wolfgang sellert approximately 70.000-80.000 judicial documents – is completely unknown.52 A preliminary and limited insight is given by the documents which have now been made available.53 In these, among the 7,865 cases there are only about 250 in which theRHRsubmitted avotum ad imperatorem, an astonishingly small number of just around 3%. If one ignores the rare cases in which the RHRhad to submit a votum ad imperatoremdue to differentiating opinions among the judges54 and one leaves out thegratialia politica,55 which did not belong to the “actual judiciary” thus about 50 imperial cases of pardoning and privileging, there remain only around 200 cases in which theRHRproduced an assessment. These involved topics such as religious disputes,56 breaches of the peace57 and treason cases,58 conflicts concerning the emperor’s subjects,59 the purchase of weapons,60 and compulsory living quarters for soldiers.61 Further cases included disputes about imperial fiefdoms,62 the legal status of imperial cities,63 imperial rights,64 the sequestration of principalities65 or commercial issues of general significance.66 51 Gschließer, Oswald von 1942 p. 19. 52 The collection of thevota ad imperatorem(ÖStA HHStA, RHR, Vota), stored in 66 boxes in Viennas Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, comprises 1251 documents; see Bittner, Ludwig 1936 p. 304 f. The assessments date back from approximately 1600 to 1806. Leyers, Peter 1976, closely inspected 50 of these from the reign of Emperor Joseph II. (pp. 110-233). Apart from this, among the judicial documents there is an unknown quantity of more vota to date. The votes like the Relationen were stored separately, for reasons of secrecy; see Sellert, Wolfgang 1986 pp. 97-113; also Leyers, Peter 1976 pp. 199-201. Despite the secrecy requirements, some of the vota were published by Bergsträßer, Heinrich Wilhelm 17921795 and Moser, Friedrich Carl 1752-1769. 53 See supra fn. 6. 54 See supra fn. 43. 55 Leyers, Peter 1976 pp. 180-184. 56 APAvol. 1 no. 60; APAvol. 2 no. 1174; APAvol. 4 no. 4087; Antiqua vol. 2 no. 778. 57 APAvol. 1 no. 272; APAvol. 3 no. 3335; APAvol. 4 no. 4009; Antiqua vol. 1 no. 211. 58 Antiqua vol. 1 no. 97. 59 APAvol. 1 no. 35, 496 and 925; APAvol. 2 no. 1401 and 1890; APAvol. 3 no. 3361. 60 Antiqua vol. 1 no. 243. 61 Antiqua vol. 1 no. 250; APAvol. 2 no. 460, 466 and 485. 62 APAvol. 2 no. 2044; Antiqua vol. 1 no. 642; Antiqua vol. 2 no. 20. 63 Antiqua vol. 1 no 265; Antiqua vol. 2 no. 302 and 482. 64 Antiqua vol. 1 no. 359. 65 Antiqua vol. 2 no. 370. Also in the assessments evaluated by Leyers, Peter 1976 they deal almost entirely with the interests of emperor and empire. In the documents now accessed 65
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