Archival Description and Digitization of the Archive of the Counts and Princes of Solms-Hohensolms-Lich

• Applicant: Dr. Johannes Kistenich-Zerfaß, since 9/2024
• Subject Area: Early Modern History ; Medieval History
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 540725244

This project pursues the goal of describing and digitizing the approximately 3,650 documents, about 5,500 volumes of official records and 160 running metres of files of the Archive of the Counts and Princes of Solms-Hohensolms-Lich. As a family of counts and later princes, the Solms family held sovereign and quasi-governmental powers in the respective territories from the late Middle Ages until the mediatization of the house in 1806. Thus, for many centuries and even before the formation of a modern state, the records formed the only basis for almost all issues concerning the respective territories. The cultural-historical significance of the records is also made clear by the fact that they have been included in the central handbook of German archiving as well as in the "database of protected cultural assets" maintained by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media. In September 2018, the documents were moved from their previous storage location in the Castle of Lich to the State Archives in Darmstadt. Some measures have already been successfully completed. For example, all files and official books were removed from the moving boxes and professionally dry-cleaned under a safety workbench. This was followed by a complete repackaging of the entire records. This means that the archival description can go hand in hand with signing and with the corresponding preservation measures. This also applies to the approximately 2.150 charters of Arnsburg Monastery, which are treated with special care, for example by fixing the seals with so-called seal bananas. The 1.500 documents of the Solms house collection were professionally cleaned and packaged in 2020 with the help of funding acquired as part of the Hesse state program for preservation, and the documents and seals were mounted on tableaus and then completely digitized. At the end of this project, hitherto unknown sources will be available to researchers in a modern and highly convenient online index, complete with the description of the documents and the digitized images. Almost all questions relating to the territory of the Solms and their neighbors, ranging from those of political history to questions of economic and social history to prosopographical approaches, will thus be made possible. By feeding the indexing data and digitized images into the archive information system of the Hessian State Archives „Arcinsys“, the corresponding information is immediately accessible worldwide, i.e. already "up-to-date" during the ongoing project. The online presentation is complemented by the connection of the descriptive data and the digital images to the Archivportal-D and the DDB (German Digital Library).

• DFG Programme: Cataloguing and Digitisation (Scientific Library Services and Information Systems)
• Ehemaliger Antragsteller: Professor Dr. Andreas Hedwig, until 9/2024