Before a consideration of the evidence on English activity in Cologne, we must say a few words concerning the inheritance and property-holding customs of the city during the Central Middle Ages. An understanding of these customs will make much more intelligible the subsequent prosopographical studies of English families in Cologne, and of the Cologne families that pursued activities in England.

Evidence for the economic and social life of Cologne is contained in the voluminous collection of folios known as the Schreinsurkunden. Begun in the early twelfth century, these municipal documents were originally a collection of entries on individual leaves of parchment (Schreinskarten), which were then replaced sometime between the years 1220 and 1240 by large codices (Schreinsbücher). The entries on these folios contain transactions concerning landed property such as the sale, conveyance, and mortgaging of houses and parcels of land, the distribution of inheritances, and bequests of such properties to religious houses. In addition there are contracts concerning rents, easements, property settlements, dowries, legacies, testaments, gifts, and transfers of property between family members. This rich source of information not only allows the geographical plotting of a family's properties in the city, but also the prosopographical reconstruction of entire families and their social and economic connections.

Originally the Schreinsurkunden served only as an additional witness to transactions which were enforced by the memory of those who participated in the affair.