DIPLOMATIC is the science of the critical study of official as opposed to literary sources of history ; that is to say, of charters, acts, treaties, contracts, judicial records, rolls, chartu laries, registers and kindred documents. The employment of the word "diploma" as a general term to designate an historical document is of comparatively recent date. It is a Greek word, meaning literally a doubled or folded sheet, and was used by the Romans to denote, first, a passport or licence to travel by the public post and, later, any imperial grant of privileges. It was applied by the humanists of the Renaissance to important deeds and acts of sovereign authority, to privileges granted by kings and by great personages and by degrees its significance became extended to embrace the documents of the middle ages in general. The study of such documents, when Latin was the universal language of scholarship, was called res diplomatica, which, when learned books began to be written in the vernacular, was trans lated into "diplomatic." History.—The first great text-book, the De re diplomatica, issued in 1681 by the learned Benedictine Dom Jean Mabillon, of the abbey of St. Germain-des-Pres, was called forth by an earlier work by Daniel van Papenbroeck, the editor of the Acta Sanctorum of the Bollandists, who, with no great knowledge of archives, undertook to criticize the historical value of ancient records and monastic documents, and cast wholesale doubt on their authenticity. Mabillon's refutation of Papenbroeck's criti cisms was complete, and was accepted by Papenbroeck himself. The De re diplomatica established the science on a secure basis; and, though its immediate result was a flood of controversy between the Benedictines and the Jesuits, it has been the founda tion of all subsequent works on the subject.
In Spain the Benedictine Perez published, in 1688, a series of dissertations following the line of Mabillon's work. In England Madox's Formulare Anglicanum (1 702) and Hickes's Linguarum septentrionalium thesaurus (1 705) both endorsed the principles laid down by the learned Frenchman. In Italy Maffei appeared with his Istoria diplomatica in 5727, and Muratori, in 1740, introduced dissertations on diplomatic into his great work, the Antiquitates Italicae. In Germany, the first diplomatic work of importance was that by Bessel, entitled Chronicon Gotwicense and issued in 1732.
France, however, the cradle of the science, has continued to be the home of its development. Mabillon had not taken cogni zance of documents later than the 13th century, but a more comprehensive work was compiled by two later Benedictines, Dom Toustain and Dom Tassin; viz., the Nouveau Traitgi de diplomatique, in six volumes, 1750-65, which embraced more than diplomatic proper and extended to all branches of Latin palaeography. Although the arrangement of this book is faulty, it contains a mass of valuable material, and more modern com pilers have made extensive use of it.
As a result of the Revolution, the archives of the middle ages lost in France their juridical and legal value ; but this rather tended to enhance their historical importance. The taste for historical literature revived. The Academie des Inscriptions fostered it. In 1821 the Ecole des Chartes was founded; and, though at first it did little, it received a further impetus in 182g by the issue of a royal ordinance re-establishing it. Thenceforth it has been an active centre for the teaching and encouragement of the study of diplomatic throughout the country, and has produced results which other nations may envy. In Germany and Austria there has also been a systematic'study of diplomatic archives, more or less with the support of the state ; nor has the science been neglected in Italy. In England a late start was made, but much has been done within recent years to make up for lost time. The publications of the Public Record Office and of the department of mss. in the British Museum are now very numerous and are issued more regularly than in former times. The publication and criticism of documents are functions of various learned societies; and there are lectureships in palae ography and diplomatic at several universities.
Under the category of private documents are included not only the deeds of individuals, but also those of corporate bodies repre senting private interests, such as municipal bodies and monastic foundations. The largest class of documents of this character is composed of conveyances of real property and other title deeds. These are commonly described by the genetic name of "charters," and are to be found in thousands, not only in the great public repositories, but also in the archives of municipal and other cor porate bodies throughout the country and in the muniment rooms of old families. There are also the records of the manorial courts preserved in countless court-rolls and registers ; while many scattered muniments of the dissolved monasteries represented by collections of charters and chartularies, or registers of charters, have fortunately survived and exist both in public and in private keeping.
