A chancellery language as a way to the regulation of the German orthography

The article presents the graphematic analysis of the charter issued by Empress Maria Theresia in the 18th century. The analysis of the text, which was written in the Upper German, shows that the script displays language features characteristic of the New High German such as, for example, diphthongization, monophthongization, changes in vowel quantity,: lengthening and shortening, merger of phonemes (diphthongs) noticed in the spelling, apocopes and syncopes. This article is also an attempt to answer the question how far the spelling notices and reflects the speech in the evolving German language form the 18th century.