Familienbücher als Medien städtischer Kommunikation

Family books were composite manuscripts containing, among other things, historical records of life in towns combined with family-related aspects. Marco Tomaszewski examines how these late medieval and early modern sources were used and what their communicative scope was by contextualizing them in their urban communication framework. It thus becomes apparent that their contemporary use was caught in the conflict between familial exclusivity and the urban public sphere. Today's perception of these sources is significantly influenced by editions, which, however, provide a completely different picture than the manuscripts did and therefore need to be historicised. For this reason, the Basler Chronicles edition's original contexts are dealt with alongside the pre-modern tradition in this volume.