The Wolfenbüttel Colloquium, 1981 to 2025 Wolfenbütteler Kolloquium für Urkunden- und Schriftforschung
The Institute has held a colloquium every two years since 1981, and for the twelfth time in 2023. The thirteenth was announced for September 2025, put back to September 2026, and has now been postponed without a date. The meeting arose out of the epidemic years in one respect only — the colloquium due in 2021 was moved to 2023 — and otherwise keeps its shape: three days, the first for papers, the second for the examination of objects and for working discussion, the third for free discussion and dispersal. Attendance has grown from thirty-one to sixty-eight. No fee is charged and no book of abstracts is printed; the proceedings are published in the series, and the rest of the papers remain with their authors.
1. Thirteenth colloquium: postponed
Not being held. The call for papers printed below was issued in October 2024 and closed on 31 March 2025. Papers offered are held on file and their authors have been written to individually. If the Institute's circumstances allow, a fourteenth colloquium will be considered for 2028; a notice will be posted here.
Theme as announced: Schreiberhände und Münzstätten — scribal hands
and minting workshops: the production of writing and the circulation of coin in medieval Lower Saxony.
Dates: Thursday 18 to Saturday 20 September 2025.
Place: the lecture room (32 places) and the reading room of the Institute.
Papers offered by: 31 March 2025.
Registration opens: 1 May 2025; closes 29 August 2025.
Fee: none. Tea and coffee are provided; travel and lodging are for participants to arrange.
Notes for those offering a paper
- Abstract. In German or English, not more than 500 words, with the title, your name, your institution and a means of contact. Say what material you will work from and by what method; a full text is not wanted at this stage.
- Scope. Four directions fall within the theme: identification of scribes and the dating of their activity; the organisation and output of a mint; the relation in time between the circulation of coin and administrative documents; and the testing and dating of writing materials and of coin metal. Other subjects are welcome if the abstract shows how they bear on the theme.
- Papers. Twenty-five minutes each, discussion included. The time of your paper is confirmed in writing a week beforehand. The lecture room has no public address system; if you need to project images, say so in advance and bring your own files, as the Institute's projector dates from 2008 and its resolution is limited. Paper plates are a welcome fallback.
- The session for objects. On the second afternoon twenty to thirty objects are laid out by the divisions and discussed. Twenty people may take part and must register separately. Gloves are worn and pencils only. If you wish to bring an object of your own, say how many and of what kind when you register.
- Proceedings. The Institute expects to publish ten to twelve of the papers in the series after refereeing; the rest are not required. Offering a paper is taken as agreement that it may be considered for the proceedings, and anyone who would rather it were not should say so in the abstract.
- Languages. German and English. There is no simultaneous interpretation; anyone wishing to speak in another language should get in touch first.
- Where to send it. The academic office, sekretariat [at] winddew.lab, marked "thirteenth colloquium". There is no online submission system: a message is sent acknowledging receipt within three working days.
2. The thirteen meetings
| No. | Date | Theme | Present | Papers | Proceedings |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sep 1981 | Dating charters and coins: evidence used together | 31 | 12 | No proceedings; minutes in Mitteilungen no. 20. |
| 2 | Sep 1983 | Weight and fineness series of regional coinages | 29 | 11 | Papers published by their authors; eleven offprints kept by the Institute. |
| 3 | Oct 1985 | Card indexes and joint cataloguing: the possibility of searching across institutions | 34 | 14 | No proceedings; the conclusions are in the archive, Akt 19/2. |
| 4 | Sep 1987 | Identifying scribes | 30 | 12 | Absorbed into the preface and appendix of the third part of the register of scribes. |
| 5 | Sep 1989 | Founding the series, and a review of the Institute's direction | 36 | 10 | Minutes in Mitteilungen no. 28. |
| 6 | Sep 1991 | Seals, dies and matrix technology | 38 | 15 | Five papers published as a supplement to series vol. 3 in 1991. |
| 7 | Oct 1993 | Microfilming and the preservation of archives | 41 | 13 | No proceedings; the technical part became series vol. 15. |
| 8 | Sep 1998 | Cards, indexes and retrieval: a century reviewed | 44 | 16 | Eight papers published as an appendix to series vol. 16. |
| 9 | Sep 2006 | Text and object: material, technique and date | 46 | 18 | Series vol. 18, proceedings of the ninth colloquium. |
| 10 | Sep 2011 | Mints and writing workshops: production compared | 51 | 19 | Series vol. 25, proceedings of the tenth colloquium. |
| 11 | Sep 2015 | Bindings, fragments and the reuse of manuscripts | 57 | 21 | Nine papers published in Mitteilungen from no. 56 onwards. |
| 12 | Sep 2023 (due 2021) | Traces in charters and manuscripts: use, annotation and wear | 68 | 24 | Series vol. 34, published in 2022 to the original plan although the meeting was deferred. |
| 13 | postponed | Scribal hands and minting workshops: the production of writing and the circulation of coin | — | 29 offered | No proceedings. Twenty-nine papers were offered by the closing date and are held on file. |
Eight years separate the eleventh and twelfth meetings. The meeting due in 2017 was put back by two years when the directorship changed, and that due in 2021 was moved to 2023 by the epidemic. The numbers were not reordered to hide either gap; the record of both deferrals is in the "Institute" section of Mitteilungen no. 57 and no. 61.
3. How the meeting is run
| Matter | Practice |
|---|---|
| Opening | No speeches and no top table. The first paper begins at 10.00 on the first morning; a member of the academic office keeps the time and passes the microphone. |
| Papers | Twenty-five minutes including discussion. The timekeeper holds up a card at the limit and, three minutes later, moves the meeting on. |
| Session for objects | On the second afternoon, in two groups. Beside each object lie a card (reference number, date, material), a pencil and slips of paper. Comments are written on the slips and dropped into a bag; the division that laid the object out works through them afterwards. |
| Meals | No formal dinner. On the second evening a long table is set up in the courtyard with bread, cheese and the local beer, paid for by the Institute. Nobody is asked to make a speech. |
| Proceedings | Papers are selected for the series and refereed by Division III. Declining to be considered does not affect the invitation to speak. |
| Record | Nothing is recorded on tape or film, except that a speaker may record his or her own paper. The minute gives the session, the title and not more than three points of discussion, and is filed in the archive under TAG-1 onwards. |
4. Papers of past meetings
The minutes, attendance books, slips from the object sessions and photographs of every meeting are in the archive, from TAG-1 to TAG-12. There is nothing to add for 2025 or 2026, no meeting having been held. The attendance books contain the names and institutions of participants and are personal data, closed for ten years under section 4.6 of the rules of use; minutes, slips and photographs may be applied for under the same rules. The published proceedings are listed under the series.
Something said at the seventh meeting
The seventh colloquium, in 1993, was about microfilming and the preservation of archives. In the course of it a participant asked why, since the Institute had microfilmed its cards, it did not simply supply the film to anyone who asked and have done with answering letters one by one. Half a day went on the question. The conclusion was that film could be supplied, but that the difficulty of finding anything lay not in the film but in the making of the index; and that where an index is poor, more film only means more to search through. The conclusion is on the fourth page of the minutes, and the practice that followed from it — that any microfilm copy sent out is accompanied by an extract from the relevant index entries — is still observed.
Compiled by the academic office from the minutes of the meetings (archive, TAG-1 to TAG-12). Questions about the thirteenth colloquium should go to the conference office, which is the academic office, extension 0.
Page WI-VER-02 · compiled by M. Tiedemann · read by the director's office · last modified 18 September 2026