The different sections of a full deed, taking them in order under the heads of Initial Protocol, Text and Final Protocol or Eschatocol, are as follows:—The initial protocol consists of the Invocation, the Superscription, the Address and the Salutation. 1. The The Invocation. Invocation, lending a character of sanctity to the proceedings, might be either verbal or symbolic. The verbal invocation consisted usually of some pious ejaculation, such as In nomine Dei, In nomine domini nostri Jesu Christi; from the 8th century, In nomine Sanctae et individuae Trinitatis; and later, In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. The symbolic form was usually the chrismon, or monogram composed of the Greek initials ΧΡ of the name of Christ. In the course of the 10th and 11th centuries this symbol came to be so scrawled that it had probably lost all meaning with the scribes. From the 9th century the letter C (initial of Christus) came gradually into use, and in German imperial diplomas it superseded the chrismon. Stenographic signs of the system known as Tironian notes were also sometimes added to this symbol down to the end of the 10th century, expressing such a phrase as Ante omnia Christus, or Christus, or Amen. From the Merovingian period, too, a cross was often used. The symbol gradually died out after the 12th century for general use, surviving only in notarial instruments The Superscription. and wills. 2. The Superscription (superscriptio, intitulatio) expressed the name and titles of the grantor or person issuing the deed. 3. The Address. As diplomas were originally in epistolary form the address was then a necessity. While in Merovingian deeds the old pattern was adhered The Address. to, in the Carolingian period the address was sometimes omitted. From the 8th century it was not considered necessary, and a distinction arose in the case of royal acts, those having the address being styled letters, and those omitting it, charters. The general form of address ran in phrase as Omnibus The Salutation. (or Universis) Christi fidelibus presentes litteras inspecturis. 4. The Salutation was expressed in such words as Salutem; Salutem et dilectionem; Salutem et apostolicam benedictionem, but it was not essential.
Then follows the text in five sections: the Preamble, the Notification, the Exposition, the Disposition and the Final Clauses. 5. The The Preamble. Preamble (prologus, arenga): an ornamental introduction generally composed of pious or moral sentiments, a prefatio ad captandam benevolentiam which facit ad ornamentum, degenerating into tiresome platitudes. It became stereotyped at an early age: in the 10th and 11th The Notification. centuries it was a most ornate performance; in the 12th century it was cut short; in the 13th century it died out. 6. The Notification (notificatio, promulgatio) was the publication of the purport of the deed introduced by The Exposition.
The Disposition.
The Final Clauses. such a phrase as notum sit, &c. 7. The Exposition set out the motives influencing the issue of the deed. 8. The Disposition described the object of the deed and the will and intention of the grantor. 9. The Final Clauses ensured the fulfilment of the terms of the deed; guarded against infringement, by comminatory anathemas and imprecations, not infrequently of a vehement description, or by penalties; guaranteed the validity of the deed; enumerated the formalities of subscription and execution; reserved rights, &c.
Next comes the final protocol or eschatocol comprising: the Date, the Appreciation, the Authentication. It was particularly in this portion of the deed that the varying practices of the several chanceries led to minute and intricate distinctions at The Date. different periods. 10. The Date. By the Roman law every act must be dated by the day and the year of execution. Yet in the middle ages, from the 9th to the 12th century, a large proportion of deeds bears no date. In the most ancient charters the date clause was frequently separated from the body of the deed and placed in an isolated position at the foot of the sheet. From the 12th century it commonly followed the text immediately. Certain classes of documents, such as decrees of councils, notarial deeds, &c., began with the date. The usual formula was data, datum, actum, factum, scriptum. In the Carolingian period a distinction grew up between datum and actum, the former applying to the time, the latter to the place, of date. In the papal chancery from an early period down to the 12th century the use of a double date prevailed, the first following the text and being inserted by the scribe when the deed was written (scriptum), the second being added at the foot of the deed on its execution (actum), by the chancellor or other high functionary. From the Roman custom of dating by the consular year arose the medieval practice of dating by the regnal year of emperor, king or pope. Special dates were sometimes employed, such as the year of some great historical event, battle, siege, pestilence, &c. 11. The Appreciation. The feliciter of the The Appreciation. Romans became the medieval feliciter in Domino, or In Dei nomine feliciter, or the more simple Deo gratias or the still more simple Amen, for the auspicious closing of a deed. In Merovingian and Carolingian diplomas it follows the date; in other cases it closes the text. In the greater papal bulls it appears in the form of a triple Amen. Benevalete was also employed as the appreciation in early deeds; but in Merovingian diplomas and in papal bulls this valedictory salutation becomes a mark of authentication, as will be noticed below. 