Art. 47 para. 4 of the Constitution of the Canton of Schaffhausen stipulates that the cantonal authorities must permanently document and archive their actions in order to guarantee legal security. The tasks of the State Archives are derived from this requirement. They are regulated in detail in the Archive Ordinance. As the"memory of the canton of Schaffhause", the Schaffhausen State Archives are responsible for archiving documents of the cantonal offices and dependent institutions of the canton. It also takes over documents from the cantonal courts. As a historical archive, it also safeguards the records of the city-state of Schaffhausen up to 1830.