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IMC 2008: Sessions

Session 209: Problems and Possibilities of Early Medieval Diplomatic, I: Modes and Practices of Document Writing

Monday 7 July 2008, 14.15-15.45

Organiser:Jonathan Jarrett, Fitzwilliam Museum University of Cambridge 1 Lingholme Close CAMBRIDGE CB4 3HW
Moderator/Chair:Simon MacLean, Department of History, Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge
Paper 209-aModes of Writing Northern Iberian Charters in the 9th and 10th Centuries
(Language: English)
Wendy Davies, Department of History, University College London
Index terms: Archives and Sources, Charters and Diplomatics, Social History
Paper 209-bWriting Charters, Writing Books: Being a St Gall Scribe around 820
(Language: English)
Bernhard Zeller, Institut für Mittelalterforschung, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien
Index terms: Archives and Sources, Charters and Diplomatics, Monasticism
Paper 209-cSuperlatives in Anglo-Saxon Charters
(Language: English)
Alaric A. Trousdale, School of History, Classics & Archaeology, University of Edinburgh
Index terms: Charters and Diplomatics, Politics and Diplomacy
Abstract

Reopening questions on the uses and problems of charter evidence, this Problems and Possibilities session covers the composition and redaction of the documents themselves. Davies studies the use (or not) of formulas in charter redaction in early medieval Northern Spain and shows that style varied with the social status of transactors. Zeller shows how St Gallen monks took over charter production from non-monastic scribes as part of the reorganisation of writing in the monastery. Lastly Trousdale uses the rarity of the superlative voice in Anglo-Saxon royal charters to illustrate significances that its particular emphasis may have expressed in them.