A Fourteenth-Century Register of Freizins Rents from Erfurt (British Library, Add. MS. 24637)

Abstract

• Add. MS. 24637 is a register of specially-privileged Freizins rents collected by the archbishop of Mainz at Erfurt from the years 1351-1358. Other registers in the series from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries are preserved at the Landeshauptarchiv Sachsen-Anhalt in Magdeburg, and consequently the British Library manuscript has been overlooked so far. This article can thus offer new perspectives on these sources in considering both the evolution and use of the registers within the archiepiscopal administration at Erfurt and their practical and symbolic roles in Erfurt’s society in the later Middle Ages.