta Imperii. Thus the database shall on the one hand be supplemented by work-in-progress data, partially as advance versions of volumes which have not yet been published, partially as addendums. With this the partially edited version of the regesta of Charles IV, which has so far only been offered as PDF, as well has the in the meantime digitised Nachlass of Wilhelm Hanisch (†1985), which includes extensive and unpublished material on King Wenceslaus and his time (which has not yet been covered by the RI), will be made available and searchable.

Furthermore, the regional powers shall be included in the database, in consideration of the significance of the Great for the empire’s history. The basis for this are the regesta volumes having been compiled in diverse contexts outside of the Regesta Imperii. Those are harmonized which allows a new approach by searching through the entire database. Currently available are the regesta of the counts Palatine of the Rhine, the Margraves of Baden, the Archbishop of Mainz and the bishops of Bamberg. RIplus also includes the results of partner projects such as the 17 volumes of the Academy project on the German imperial court ("Königs und Hofgericht") (1986-2018) and the short regesta from a Luxembourg third-party funded project on the queen consorts of the Luxembourg kings and emperors (2018-2022). With RIplus a platform shall be offered, which enables other institutions to make their digitised sources on the empirical powers available online. As partner we have also found the “Schwäbische Forschungsgemeinschaft” SFG (Swabian research community) which is publishing the regesta of the Augsburg Bishops at RIplus. Currently you can find about than 60.000 regesta in the RIplus-section.

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IV. RI OPAC

The RI OPAC is an openly accessible literature database for the medieval research into the entire European linguistic area, taking all specialist disciplines into consideration.

The database completely records the zitierte Literatur in the regesta publications and serves as a linked bibliography to the online service. Furthermore, it is available as an universal research tool due to a deep development of dependent literature (essays, book proceedings) from a Variety of journals and edited volumes even from remotest provinces, due to the broad registration of all medievalist branches and of publications from the 16th century up until today. Nowadays more than 2.8 million titles, of which 2.2 million alone are essays, have been gathered. The OPAC is being updated and expanded continously by periodical updates

The systematic Thesaurus offers the possibility of displaying database entries arranged by subject, time periods or regional allocation and thus searching for specialist literature specifically. Within the Thesaurus field “authors” Integrated Authority File-links are offered. By accurate linking to the Karlsruhe Virtual Catalogue (for monographs and anthologies) or to the Zeitschriftendatenback (German union catalogue of serials) (for journals) the RI OPAC additionally allows finding stock details for dependent literature. Publicly accessible digital contents are also referred to.

We are looking forward to your references to publications not recorded. You can contact us here.

search the OPAC

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V. Publications