The Poor Sisters of Söflingen: Religious Corporations as Property Litigants, 1310–1317

Abstract

The convent of sisters of the Order of St. Damian and St. Clare of Söflingen, initially established just outside the city of Ulm in what is today the state of Baden-Württemberg in Germany, moved to the village of Söflingen, slightly west of its first home, sometime in the early 1250s, and survived there until 1814 when it was finally dissolved. During the centuries of activity, the convent maintained a large archive of documents including charters, privileges, and other letters. The history of the foundation was already discussed in 1488 in the work of a local Dominican, Felix Fabri. But the modern historian responsible for cataloging much of the extant documentation was Max Miller (1901–1973). Miller, a Catholic priest and the director of the Staatsarchiv Stuttgart from 1951 until his retirement in 1967, produced a register of the Söflingen documents starting with the earliest land donations and continuing to 1550. He organized and numbered all of them according to date and included brief descriptions and abbreviated notes concerning their location in his register. It is still used as the finding tool, orFindbuch, for Söflingen's documents at the state archive in Ludwigsburg, and Miller's numbering system gives most items their current call number. Many of the items he listed can be found at the Staatsarchiv Ludwigsburg as well.