The formalities observed by the different chanceries of medi aeval Europe, which are to be learned from a study of the docu ments 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.
For the study of papal documents four periods have been defined, each being distinguished 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. Io48. For almost the whole of the first eight centuries no original papal documents have survived. But copies are found in canonical works and reg isters, 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 formulae. The earliest original document is a fragment of a letter of Adrian I., A.D. 788. From that date there is a series, but documents are rare before the beginning of the I I th century, all of which exist, being written on papyrus. The latest existing papyrus document is dated A.D. 1022, the earliest on vellum A.D. mos. 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 : (I) Letters or Epistles : the ordinary acts of correspond ence with persons of all ranks and orders; including constitu tions (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), grant ing requests to petitioners. 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.
The second period of papal documents extends from Leo IX. to to the accession of Innocent III., A.D. Io48-1198. At the begin ning of the period formulae tended to take more definite shape and to become fixed; but it was under Urban II., A.D. Io88-99, that the principal formulae became stereotyped. The distinction be tween documents of lasting and those of transitory value became more exactly defined ; the former class being known as greater bulls, bullae majores (also called privilegia), the latter lesser bulls, bullae minores. The introduction of subscriptions of car dinals as witnesses to greater bulls had gradually become a prac tice. Under Victor II., A.D. the practice became more confirmed, and after the time of Innocent II., A.D. the subscriptions of the three orders were arranged according to rank, those of the cardinal-bishops being placed in the centre under the papal subscription, those of the priests on the left, and those of the deacons on the right.
By degrees the use of the lesser bulls almost entirely super seded that of the greater bulls, which became exceptional in the I 3th century and almost ceased after the migration to Avignon in 1309. In modern times the greater bulls occasionally reappear for very solemn acts, as bullae consistoriales, executed in the con sistory.
The third period of papal documents extends from Innocent III. to Eugenius IV., A.D. The pontificate of Innocent III. was a most important epoch in the history of the development of the papal chancery. Formulae became more exactly fixed, definitions more precise, the observation of rules and precedents more constant. The staff of the chancery was reorganized. The existing series of registers of papal documents was then com menced. The growing use of lesser bulls for the business of the papal court led to a further development in the 13th century.
They were now divided into two classes, tituli and mandamenta. The former conferred favours, promulgated precepts, judgments, decisions, etc. ; the latter comprised ordinances, commissions, etc., and were executive documents.
In the fourth period, extending from 143 r to the present time, the tituli and mandamenta have continued to be the ordinary documents in use; but certain other kinds have also arisen. Briefs (brevia), or apostolic letters, concerning the personal affairs of the Pope or the administration of the temporal dominion, or con ceding indulgences, came into general use in the 13th century in the pontificate of Eugenius IV. They are written in the italic hand on thin white vellum, and the name of the Pope with his style as papa is written at the head of the sheet ; e.g., Eugenius papa iiii. They are closed and sealed with the Seal of the Fisher man, sub anulo Piscatoris. Briefs have almost superseded the mandamenta.
In the Carolingian chancery the staff was exclusively eccle siastical; at its head was the chancellor, whose title it traced back to the cancellarius, or petty officer under the Roman Empire, stationed at the bar or lattice (cancelli) of the basilica or other law court and serving as usher. As keeper of the royal archives his subscription was indispensable for royal acts. The diplomas were drawn up by the notaries, an important body, upon whom devolved the duty of maintaining the formulae and traditions of the office. It has been observed that in the 9th century the docu ments were drawn carefully, but that in the loth century there was a great degeneration in this respect. Under the early Cape tian kings there was great confusion and want of uniformity in their diplomas, and it was not until the reign of Louis VI., A.D. that the formulae were again reduced to rules. The acts of the imperial chancery of Germany followed the patterns of the Carolingian diplomas, with little variation down to the reign of Frederick Barbarossa, A.D. 115 2-1190.
