Latin forms

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Leo van de Pas

Latin forms

Legg inn av Leo van de Pas » 11 des 2005 03:24:01

The post from Chris Phillips in response to yours is not correct.

He is confusing different types of documents. Notifications and
confirmations of gifts are more common in surviving records than are
actual charters transacting the gifts. The usual formula for notificiation
is along the lines of "ego Conanus dux....dedi et presenti carta
confirmavi..." (I, Duke Conan...have given and by this charter have
confirmed...), from EYC 4 #33, page 39.

Another common formula for notifications is "Notum sit uobis me
concessisse et dedisse..." (Be it known to you that I have transferred and
given...), as in Duke Conan's confirmation #35 on page 40 of EYC 4.

The usual formula for an actual donation is exemplified in Count Stephen's
charter #4, page 4 in the same EYC volume, "ego subscriptas terras abbatie
sancte Marie Eboraci...dono" (I give the lands detailed below to the abbey
of St Mary, York).

Count Roger of La Marche (not "of Poitou") might have formalised his gift
in any or all of these ways, but he would have done so in the first person
whether in the present or perfect tense, or using the perfect infinitive.
He would not have used the third person, as "dedit" or "donavit" in the
charter under discussion by the newsgroup.

By the way, his byname "Pictavinus" or "Pictavensis" was used in the same
way as "Cimbricus" (the Welshman) for his brother Arnulf who became lord
or earl of Pembroke in Wales. No-one would have called him "Arnulf lord of
Wales", and he would not have subscribed a charter using such a weird
title. Equally, it is not credible that Count Roger would have subscribed
the ill-drafted charter as compiled by monks at St Mary's in Lancaster
between 1130 and 1150, misappropriating the title "count of Poitou". The
earlier records of his gift printed by Kathlees Thompson described him
carefully and correctly as "Rogerius comes cognomine pictavensis" (Count
Roger bynamed the Poitevin). This distinction had evidently been forgotten
at St Mary's before the later document was cobbled together ommitting
"cognomine" so that he was mistitled "Rogerius Comes Pictavensis".

Anyone who has studied Plantagenet ancestry ought to know that the only
"count of Poitou" in 1094 was Eleonore of Aquitaine's grandfather, whose
fame certainly extended to Normandy at that time but apparently not to
Lancashire some 36-56 years later.

Chris Phillips

Re: Latin forms

Legg inn av Chris Phillips » 11 des 2005 11:55:54

Leo van de Pas wrote:
The post from Chris Phillips in response to yours is not correct.

He is confusing different types of documents. Notifications and
confirmations of gifts are more common in surviving records than are
actual charters transacting the gifts. The usual formula for
notificiation
is along the lines of "ego Conanus dux....dedi et presenti carta
confirmavi..." (I, Duke Conan...have given and by this charter have
confirmed...), from EYC 4 #33, page 39.


Please thank your anonymous correspondent for his comments, but I was not
being quite as naive as he suggests.

The point is that in this period is was extremely rare for a gift of land to
be made by the charter itself. The normal procedure was for seisin to be
delivered by handing over a physical object, and then for the gift to be
recorded in writing by a charter. Technically speaking, the charter was a
confirmation, and therefore written in the past tense.

Chris Phillips

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