Repertorium Academicum Helveticum

The Repertorium Academicum Helveticum (RAH) is a Digital History project on the cultural significance of Swiss university visitors in the European knowledge area 1350-1550. Ever since there have been universities in Europe (Paris and Bologna around 1200), taught knowledge has met with experiential and everyday knowledge. From the very beginning, the territory of present-day Switzerland has also been involved in this process of competition and exchange between knowledge carriers, increasingly so since the founding of the University of Basel in 1460. The project therefore concerns a group of people that can hardly be overestimated in assessing the role of the university, education and science in political and social life. The aim is to describe and interpret the history of the impact of Swiss university visitors in pre-modern European society. Here, too, the aim is to transform data into information and information into knowledge.


Places of origin of the 5000 students at the University of Basel 1460-1550 (Source: RAH). The University of Basel was by far the most frequented university by students from the Old Confederation.