This festschrift is the outcome of a colloquium held in honor of Helmut Maurer, in Constance on 27 May 2016, by his former colleagues and students. Maurer was the longtime director of the Stadtarchiv Konstanz (1966–2001) and, from 1981, honorary professor of medieval history at the Universität Konstanz. He has also played prominent roles in Germanophone medieval organizations, notably the Konstanzer Arbeitskreis für mittelalterliche Geschichte, and regional societies, including the transnational Verein für Geschichte des Bodensees und seiner Umgebung, of which Maurer has been honorary president since 1999. In these various capacities Maurer has published extensively on periods ranging from the early middle ages to the Reformation, with particular strengths in ecclesiastical history, the study of the regional nobility, and the urban history of Constance. His scholarly publications to date—fourteen monographs and 245 articles and essays—are listed in full in a bibliography on pp. 209–46. The contributions in this volume reflect this chronological and thematic diversity, ranging from the eleventh to the seventeenth century, and from urban architecture to aristocratic social networks.

The first three contributions address topics encompassed by the earlier phases of Maurer's research. The near-contemporaneous origins of the cult of Count Eberhard VI of Nellenburg (ca. 1015–80), the founder of All Saints’ Abbey, in Schaffhausen, are uncovered by Fredy Meyer, whose wide-ranging investigation of literary, manuscript, and material evidence debunks the notion that Eberhard only began to be venerated centuries later. Claudia Zey draws on Maurer's extensive work on Bishop Gebhard III of Constance (1084–1110) to sketch out and reassess his career as papal legate in the years 1089–1107, at the height of the Investiture Controversy. Gebhard emerges as a loyal supporter of the papal reform party in his local power base, in southern Germany, whose apparent falling out with Pope Paschal II in 1106–07 resulted from the changing priorities of the papacy in the shifting circumstances of the early twelfth century. It is in these same circumstances, “in the shadow of the Concordat of Worms” (75), that Thomas Zotz's contribution seeks to situate Duke Conrad I of Zähringen (1122–52). Zotz shows that Conrad was the first member of his dynasty able to consolidate local political networks in order to undergird ducal pretensions and compete meaningfully with the Hohenstaufen within Swabia.

The next four contributions concern the fifteenth century onwards. In a richly substantiated essay supplemented by a prosopographic table, Harald Derschka previews the yields of his forthcoming edition of the records of the Lehenhof (court of fiefs) of Abbot Friedrich of Reichenau (1428–53). The sale of a Reichenau fief by Hans von Rechberg to the count of Württemberg-Stuttgart in 1447 prompted a feudal court case that fortuitously led to the recording of many other fief holders, most of whom were increasingly embedded in Habsburg and Württemberg noble/territorial affinities, presaging the incipient subordination of the abbey of Reichenau itself to the dukes of Austria. Gabriela Signori offers a brief outline of some of the disputes over windows brought before the Baugericht (buildings court) of Constance between 1452 and 1470, placing them in a theoretical and comparative context and showing that a variety of burghers exhibited concern about the design and placement of windows on their and their neighbors’ properties. Drawing on a cartulary compiled by the notary Nikolaus Schulthaiß, town clerk of Constance in the years 1398–1411, Brigitte Hotz reconstructs a complex legal dossier surrounding the citation of citizens of Constance before an ecclesiastical judge in Augsburg. Pope Boniface IX simultaneously defended the citizens’ right not to submit to jurisdictions outside their diocese and confirmed the dean of Augsburg's authority in the case, but the bishop of Constance's finest canon lawyers collaborated closely with Schulthaiß to invalidate the case, and the trial seems not to have taken place. Hotz helpfully provides tables summarizing the key documents and the cast of protagonists. Finally, Stefan Sonderegger introduces and contextualizes a forthcoming digital edition of the Missiven (letter-based correspondence) of the imperial city of St. Gallen between 1400 and 1650—an especially welcome project in view of the relative paucity of late medieval / early modern editions, digitized or not, which Sonderegger persuasively highlights.

The volume is rounded out by three short pieces on Maurer as an archivist, researcher, and teacher. These—and, indeed, the full-length contributions—are all lightly edited and footnoted versions of the talks delivered at the colloquium, so the style is informal and direct in places. Given the scope of Maurer's oeuvre, the volume as a whole is inevitably somewhat miscellaneous, but the quality of the contributions ensures that it will be of interest to a wide range of scholars of medieval and early modern southwest Germany and its surroundings, particularly those working on the fifteenth century.