Privaturkundenlehre I: Notarielle und kirchliche Urkunden

The so-called private deeds of the Middle Ages are historical sources of an immense quantity, spreading and variety, and precisely for this reason they are in many respects far more difficult to deal with than official documents (including papal documents). Despite of this (or perhaps exactly because of its difficulty) there does not exist an introductory survey of this important species of sources in recent times: the latest work of that kind in German dates from 1911, the latest in another language (and mainly concentrated on France) from 1948. Moreover those works are purely aimed at the historical development of charters (including use of charters); none of them contains instructions in methodology. This volume in hand unites the history of charters with a concise introduction to the science of (private) documentation in general, as the volume should also be usable in itself - on the other hand, and above all it also contains an introduction of how to work with documents and a collection of examples. In the history of charters the whole of the European Continent has been dealt with in a balanced way for the first time - as far as the Latin written culture goes, uniformally and under standardized points of view. This area covers to a high degree the present expansion of the European Union (including also Switzerland, Norway and Croatia, excluding Greece, Cyprus and Bulgary). The account reaches from the Roman heritage to the end of the 13th century; this space of time corresponds with the period of "pure" charter-documentation, contrary to that of the ancient world and the late Middle Ages in which other types of records and official books were more popular. The account at first concentrates on Central Europe, and here especially on notarial documents which developed in Mediterranean regions and later on spread to the north, and secondly deals with ecclesiastical documents. After presenting special solutions of mainly regional importance there follows a survey of the (many) peculiarities concerning the countries on the periphery of Latin Europe. The following practical part deals with the forms in which private documents can be handed down and with methodological principles of private document-criticism. Discussing current subjects of research belongs here as well. No comparable summary of that intensity has ever been existed so far, let alone its combination with a historical treatise. A collection of examples with 29 photos with transcriptions and comments makes the theoretical part come alive. Great emphasis has been put on covering up periods, areas, topics and typologies to such an extent as cannot be found likewise in a similar work.