12. The Authentication was a The Authentication. solemn proceeding which was discharged by more than one act. The most important was the subscription or subscriptions of the person or persons from whom the deed emanated. The laws of the late Roman empire required the subscriptions and the impressions of the signet seals of the parties and of the witnesses to the deed. The subscription (subscriptio) comprised the name, signature and description of the person signing. The impression of the signet (not the signature) was the signum, sometimes signaculum, rarely sigillum. The practice of subscribing with the autograph signature obtained in the early middle ages, as appears from early documents such as those of Ravenna. But from the 7th century it began to decline, and by the 12th century it had practically ceased. In Roman deeds an illiterate person affixed his mark, or signum manuale, which was attested. The cross being an easy form for a mark, it was very commonly used and naturally became connected with the Christian symbol. Hence, in course of time, it came to be attached very generally to subscriptions, autograph or otherwise. Great personages who were illiterate required something more elaborate than a common mark. Hence arose the use of the monogram, the caracter nominis, composed of the letters of the name. The emperor Justin, who could not write, made use of a monogram, as did also Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths. Those Merovingian kings, likewise, who were illiterate, had their individual monograms; and at length Charlemagne adopted the monogram as his regular form of signature. From his reign down to that of Philip the Fair the monogram was the recognized sign manual of the sovereigns of France (see [Autographs]). It was employed by the German emperors down to the reign of Maximilian I. The royal use of the monogram was naturally imitated by great officers and ecclesiastics. But another form of sign manual also arose out of the subscription. The closing word (usually subscripsi), written or abbreviated as sub., or ss. or s., was often finished off with flourishes and interlacings, sometimes accompanied with Tironian notes, the whole taking the shape of a domed structure to which the French have given the name of ruche or bee-hive. Thus in the early middle ages we have deeds authenticated by the subscription, usually autograph, giving the name and titles of the person executing, and stating the part taken by him in the deed, and closing with the subscripsi, often in shape of the ruche and constituting the signum manuale. If not autograph, the subscription might be impersonal in such form as signum (or signum manus) + N. In the Carolingian period, while phrases were constantly used in the body of the deed implying that it was executed by autograph subscription, it did not necessarily follow that such subscription was actually written in person. The ruche was also adopted by chancellors, notaries and scribes as their official mark. While autograph subscriptions continued to be employed, chiefly by ecclesiastics, down to the beginning of the 12th century, the monogram was perpetuated from the 10th century by the notaries. Their marks, simple at first, became so elaborate from the end of the 13th century that they found it necessary to add their names in ordinary writing, or also to employ a less complicated design. This was the commencement of the modern practice of writing the signature which first came into vogue in the 14th century.
To lend further weight and authority to the subscription, certain symbols and forms were added at different periods. Imitating, the corroborative Legi of the Byzantine quaestor and the Legimus of the Eastern emperors, the Frankish chancery in the West made use of the same form, notably in the reign of Charles the Bald, in some of whose diplomas the Legimus appears written in larger letters in red. The valedictory Benevalete, employed in early deeds as a form of The Benevalete. appreciation (see above), appears in Merovingian and in early Carolingian royal diplomas, and also in papal bulls, as an authenticating addition to the subscription. In the diplomas it was written in cursive letters in two lines, Bene valete, just to the right of the incision cut in the sheet to hold fast the seal, which sometimes even covered part of the word. In the most ancient papal bulls it was written by the pope himself at the foot of the deed. in two lines, generally in larger capital or uncial characters, placed between two crosses. From the beginning of the 11th century it became the fashion to link the letters; and, dating from the time of Leo IX., a.d. 1048-1054, the Benevalete was inscribed in form of a monogram. During Leo’s pontificate it was also accompanied with a flourish called the Komma, which was only an exaggeration of the mark of punctuation (periodus) which from the 9th to the 11th century closed the subscription and generally resembled the modern semicolon. Leo’s successors abandoned the Komma, but the monogrammatic Benevalete continued, invariable in form, but from time to time varying in size. In Leo IX.’s pontificate also was introduced the Rota. This sign, when it had received its final shape in the The Rota. 11th century, was in form of a wheel, composed of two concentric circles, in the space between which was written the motto or device of the pope (signum papae), usually a short sentence from one of the Psalms or some other portion of Scripture; preceded by a small cross, which the pontiff himself sometimes inscribed. The central space within the wheel was divided (by cross lines) into four quarters, the two upper ones being occupied by the names of the apostles St Peter and St Paul, and the two lower ones by the name of the pope. The Rota was placed on the left of the subscription, the monogrammatic Benevalete on the right. The two signs were likewise adopted by certain ecclesiastical chanceries and by feudal lords, particularly in the 12th century. From the same period also the Spanish and Portuguese monarchs adopted the Rota, the signo rodado, which is so conspicuous in the royal charters of the Peninsula.
