Universität Bern, Historisches Institut, Abteilung für Ältere Schweizergeschichte
University of Bern, Department for Swiss History before 1800
BeFin
Forschungsprojekt Berner Staatsfinanzen in der Frühneuzeit
Research Project BeFin - Bernese State Finance in the Early Modern Period

English Version

 

This text provides a short overview over the research project BeFin - Bernese State Finance in the Early Modern Period, which was carried out at the Department for Swiss History at the University of Bern from June 2000 until October 2004. The German website contains additional information, such as publications and transcribed records.

Very little is known about public finances in early modern Bern. There has been hardly any research to explore the state's finances and investiagate its growing economic and social fundamentals. Accordingly, the aim of our research project was to analyse the financial structures of the old republic of Bern from the 16th to the 18th centuries. A comparison over three centuries should show the development and changes in the structure of revenues and expenditures in Bern during its development from a medieval city to an early modern territorial state.

The methododological framewokr for BeFin had been established in a project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation from 1992-95, directed by the late Prof Martin Körner. Its methodology was to transcribe accounting ledgers stored in Bern's archives in full length and, in a second step, to categorize the transcription file according to criteria of contemporary state finance. The advantages of this procedure are twofold. Firstly, it allows for an analysis of revenues and expenditures along several dimensions (e.g. sectors of the economy, or distinguishing between current expenses and investments). Secondly, the inclusion of transactions in kind (mostly cereals and wine) is facilitated by combining state finance data with contemporary price data. In general, both accounts of single districts (Ämter) and central accounts were considered for transcription. Due to limited project resources, a selection was made for a sample from all accounts kept in the state archives in Bern, Lausanne and Aarau. By including accounts for every 50 years (i.e. in the 30s and 50s of each century), it will be possible to analyse the structure of Bernese revenues and expenditures once all data is available.

After the death of the former director Prof Martin Körner, Prof André Holenstein took over the lead of the research project. Associated members Niklaus Bartlome (16th century) and Stephan Hagnauer (17th century) carried out independent research for their PhD theses, Stefan Altorfer for the 18th century. Manuel Bigler, Felix Buchli, Anina Schafroth and Oliver Schihin had been working on the transcription of archive sources until June 2002. The project was financed by a contribution from the Bernese Lottery Foundation.


English Version

Forschungsprojekt Berner Staatsfinanzen BeFin
Universität Bern, Historisches Institut, Unitobler, Länggass-str. 49, CH-3009 Bern, Schweiz/Suisse/Switzerland
Stefan Altorfer, Projektkoordinator [mail]
last modified: 27-Dec-2007