Wax, Salt, and Memory: The TabulaRasa Mission to Halle (Saale) and the Lehntafeln of the Halle Saltworks

On 18–19 May 2026, the ERC TabulaRasa project carried out a research mission to the Stadtarchiv Halle (Saale), in northern Germany, devoted to a remarkable and little-known corpus of wax tablet codices: the Lehntafeln of the Halle saltworks. The mission was led by Doris Oltrogge, together with Michele Cammarosano, and was made possible by the generous support of Ralf Jacob, Head of the Stadtarchiv Halle, with the kind assistance of Bettina Glatzer. Over two days, the team examined all nine wax tablet codices preserved at the archive, with the aim of gaining a first systematic overview of their material features, state of conservation, construction, and potential for further study.

The Halle Lehntafeln are extraordinary objects because they bring together two histories that are rarely seen so clearly in material form: the history of writing on wax tablets and the history of salt production in central Germany. Halle’s salt economy was based on brine drawn from four brine wells: Deutscher Born, Gutjahrbrunnen, Meteritz, and Hackeborn. The exploitation of these resources was entrusted to the Pfänner, the salt-pan operators, who held their rights as fiefs from the sovereign. These rights were hereditary and could also be sold, though only to citizens of Halle. Their holders’ names were recorded in wax tablet codices, which were updated in the context of a yearly ceremony known as the Lehntafel.

During this ceremony, the tenants appeared before the governor appointed by the sovereign, the city council, and the supervisors of the saltworks. They had to validate their claim to the fief, or prove that they had inherited or purchased it legitimately. If the claim was accepted, the fief was renewed and the scribe responsible for the well, the Bornschreiber, checked the relevant entry. When necessary, an old name could be erased from the wax and replaced by a new one. The medium was therefore not incidental. Wax made the record both durable and revisable: names could be written, checked, erased, and rewritten as rights passed from one person to another.

To prevent fraud, each well maintained three identical registers, kept in different locations: one in the house of the Brunnenmeister, the supervisor of the well; one in the main church; and one in the town hall. These codices were brought together only for the annual ceremony and updated in parallel. The most productive wells, Deutscher Born and Gutjahrbrunnen, had their own registers, while the smaller Meteritz and Hackeborn originally shared one. At any given time, this system required nine wax tablet codices: three for Deutscher Born, three for Gutjahrbrunnen, and three for Meteritz/Hackeborn.

The use of Lehntafeln is attested already in 1477, in the account of the Halle councillor Marcus Spittendorf. After the city’s defeat by Archbishop Ernst of Magdeburg, new Lehntafeln had to be made in 1479 and the tenants had to pay to be entered into them. The earliest references do not explicitly state whether these were wax tablets, but later evidence strongly suggests continuity with the wax tablet tradition. In 1528, a fully documented new series of nine tablets was produced because the old wax was no longer usable and the earlier codices had become too small and narrow for further writing.

The 1528 series is especially important because the accounts of the Pfännerschaft preserve detailed information about its production. The tablets were made in Leipzig by the clavichord maker Hans Müller, then sent to Halle, where the wax mixture was poured in and polished by another craftsman of the same name. They were then returned to Leipzig to be bound with cords and covered in dog-skin leather. The copies kept by the saltwork masters were stored in bags made of chamois leather. This is an unusually detailed glimpse into the manufacture of early modern wax tablet codices: woodwork, wax preparation, polishing, binding, leather covering, and storage all appear as distinct technical operations.

The surviving Halle material belongs to several later phases. According to the eighteenth-century historian Johann Christoph Dreyhaupt, the 1528 series remained in use until 1656, when it was replaced by a new series. In 1681, on the occasion of the accession of Elector Friedrich Wilhelm, four new tablets were added to each Lehntafel and the wax was renewed according to the recipe of the surgeon Schicketanz. Another renewal of the wax layer followed in 1712. In 1715, a new series introduced an experimental construction involving metal components. Finally, in 1768, yet another series was produced; from this point onward Hackeborn and Meteritz received separate registers, bringing the total number to twelve. The use of wax tablet codices for the ceremony ended in 1783.

