The Repertorium Academicum Germanicum (RAG) and the Geography of German Universities and Academics (1350-1550)

Using material on a famous scholar from the University of Heidelberg, this chapter presents the Repertorium Academicum Germanicum (RAG, www.rag-online.org), a prosopographic database providing CVs for the estimated 60,000 scholars active in knowledge-based societies within the territory of the Holy Roman Empire between 1250 and 1550. “Academics” are defined as persons who earned at least either the degree of magister artium from the Arts Faculty of any university in Europe or the bachelor’s, licentiate, or doctor’s degrees from one of the higher faculties (law, medicine, or theology). The concept includes persons such as noblemen who completed a course of study in one of the higher faculties without graduating. The chapter also presents a web-based geographical who’s who of scholars—the Gelehrtenatlas—an emerging information system for analyzing and cartographically mapping the mobility of academics in and around the catchment areas of their universities and the areas of their subsequent professional development