Sixteenth-Century Painted Leather Pouches for Archiving Documents, 13 September

Special exhibition archive

Sixteenth-Century Painted Leather Pouches for Archiving Documents, 13 September – 12 November 2017

During his term of office from 1579 to 1593, Fribourg’s state chancellor Wilhelm Techtermann had some fifty elaborately worked leather pouches made in which to archive important documents and deeds. Fourteen of these little bags have been preserved in the Archives de l’État de Fribourg and were recently studied and conserved at the Abegg-Stiftung as part of a degree project by a student of textile conservation and restoration. Six of these remarkable pouches and some documents they once contained are now on show at the Abegg-Stiftung. Media Release | Poster Master’s Thesis

Pouch for the Deed of the Golden League This leather pouch is painted with coats of arms arranged in a circle around a white dove with a golden nimbus. The coats of arms (read clockwise from top centre) are those of the cantons Fribourg, Uri, Unterwalden, Solothurn, Zug, Schwyz, and Lucerne. Below the coats of arms is a banderole containing the inscription “Catholischer Pünd der 7 Orte” (lit. “Catholic league of the 7 cantons”). The pouch contained the deed of the Golden League, an alliance of the seven Catholic cantons agreed in Lucerne on 5 October 1586. | Fribourg, 1587; painted leather, leather drawstrings and ornamental knots, silk fringed border and tassels, 38 x 31 cm; Archives de l’État de Fribourg, bourses d’archives, 10

Deed of the Golden League This magnificent document was drawn up on a rectangular sheet of parchment measuring 64 x 53 cm. The visible creases indicate that it was folded to make it fit inside the leather pouch. The deed still possesses five of the seven wax seals it had originally, one of which is kept inside a wooden seal case to protect it. The seals are suspended on cords in the colours of each canton. | Deed of the Golden League, 1586; parchment, painted; Archives de l’État de Fribourg, traités et contracts, 16a

Pouch Bearing the Coat of Arms of the Lords of Neuchâtel and That of Fribourg Über der Wappendarstellung ist ein Schriftband mit dem Schriftzug «Burgrecht mit de(n) Grafen vo(n) Nüwe(n)burg» zu erkennen. Unter dem Schriftzug ist die kleinere, schwer lesbare Aufschrift «D 63 … No 70» vermerkt. Anhand der Wappendarstellungen, der Beschriftung und des Etiketts auf der Rückseite des Beutels konnte der ursprüngliche Inhalt vollständig rekonstruiert werden. Das Archivsäckchen enthielt acht gefaltete Urkunden, die alle auch im Freiburger Staatsarchiv erhalten geblieben sind. Die beiden ältesten datieren aus dem Jahr 1290. | Freiburg i. Üe., 1586; bemaltes Leder, lederne Zugschnüre und Zierknoten, seidene Fransenborten und Quasten, 46,5 x 32 cm; Staatsarchiv Freiburg, Archivsäcklein, 6

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Sixteenth-Century Painted Leather Pouches for Archiving Documents, 13 September – 12 November 2017