A visit to history

The common heritage also includes documents. The Frankfurt Institute for Town History (Institut für Stadtgeschichte) is one of the places responsible for the preservation and accessibility of historical documents.

The Frankfurt copy of the "Golden Bull" is an official World Documentary Heritage of the Frankfurt City Archive. This part of the Constitution of the Holy Roman Empire of 1356 regulated the election of the German kings.

The Erasmus Project Group of the Offene Schule Babenhausen had the opportunity to visit not only the archive but also the restoration laboratory and to learn about the difficulties of and possibilities in preserving old documents.

Due to changes in the production of paper, documents from the last 150 years are much more difficult to obtain than much older objects. It remains open whether everything will still be readable or accessible in 100 years' time. Perhaps our generation will be as badly documented as the early Middle Ages.