how legal actions can end appropriate to search for the source of corresponding practices at their presumed place of origin. Because parties from all parts of the Empire turned to the Imperial Chamber Court, the analysis of legal actions pending there can best guarantee that statements on customary practice do not merely relate to aparticular place or a particular area. To counter such concentration, the study is based on four file portfolios whose provenance covers larger parts of the Empire. This territorial orientation helps the study to overcome the uncertainty of not just having revealed regional particularities. The review of the inventory volumes on the files of the Imperial Chamber Court shows a total of 21 legal actions for the portfolios of Hamburg, Cologne,12 Lübeck and Stuttgart, where the pending legal dispute ended formally, but without final judgment.13 All causae contain a reference to arenunciatio. In early modern legal literature, it is described as a procedural act by which a party dissociated itself from the lawsuit or cancelled the legal dispute.14 The renunciation clauses had their Lück, Heiner 2012 columns 77-84 and Nehlsen-van Stryck, Karin 2012 columns 178-192, here column 186. 12 As regards the Cologne portfolio, one does depend for an unforeseeable period on the information provided in the inventory volumes –Reichskammergericht, Köln. Owing to the excellent analysis, however, the overview thus provided is very informative, as one of the here relevant legal actions shows. On this, seeContribution of the Imperial Chamber Court and other institutions or persons below. 13 Of these, five legal actions are from the Cologne portfolio (Stadtarchiv [hereinafter StadtA] Cologne, RKG, no. 813, 1736, 1759, 1781, 1856), eight from Hamburg (Staatsarchiv Hamburg [hereinafter StA HH], RKG, no. K28, M07, M50, P21, S 012, S018, S 020, W26), seven from Stuttgart (HStAStuttgart, C 3,fascicle nos. 2449, 3031, 3261, 3635, 3797, 4924, 4671) and one legal action is from Lübeck (StadtA Lübeck, RKG, no. 13/M08). Of course, it must be considered that there might be a certain number of unreported relevant proceedings, which were not keyword-indexed when the inventories were compiled. 14 The works are regularly subdivided into court waivers and out-of-court waivers, with the latter group particularly explaining the rights which could be waived: Inter alia Schröter, Ernst Friedrich von 1674; Berger, Johann Heinrich 1687; Schröter, Johann Christian – Schmid, Christoph Konrad 1693; Schilter, Johann 1701/1702 (containing treatises of various authors: Giphani, Hubert De Renunciationibus, Argentorati [=Straßburg] 1701; Dalner, Andreas Tractatus de variorum juriumRenunciationibus, Argentorati [=Straßburg] 1701; Breulaeum, HeinrichDe Renunciandi recepto more modoque, Argentorati [=Straßburg] 1701; Kellenbenz, Bartholomaeus De Renunciatione successionum, Argentorati [=Straßburg] 1701); Schweder, Gabriel 1703. Only occasionally was the procedural action limited to the declaration that it was not intended to take up or continue the trial commenced by one’s ancestors: Zedler, Johann Heinrich column 685-686, see also individual notes in Speer, Heino (rev.) 1992-1996, co80
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