Magdeburg was one of the most important medieval metropolises in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. The city was first mentioned as an important border trading centre in the Diedenhofen Capitulary of Emperor Charlemagne in 805. The time of Emperor Otto the Great, who in 968 established an archbishopric in Magdeburg, brought the city an enormous upswing. A municipal law was developed here that served as a model for hundreds of new cities in Eastern and Southeastern Europe as the “Magdeburg Law”. Magdeburg was an important Hanseatic city.
The collection from the Middle Ages documents the history of Magdeburg through a particularly wide variety of original objects that have been added to the collection as a result of systematic excavations in the city centre. Ceramics, glass, leather goods, as well as objects made of wood, bone and bronze tell us about everyday life in the medieval city. Outstanding individual finds illustrate the high social status of the upper classes. The collection is particularly important because the relevant archival sources for the history of medieval Magdeburg were decimated by the city’s destruction in 1631 and 1945. The small bronze objects from the 12th-century Magdeburg foundry and the monuments of sophisticated everyday culture from the late Middle Ages are spectacular finds. The collections also include a manuscript of sayings from the famous Magdeburg lay judges‘ bench from the 14th/15th century and the armorial stone from the lay judges’ bench.
