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Tagungsbericht │“Managing the Ruler in the Office”, 4.–5.11.2025


The international workshop “Managing the Ruler in the Office” organised by Sonja Lessacher and Iris Palenik of the Writing Maximilian subproject aimed both to provide a platform to young scholars and showcase their work and also to explore new perspectives on chancery practices through a combination of innovative research questions and classical methodologies.

The workshop gathered an impressive selection of researchers at various stages in their careers – from presenting a promising master thesis to presenting interim results from independent scientific projects by post-Docs. A poster exhibition at the venue offered the additional opportunity to showcase their projects between sessions. The speakers presented a wide variety of topics, bringing their unique and new perspectives on the practices of chanceries – ranging from the late Middle Ages to Early Modern times. There was also considerable regional diversity. While the majority of papers focused on regions within the Holy Roman Empire, chancery practices spanning from Italy to Lithuania were likewise examined.

A key takeaway was the enduring importance of archival research, despite its occasionally laborious nature. Numerous speakers emphasised the necessity of exhaustively gathering all available material from archival holdings. The work on the objects itself, from charters to manuscripts, thus remains both a central and rewarding scholarly endeavour. This, however, does not diminish the considerable opportunities afforded by online source collections, which were widely acknowledged as opening up new avenues for research. At the same time, a clear appeal was articulated by those in attendance: the material is by no means exhausted. Further research therefore appears warranted.

In the first session, the papers explored how new digital approaches could be applied to old problems, like limited quantity or fragmented transmission. In his efforts to find more source material for the reign of Wenceslas, King of the Romans and of Bohemia, Ondřej Schmidt presented a newly discovered correspondence of the Milanese embassy to the royal court from 1386 to 1387, and how to cope with a highly fragmented source. Magdalena Weileder demonstrated on the charters issued by Louis IV the Bavarian (1314–1347) the work processes of his royal chancery of which we still have an incomplete picture and drew our attention to the fact that especially questions of the dating of the documents and the ruler’s itinerary remain. Tobias Heil focused his paper on Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg and the distinctive relationship between him and the imperial city of Nuremberg, as demonstrated through an archival holding of imperial receipts at the Staatsarchiv Nürnberg. He presented initial results from a comparative analysis of these receipts with those by other rulers – from Louis IV to Maximilian I – conducted using digital text analysis methods.

Session No. 2 highlighted the different types of writers, from a city’s chancellor to secretaries, from great scholars to “lowly scribes”. Although the context differed – urban or royal – the speakers emphasised a similar concern, that the sheer volume of surviving sources renders a comprehensive analysis nearly impossible, underscoring the need for much more targeted research. The session was opened by Renáta Visegrádi with the example of Florence and the humanistic endeavours of Coluccio Salutati and his duties as the city’s chancellor from 1375 to 1406. Bálint Lakatos presented his efforts to reconstruct the chancery practices in the late medieval kingdom of Hungary and showed how through meticulous examination of various notes of chancery members, he could determine the number of secretaries working in the royal chancery (at certain times). Iris Palenik demonstrated how palaeographical research on the so called “Maximiliana” can help to ascertain who was involved in the decision-making processes at court.

The first day of the workshop concluded with the keynote lecture by Daniel Luger on the current state and future perspectives of Diplomatics. Luger traced the development of the field from 19th-century Vienna, beginning with Theodor Sickel’s efforts to establish Diplomatic Studies as an independent discipline to a contemporary image of a blank screen in the former director’s office of the Institute of Austrian Historical Research. In doing so, he bridged “traditional” methods with new research approaches, such as Distant Diplomatics.

Group picture © Judit Majorossy

Session No. 3 focused exclusively on textual analysis, examining the style and content of charters. Philipp Laumer illustrated, using the contested appointment of Leonhard of Laiming as Bishop of Passau in the 1420s, how charters issued by Sigismund of Luxembourg as King of the Holy Roman Empire could be significantly shaped by their recipients (see also his paper). Aliaksandra Valodzina used digital methods (LLM) to analyse the Latin and German correspondence of Grand Duke Vytautas of Lithuania (1392–1430), highlighting their interconnection through a critical discourse analysis of references to the Hussite movement (see also her paper). Markus Gneiss emphasised the significance of words and phrases, exemplified by the titularies or formularies used in Maximilian I’s chancery.

