'Private' Charter

The heading is taken from the poem by Henry Reed (1914-86), first published in The New Statesman in 1942. Here the application is not to a rifle (uel sim.), but to a standard royal diploma of the mid-tenth century. There are some brilliant parodies of Reed's poem; submissions are invited for one based on the parts of a royal diploma.

The component parts of a 'standard' tenth-century royal diploma

The great majority of extant royal diplomas, in Latin, were intended to serve as title-deeds for particular pieces of 'bookland', as specified in the boundary-clause. A diploma is made up of a number of separate elements, each of which serves a particular purpose.

On the FACE of the single sheet

  • Pictorial invocation (a device in the top-left corner, such as a cross, chrismon, alpha-omega), indicating a context within the Christian order
  • Verbal invocation (formula), achieving the same purpose in words
  • Proem (formula), also known as the arenga (whence 'harangue'), setting out, at some length, the pious considerations which lie behind the king's act 
  • Exposition (formulaic), linking the proem to the dispositive section
  • Dispositive section (formulaic), also known as the 'business section', because it represents the part of the diploma which sets out the details of the act, and constitutes the grant
    • superscription, naming the king (as grantor) and according him a royal style (reflecting the scribe's perception of the king's status)
    • notification clause (unusual; perhaps reflecting the influence of the writ, or of other diplomatic forms, and found in several charters c. 1000)
    • operative details (hidage, name of place, name of beneficiary)
    • dispositive word or clause (generally in the present tense)
    • record of payment (unusual)
    • statement of powers (during the beneficiary's lifetime, and with power of alienation after his or her death)
    • immunity clause (the land to be free from worldly burdens)
    • appurtenances (with woods, pastures, etc.)
    • reservation clause (with reference to the military burdens of army service, bridge-work and fortress-work, sometimes referred to as the 'common burdens' or the trinoda [for trimoda] necessitas)
  • Blessing (uncommon), promising eternal reward for those who support the charter
  • Prohibition clause (uncommon), forbidding anyone to challenge the terms of the charter 
  • Sanction (formula, often beginning 'Si quis …'), also known as the anathema, or as the commination, or as the curse, threatening religious penalties (eternal damnation, etc.) on anyone who challenges the diploma
  • Boundary-clause (from a survey produced locally), introduced with a short formula in Latin, but itself invariably in the vernacular 
  • Dating-clause (formulaic)
    • Anno Domini (the year)
    • indiction (the year's place in a fifteen-year cycle), read from an Easter Table
    • epacts and concurrents (rare), read from an Easter Table
    • regnal year (rare), calculated from accession or coronation
    • day of the month (rare)
    • age of the moon (rare), calculated from a computus
    • place of issue (unusual)
  • Witness-list (for which names were drawn from a memorandum of those present at a royal assembly), comprising multiple subscriptions or attestations, made up in each case of an initial cross (almost invariably non-autograph), the name, and a style or formula of attestation. A sense of hierarchy is observed in the organisation of the witness-list as a whole, and appears to extend (roughly) to the order in which the bishops, abbots, ealdormen and thegns are listed within their respective groups.
    • King (rex)
    • Archbishops (archiepiscopus)
    • Bishops (episcopus)
    • Abbots (abbas)
    • Ealdormen (dux)
    • Thegns (minister)

On the DORSE of the single sheet

  • (Primary) Endorsement (contemporary), invariably added after folding; sometimes used as a rubric in a cartulary copy
  • (Secondary) endorsements (rare, reflecting secondary use of the charter in its single-sheet form)
  • Later endorsements (archival, etc.)

Wrapping-tie (occasionally seen on single sheets, made by cutting a strip from the lower edge of the sheet of parchment).

Note. Several charters of King Æthelred issued in the 990s and 1000s incorporate a narrative explaining how the land concerned had been forfeited to the king by judicial process, and had thus become the king's property, which could be given to another party. Other charters of the same period become more discursive, and less rigidly formulaic, when explaining the circumstances of the act in question. 

 

Page maintained by SDK

October 2011