Abstract (eng)
Grants of arms, a genus of illuminated documents long neglected "between" the neighboring
disciplines of history and art history, have experienced a strongly increasing interest of
interdisciplinary research over the last two decades. In contrast to two recent master’s theses
at the University of Vienna, which were dedicated to a textual analysis of grants of arms
emanating from the Imperial Chancellery in the late Middle Ages and from the Royal
Hungarian Chancellery, respectively, the present study is not limited to the extant originals of
these charters engrossed on parchment featuring the painted arms. Rather, the work
attempts for the first time an overall inventory of the grants issued by the Imperial Chancellery
during the long reign of Emperor Frederick III. Besides a few "originals", the so-called imperial
registers of the “Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv” in Vienna were consequently searched for
relevant copies - full texts and short abstracts. Of all the grants of arms issued between 1442-
1493, it is estimated that only about one third - at the expense of the recipients - were
recorded in the imperial registers. Nevertheless, about 125 acts from the time of Frederick III
could be elicited primarily from these manuscripts. The pieces were examined both from a
diplomatic point of view as well as from a heraldic perspective.
In detail, it was possible to gain new insights into the use of relevant formula of the chancellery
over decades or the composition of the circle of recipients and their relations to the imperial
issuer as well as trends in the design of the coats of arms, which are almost always based on
the wish of the beneficiaries and were probably also regularly presented to the chancellery in
the form of “image concepts”. The main part of this study draws on rich unprinted source
material, which is made accessible in the detailed appendix through editions, digests, and
tables.