Besides the subscription, an early auxiliary method of authentication was by the impression of the seal which, as noticed above, was required by the Roman law. But the general use of the signet gradually failed, and by the 7th century it Sealing. had ceased. Still it survived in the royal chanceries, and the sovereigns both of the Merovingian and of the Carolingian lines had their seals; and, in the 8th century, the mayors of the palace likewise. It is interesting to find instances of the use of antique intaglios for the purpose by some of them. In England too there is proof that the Mercian kings Offa and Coenwulf used seals, in imitation of the Frankish monarchs. In the 7th century, and still more so in the 8th and 9th centuries, the royal seals were of exaggerated size: the precursors of the great seals of the later sovereigns of western Europe. The waxen seals of the early diplomas were in all cases en placard: that is, they were attached to the face of the document and not suspended from it, being held in position by a cross-cut incision in the material, through which the wax was pressed and then flattened at the back. On the cessation of autograph signatures in subscriptions, the general use of seals revived, beginning in the 10th century and becoming the ordinary method of authentication from the 12th to the 15th century inclusive. Even when signatures had once again become universal, the seal continued to hold its place; and thus sealing is, to the present day, required for the legal execution of a deed. The attachment en placard was discontinued, as a general practice, in the middle of the 11th century; and seals thenceforward were, for the most part, suspended, leathern thongs being used at first, and afterwards silken and hempen cords or parchment labels. In documents of minor importance it was sometimes the custom to impress the seal or seals on one or more strips of the parchment of the deed itself, cut, but not entirely detached, from the lower margin, and left to hang loose. Besides waxen impressions of seals, impressions in metal, bearing a device on both faces, after the fashion of a coin, and suspended, were employed from an early period. The most widely known instances are the bullae attached to papal documents, generally of lead. The earliest surviving papal bulla is one of Pope Zacharias, a.d. 746, but earlier examples are known from drawings. The papal bulla was a disk of metal stamped on both sides. From the time of Boniface V. to Leo IV., a.d. 617-855, the name of the pontiff, in the genitive case, was impressed on the obverse, and his title as pope on the reverse, e.g. Bonifati/ papae. After that period, for some time, the name was inscribed in a circle round a central ornament. Other variations followed; but at length in the pontificate of Paschal II., a.d. 1099, the bulla took the form which it afterwards retained: on the obverse, the heads of the apostles St Peter and St Paul; on the reverse, the pope’s name, title and number in succession. In the period of time between his election and consecration, the pope made use of the half-bull, that is, the obverse only was impressed. It should be mentioned that, in order to conform to modern conditions and for convenience of despatch through the post, Leo XII., in 1878, substituted for the leaden bulla a red ink stamp bearing the heads of the two apostles with the name of the pope inscribed as a legend.
The Carolingian monarchs also used metal bullae. None of Charlemagne’s have survived, but there are still extant leaden examples of Charles the Bald. The use of lead was not persisted in either in the chancery of France or in that of Germany. Golden bullae were employed on special occasions by both popes and temporal monarchs; for example, they were attached to the confirmations of the elections of the emperors in the 12th and 13th centuries; the bull of Leo X. conferring the title of Defender of the Faith on Henry VIII. in 1524, and the deed of alliance between Henry and Francis I. in 1527, had golden bullae; and other examples could be cited. But lead has always been the common metal to be thus employed. In the southern countries of Europe, where the warmth of the climate renders wax an undesirable material, leaden bullae have been in ordinary use, not only in Italy but also in the Peninsula, in southern France, and in the Latin East (see [Seals]).
