Ledgers
The University’s ledgers from the years 1566 to 1758, of which there are 180 volumes in total, are now available as a digital resource. The University has never been just a research and teaching institution, it is also an enterprise in an economic sense. The ledgers are accounting books that offer detailed insights into the financial and economic management of the University. Whatever the expenditure, whether it was to pay for the professorial stipends, for the structural maintenance of the University buildings in the town and the surrounding regions, for poor relief or other activities, every transaction was entered into the ledgers down to the last gulden and Reichsthaler. The same applies to the University’s income, which was also recorded in detail in the ledgers irrespective of whether it was income from fees, from capital investments or the revenues from the extensive estates whose earnings were used to support the University. The ledgers provide not only a treasure trove of information for economic historians, they are also a rich source of facts for anyone interested in social and cultural history.