Session No. 4 examined the emancipation of female rulers through the establishment of their own chanceries. While these institutions drew on the well-established practices of their husbands’, they asserted independence by maintaining separate structures. Leonie Zelenka presented her research on Empress Eleonore of Portugal (1452–1467), demonstrating how her chancery not only adapted traditional practices but also incorporated innovations, such as the use of female forms in chancery notes. Sonja Lessacher showed that Queen Bianca Maria Sforza (1494–1508) similarly maintained a chancery with personnel partially distinct from her husband’s. She underscored the need for further study, emphasising that despite the abundance of sources, a more thorough analysis remains essential.

The papers presented in Session No. 5 demonstrated the value of looking beyond the textual content of documents to their external features, offering fresh perspectives on well-known sources. Nadja Krajicek-Seidl declared her aim to “do something different” by examining the backsides of charters, revealing a world of doodles, ink stains, holes, and sometimes meaningful verses, which provide small insights into the work of the authorities or subsequent archive work (see also her paper). Ronald Kurt Salzer showed how charters could acquire new life and significance when copied into books for specific purposes, presenting the so called “Gedenkbuch No. 2”, a cartulary of pledged Austrian dominions containing deeds from 1355 to 1524. The session highlighted that even seemingly peripheral aspects – such as storage practices, informal annotations, or officials’ resourcefulness under Ferdinand I – can provide valuable insights into historical practices (see also his paper).

The final session examined the day-to-day operations and practices of notary offices across diverse urban contexts, with each speaker shedding light on different local traditions. Tomasz Walczak highlighted the notarial system of the Kraków diocese from 1392–1488 by analysing the different types of notarial instruments, and emphasised the need for more systematic research on late medieval Polish public notaries (see also his paper). Tonija Andrić examined the public notary office of Split, situating the notaries’ duties and outputs within their urban context (see also her paper). Finally, Balázs Csiba presented the Bratislava chapter within the broader framework of the so called “places of authentication” in Hungary, illustrating the innovations introduced to the office’s record books (autentický protokol) by Imre Pápoci (1504–1547).

Iris Palenik


Header Image Credits: Collage by Dagmar Giesriegl/ÖAW based on the following images: Innsbruck, TLA, Max 14.1496.4; Innsbruck, TLA, Max 1.42.12, fol. 104r; Seal of Maximilian I, letter of arms for St Mary’s parish church and Ulrich Lehendorffer in Bolzano, 10 October 1517, online: https://www.monasterium.net/mom/IlluminierteUrkundenWappenbriefe/1517-02-10_Bozen/charter; Detail of: Wien, HHStA, RK, Maximiliana 34-4-3, fol. 82v; Detail of: Innsbruck, TLA, Max 1.42.12, fol. 25r; Detail of: Innsbruck, TLA, Max 1.44.1508.4; Detail of: Getty Museum MS 58, fol. 23; Details of: Museum Brugge, Pieter Brueghel II, De boerenadvocaat (1620), online: https://www.museabrugge.be/collection/work/id/0000_gro1606_i; Detail of: Picture of Jean Mielot, BnF, ms francais 9198, fol. 19r, online: https://utpictura18.univ-amu.fr/notice/5649-mielot-traduit-latin-miracles-j-mielot-miraclesnotre-dame-fr9198; Detail of: München, Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Geheimes Hausarchiv, HS 12, fol. 8.


OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Iris Palenik (December 17, 2025). Tagungsbericht │“Managing the Ruler in the Office”, 4.–5.11.2025. Managing Maximilian (1493-1519) - A blog on Persona, Politics, and Personnel through the Lens of Digital Prosopography at the time of Maximilian of Habsburg. Retrieved March 16, 2026 from https://doi.org/10.58079/15dez


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