The necessity of conforming to exact phraseology in diplomas and of observing regularity in expressing formulas naturally led to the compilation of formularies. From the early middle ages the art of composition, not only of charters but also of Formularies. general correspondence, was commonly taught in the monasteries. The teacher was the dictator, his method of teaching was described by the verb dictare, and his teaching was dictamen or the ars dictaminis. For the use of these monastic schools, formularies and manuals comprising formulas and models for the composition of the various acts and documents soon became indispensable. At a later stage such formularies developed into the models and treatises for epistolary style which have had their imitations even in modern times. The widespread use of the formularies had the advantage of imposing a certain degree of uniformity on the phrasing of documents of the western nations of Europe. Those compilations which are of an earlier period than the 11th century have been systematically examined and are published; those of more recent date still remain to be thoroughly edited. The early formularies are of the simpler kind, being collections of formulas without dissertation. The Formulae Marculfi, compiled by the monk Marculf about the year 650, was the most important work of this nature of the Merovingian period and became the official formulary of the time; and it continued in use in a revised edition in the early Carolingian chancery. Of the same period there are extant formularies compiled at various centres, such as Angers, Tours, Bourges, Sens, Reichenau, St Gall, Salzburg, Passau, Regensburg, Cordova, &c. (see Giry, Manuel de diplomatique, pp. 482-488). The Liber diurnus Romanorum Pontificum was compiled in the 7th and 8th centuries, and was employed in the papal chancery to the end of the 11th century. Of the more developed treatises and manuals of epistolary rhetoric which succeeded, and which originated in Italy, the earliest example was the Breviarium de dictamine of the monk Alberic of Monte Cassino, compiled about the year 1075. Another well-known work, the Rationes dictandi, is also attributed to the same author. Of later date was the Ars dictaminis of Bernard of Chartres of the 12th century. Among special works on formularies are: E. de Rozière, Recueil général des formules usitées dans l’empire des Francs (3 vols., Paris, 1861-1871); K. Zeumer, Formulae Merovingici et Karolini aevi (Hanover, 1886); and L. Rockinger, Briefsteller und Formelbücher des 11 bis. 14 Jahrhunderts (Munich, 1863-1864).
Organization.—The formalities observed by the different chanceries of medieval Europe, which are to be learned from a study of the documents issued by them, are so varied and often so minute, that it is impossible to give a full account of them within the limits of the present article. We can only state some of the results of the investigations of students of diplomatic.
The chancery which stands first and foremost is the papal chancery. On account of its antiquity and of its steady development, it has served as a model for the other chanceries of Europe. Organized in remote times, it adopted for Papal Chancery. the structure of its letters a number of formulas and rules which developed and became more and more fixed and precise from century to century. The Apostolic court being organized from the first on the model of the Roman imperial court, the early pontiffs would naturally have collected their archives, as the emperors had done, into scrinia. Pope Julius I., a.d. 337-353, reorganized the papal archives under an official schola notariorum, at the head of which was a primicerius notariorum. Pope Damasus, a.d. 366-384, built a record office at the Lateran, archivium sanctae Romanae ecclesiae, where the archives were kept and registers of them compiled. The collection and orderly arrangement of the archives provided material for the establishment of regular diplomatic usages, and the science of formulae naturally followed.
For the study of papal documents four periods have been defined, each successive period being distinguished from its predecessor by some particular development of forms and procedure. The first period is reckoned from the earliest times to the accession of Leo IX., a.d. 1048. For almost the whole of the first eight centuries no original papal documents have survived. But copies are found in canonical works and registers, many of them false, and others probably not transcribed in full or in the original words; but still of use, as showing the growth of formulas. The earliest original document is a fragment of a letter of Adrian I., a.d. 788. From that date there is a series, but the documents are rare to the beginning of the 11th century, all down to that period being written on papyrus. The latest existing papyrus document in France is one of Sergius IV., a.d. 1011; in Germany, one of Benedict VIII., a.d. 1022. The earliest document on vellum is one of John XVIII., a.d. 1005. The nomenclature of papal documents even at an early period is rather wide. In their earliest form they are Letters, called in the documents themselves, litterae, epistola, pagina, scriptum, sometimes decretum. A classification, generally accepted, divides them into: 1. Letters or Epistles: the ordinary acts of correspondence with persons of all ranks and orders; including constitutions (a later term) or decisions in matters of faith and discipline, and encyclicals giving directions to bishops of the whole church or of individual countries. 2. Decrees, being letters promulgated by the popes of their own motion. 3. Decretals, decisions on points of ecclesiastical administration or discipline. 4. Rescripts (called in the originals preceptum, auctoritas, privilegium), granting requests to petitioners. But writers differ in their terms, and such subdivisions must be more or less arbitrary. The comprehensive term “bull” (the name of the leaden papal seal, bulla, being transferred to the document) did not come into use until the 13th century.