Description
Digital reproductions of documents from the Marburg photo-archive of older original deeds – DIGUB 2/II
The second volume of the DIGUB-subseries makes another 24 illustrations of papal deeds from the second half of the 11th century available. Thus, it shows the greater part of all 29 papal deeds of that time, now kept by German or Swiss archives, and table 3 preserves the copy of a document which burned during World War II.
This volume – containing apart from 20 privilegia, three litterae (tables 9–11), and one piece, whose classification is controversial (table 14) – reflects a period in the formal development of the papal deed characterized by a tremendous change, above all in the form of the privilegium, whose fundamental reshaping started at the beginning of the century and reached a first peak during the pontificate of Leo IX (1049–1054). This development continued during the second half and was finished only in the early 12th century, when the ceremonial privilegium got its final “balanced and splendid” shape as “a propaganda-poster of the papacy, which is … without equal during the Middle Ages” (Peter Rück). There is still a state of flux in the last decades of the 11th century – depending on the point of view a time of diversity or confusion. The here presented series of illustrations show this extensive change in the appearance of papal deeds.
Specialists, however, set papal litterae of the 11th century in the tradition of papal letters written in the early Middle Ages. From the 11th century there survived only a few copies; they appear more often in the 12th century, and finally they are the most widespread shape of papal deeds at all. Relevant examples in this portfolio go back to Alexander II: hemp-cord-letters (Litterae cum filo canapis), all three in a slightly horizontal format and in terms of design very plain. They have a plica and – except the seal – as only decoration an ornamented initial letter of Alexander’s name.
Library-Edition, cloth-binded portfolio – content identically equal to Study-Edition
2007, 32 tables, 10 pages – format: DIN A3 (29.7 cm x 42 cm), ill. black and white;
ISBN: 978-3-938533-14-7