In early examples the dating clause gave the day and month (often according to the Roman calendar) and the year of the indiction; but the year of the Incarnation was also immediately adopted, and later the regnal year also. The subscriptions of the king and of the personages witnessing the deed, each preceded by a cross, but all written by the hand of the scribe, usually closed the charter. A peculiarity was the introduction in many instances, either in the body of the charter or in a separate paragraph at the end, of the boundaries of the land granted, written in the native tongue. The sovereigns of the several kingdoms of the Heptarchy, as well as those of the United Kingdom, usually styled themselves rex. But from the time of Aethelstan, A.D. 825-84o, they also assumed fantastic titles in the text of their charters, such as: rex et primicerius, rex et rector, gubernator et rector, monarchus and particularly the Greek basileus and basileus industrius. At the same time the name of Albion was also fre quently used for Britain.
A large number of documents of the Anglo-Saxon period, dat ing from the 7th century, has survived, both original and copies entered in chartularies. Of distinct documents there are nearly two hundred; but a large proportion of these must be set aside as copies (both contemporary and later) or as spurious deeds.
Although there is evidence of the use of seals by certain of the Mercian kings, the method of authentication of diplomas by seal impression was practically unknown to the Anglo-Saxon sovereigns, save only to Edward the Confessor, who, copying the custom which obtained upon the Continent, adopted the use of a great seal.
Immediately after the Norman Conquest of England the old tradition of the Anglo-Saxons disappeared. The Conqueror brought with him the practice of the Roman chancery, which naturally followed the Capetian model; and his diplomas of English origin differed only from those of Normandy by the addition of his new title, rex Anglorum, in the superscription. But even from the first there was a tendency to simplicity in the new English chancery, not improbably suggested by the brief formalities of Anglo-Saxon charters, and, side by side with the more formal royal diplomas, others of shorter form and less ceremony were issued, which by the reign of Henry II. had quite superseded the more solemn documents. By the reign of John these simpler forms had taken final shape, and from this time the acts of the kings of England have been classified under three heads; viz.: (I) Charters, generally of the pattern described above; (2) letters patent, in which the address is general, the king himself is his own witness, and the great seal is appended; (3) close letters, administrative documents conveying orders, the king witnessing.
The style of the English kings down to John was, with few exceptions, Rex Anglorum; thenceforward, Rex Angliae. Henry II. added the feudal titles, dux Normannoruin et Aquitanorum et comes Andegavorum, which Henry III. curtailed to dux Aqui taniae. John added the title dominus Hiberniae; Edward III., on claiming the crown of France, styled himself rex Angliae et Franciae, this title being borne by successive kings down to the year i8oi ; and Henry VIII., in 1521, assumed the title of fidei defensor. The formula Dei gratia does not consistently accom pany the royal title until the reign of Henry II., who adopted it in 1173.
The forms adopted in the royal chanceries were imitated in the composition of private deeds, which in all countries form the mass of material for historical and diplomatic research. The student of English diplomatic will soon remark how readily the private charters, especially conveyances of real property, fall into classes, and how stereotyped the phraseology and formulae of each class become, only modified from time to time by par ticular acts of legislation. The brevity of the early conveyances was maintained with only moderate growth through the i2th, i3th and i4th centuries. The different kinds of deeds must be learned by the student from the text-books, but a particular form of document which was especially in favour in England should be mentioned. This was the chirograph (Gr. xdp, a hand, 71)64€1.v, to write), which is found even in the Anglo-Saxon period, and which got its name from the word chirographum, cirographum or cyrographum being written in large letters at the head of the deed. At first the word was written, presumably, at the head of each of the two authentic copies which the two parties to a trans action would require. Then it became the habit to use the word as a tally, the two copies of the deed being written on one sheet, head to head, with the word between them, which was then cut through longitudinally in a straight, or more commonly waved or indented line, each of the two copies thus having half of the word at the head. Any other word, or a series of letters, might thus be employed for the same purpose. The chirograph was the precursor of the modern indenture, the commonest form of English deeds, though no longer a tally. In other countries, the notarial instrument has performed the functions which the chiro graph and indenture have discharged for us.