The mission to Halle concentrated on the nine codices currently preserved in the Stadtarchiv, many of which were restored in 2012 and 2020. The goal was not yet to produce a definitive study, but to establish a first technical and codicological profile of the collection in preparation for future work within the project. The team examined dimensions, number of tablets, binding structures, wax surfaces, frame construction, restoration history, traces of reuse, corrosion, colour, decoration, and other features that will guide future documentation. The material proved exceptionally rich.

Two codices, C 58 and C 59, belong to the Gutjahrbrunnen series of 1656. They are similar in format, each containing thirteen tablets and measuring roughly 36 cm in height. Both have incised titles filled with blue paste and a quarter white-leather binding. Their pages are divided into two writing registers, with carefully constructed recessed frames. In C 58, the wax is particularly glossy, perhaps suggesting oil polishing, possibly in connection with Schicketanz’s recipe. The codex also preserves modern incisions from 1923, complete with exact dates. However casual these marks may be, they are significant: they show that even centuries after its administrative use, the wax could still receive writing.

The 1768 codices are represented by objects such as C 65 and C 66. C 66, connected with Hackeborn, is especially intriguing. Its leather covering with gold tooling is unrestored, the spine is loose, and older repairs are visible. On the spine and tablets, there is even an offset impression from a medieval manuscript in Textualis script. The wax recesses show cross-hatching (frequently present in wax tablets from all periods), the inner frame’s edges are coloured blue, and the edges of the tablets are painted black. Because the binding is loose, it was possible to observe evidence of reuse: the verso of the last tablet had once been the recto of the first, bearing an upside-down name and perhaps the faint remains of the date 1681, which may be relevant to the possible match with literary sources related to this very codex.

The 1715 series, to which codices C 60, C 61, C 62, C 63, and C 64 belong, presented further questions. The tablets of these codices have metal plates supporting the wax layer, an experimental design that earlier sources describe as having been too heavy when made in brass. Interestingly, the surviving codices examined in Halle do not show metal frames, but rather wooden frames combined with metal supports for the wax. This distinction is important and will need further investigation. It may reveal either a modification of the planned design or a more complex relationship between written sources and surviving objects.

Some of the 1715 codices remain unrestored, making them especially valuable as case studies for TabulaRasa. C 62 and C 63 preserve evidence that can help reconstruct original construction and later handling, though C 63 is difficult to manipulate and will require a dedicated documentation strategy. C 64 is now loose and stored in separate boxes; some tablets show strong corrosion traces on the metal plates. Its binding, with blind tooling, palmette roll, and gold tooling, is itself significant, especially because the decoration on the back cover appears upside down compared to the front cover. A close look to the content helps to understand this peculiarity: The volume is dedicated to two brine wells, Meteritz and Hackeborn, starting with the Pfänner of Meteritz. The tablets with names related to the Hackeborn well follow. When preparing the covers, the idea was obviously to turn these tablets upside down and start the Hackeborn sequence from the back cover. Such details can illuminate workshop practices, repairs, rebinding, and the afterlife of the objects.

The Halle mission also points toward broader questions. How long could wax surfaces remain usable? How were recipes adapted over time? Were older tablets from the 1528 series reused in later codices? How did the symbolic importance of the Lehntafel ceremony shape the material form of the codices, especially after the administrative reforms of the early eighteenth century reduced their legal role while increasing their ceremonial value? And how did early modern craftsmen reinterpret an ancient writing technology for a highly specific legal and economic context?

For TabulaRasa, the Halle Lehntafeln are especially significant because they show that wax tablets were not a static phenomenon. They survived, adapted, and acquired new meanings in medieval and modern Europe. In Halle, they were part of a living administrative practice tied to property, inheritance, urban identity, and the economics of salt which was so central to the city and its identity. These codices are at once records, ritual objects, technical artefacts, and witnesses to a long tradition of erasable writing.

The May 2026 mission was therefore a first but essential step. By examining all nine codices together, Oltrogge and Cammarosano established the basis for a future systematic study of the collection. Further work will need to include fuller measurements, detailed documentation, material analysis, comparison with surviving archival dossiers, study of wax recipes and restoration histories, and careful attention to the relationship between written sources and material evidence.

The Halle Lehntafeln remind us that the history of writing is not only the history of texts. It is also the history of surfaces that could be renewed, names that could be erased and restored, codices that could be rebound, tablets that could be reused, and ceremonies that gave written objects their authority. We very much look forward to the work ahead for better understanding these fascinating written artefacts and the incredibly complex tradition of which they were once part!

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