Historical Archive of the City of Cologne included copies of the protocols of the diets of the Hanseatic League. With the 1594 transfer, the Cologne archive became the most important repository of historical material concerning the Hanseatic League and thus concerning the history of Northern Germany in general, only matched by the municipal archives of Lübeck. On 27 February 1602, the city council ordered that books on jurisdiction and administration were to be systematically bought at the regularly held Frankfurt Book Fair. These were subsequently stored in the municipal archive and became the basis of the Cologne municipal library. The "Ratsbibliothek" was one of the few Cologne
History of the Jews in Cologne offices, and the Roman administration went into crisis and the emperor had to look for alternatives. It became necessary for the Cologne Council to use a decree of Emperor Constantine the Great of 321, which permitted Jews to be appointed to the "curia". This is the first evidence of the existence of a Jewish community in the town of Cologne. The emperor's decree was passed down in the "Codex Theodosianus" (439), which indicates the existence of a firmly established Jewish community in Cologne in 321 and 331. A partial translation of the "Codex" reads: "We allow all town councils to