Cartulary

Michael Clanchy defines a cartulary as "a collection of title deeds copied into a register for greater security".[2]

A cartulary may take the form of a book or a codex. Documents, chronicles or other kinds of handwritten texts were compiled, transcribed or copied into the cartulary.

In the introduction to the book Les Cartulaires, it is argued that in the contemporary diplomatic world it was common to provide a strict definition as the organized, selective, or exhaustive transcription of diplomatic records, made by the owner of them or by the producer of the archive where the documents are preserved.[3]

In the Dictionary of Archival Terminology a cartulary is defined as "a register, usually in volume form, of copies of charters, title deeds, grants of privileges and other documents of significance belonging to a person, family or institution".[4] In 1938, the French historian, Emile Lesne, wrote: "Every Cartulary is the testimony of the statement of the Archives in a Church at the time when it was compiled".[5]

Related terms in other languages are: cartularium (Latin); Kopiar, Kopialbuch (German), Chartular (Oes.); cartolario, cartulario, cartario (Italian); cartulario (Spanish).

In medieval Normandy, a type of cartulary was common from the early 11th century that combined a record of gifts to the monastery with a short narrative. These works are known as pancartes.[6]

The allusion of Gregory of Tours to chartarum tomi in the 6th century is commonly taken to refer to cartularies. The oldest surviving cartularies, however, originated in the 10th century.[7] Those from the 10th to the 13th centuries are very numerous.

Cartularies frequently contain historical texts, known as cartulary chronicles, which may focus on the history of the monastery whose legal documents it accompanies, or may be a more general history of the world. This link between legal and historical writings has to be understood in the context of the importance of past events for establishing legal precedence.[8]

Sometimes the copyist of the cartulary reproduced the original documents with literal exactness. On the other hand, some copyists took liberties with the text, including modifying the phraseology, modernizing proper names of persons and places, and even changing the substance, so as to extend the scope of the privileges or immunities granted in the document. The value of a cartulary as a historical document depends not only on how faithfully it reproduces the substance of the original, but also, if edited, on the clues it contains to the motivation for those changes. These questions are generally the subject of scrutiny under well-known canons of historical criticism.

Many cartularies of medieval monasteries and churches have been published, more or less completely. A listing of all known medieval cartularies of the British Isles, edited by Godfrey Davis, was published in 1958, and republished in a heavily revised and extended edition in 2010: the revised edition contains entries for about 2,000 cartularies, including those of both ecclesiastical establishments and secular corporations, dating from the 11th to 16th centuries, with details of dates, provenance, current location, and (where appropriate) publication.[9] The Catalogue général des cartulaires des archives départementales (Paris, 1847) and the Inventaire des cartulaires etc. (Paris, 1878–9) were the chief sources of information regarding the cartularies of medieval France. There may be more recent developments in cataloguing.

• Cartularies of Valpuesta, two medieval cartularies from the north of Spain.
• Hemming's Cartulary, two cartularies bound together, the Liber Wigorniensis, made in England around the year 1000, and a second compiled by Hemming about a hundred years later. It is now in the British Library.
• Cartulary of Windsheim, O.E.S.A. made in Windsheim in Germany between 1421 and 1462.[10]
• Supetar cartulary, a twelfth-century cartulary of the monastery of St Peter in Poljice, near Split in Croatia
• Cartulario de Óvila, of the monastery Santa María de Óvila[11]
• Liber feudorum maior, a twelfth-century cartulary of the Crown of Aragon
• Liber feudorum formae minoris, an early thirteenth-century continuation of the Liber feudorum maior
• Liber instrumentorum memorialium, an early thirteenth-century cartulary of the Lords of Montpellier
• Liber instrumentorum vicecomitalium, also called the Trencavel Cartulary and the Foix Cartulary, a thirteenth-century French collection
• Liber feudorum Ceritaniae, a thirteenth-century cartulary of the County of Cerdanya
• The Tropenell Cartulary, from the west of England estates of Thomas Tropenell, 15th century
• Chartularium Sithiense or Abbey of Saint Bertin's cartulary, written in Latin and whose first part is attributed to Folquin (or Saint Folquin, died 14 December 855 in Esquelbeques)
• The Register of St Osmund, a 13th-century cartulary belonging to Salisbury Cathedral.
• Textus Roffensis (c. 1123), the first part is a collection of primarily secular documents written in Old English, whilst the second part is the cartulary of Rochester Cathedral written in Latin.

The late Roman/Byzantine chartoularios was an administrative and fiscal official. In the Greek Orthodox Church, the corresponding position was called chartophylax. This title was also given to an ancient officer in the Roman Church, who had the care of charters and papers relating to public affairs. The chartulary presided in ecclesiastical judgments, in lieu of the Pope.

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "The Catholic Encyclopedia: And International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chambers, Ephraim, ed. (1728). "Cyclopædia, or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences". Cyclopædia, or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences (1st ed.). James and John Knapton, et al.
• Davis, G. R. C.; Breay, Claire; Harrison, Julian; Smith, David M., eds. (2010). Medieval Cartularies of Great Britain. London: British Library. ISBN 9780712350389.

• Códices Diplomáticos Hispánicos
• Cartularios Medievales
• Cartulary of Windsheim, O.E.S.A.
• Codice diplomatico della Lombardia Medievale (CDLM)