EDITORIAL TECHNIQUES

Without details of the type listed below, further progress cannot be made in elucidating the practices of the papal Chancery and of the individual scribes who composed this institution. For this reason, it is not satisfactory to reproduce the forms without the details. Nor are the previous editions, such as Rymer and Shirley, or those from cartulary or register sources, suitable for palaeographic and diplomatic study. Details, such as those of abbreviation, spelling, punctuation and form, may not always have immediate significance, but until such minutiae are provided for originals, further advances in the study of papal documents will remain limited.

None of the editions or calendars of these documents, with the exception of the Lambeth catalogue, gives the names of the scribes – a major piece of diplomatic and palaeographical evidence and one that has not been exploited. Hitherto it has been supposed that not every document was initialled or signed as early as this pontificate, but only one document has failed to reveal a siglum. Nor do any of the previous editions or calendars indicate line-breaks – information that can contribute towards the evidence necessary for building up the details of a particular hand. For example, in the case of the dating clause, the scribe was supposed to make the break, if it could not be avoided, before pontificatus, as can be seen correctly executed in the work of Iacobus and Otto (nos. 3, 4; 2, 18), so that the day and month appeared on one line.