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| Paleography Exercises |
| Diploma of Charlemagne of AD 781 (Marburg, K. Preussisches Staatsarchiv). (All images from Steffens 1929, Plate 41 ) |
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| This diploma records a grant of land by Charlemagne to the abbey of Fulda. The script is Merovingian chancery script, a cramped and elongated script that is particularly difficult to read. While the subject of the grant is identified in the simplest terms as a field called Unofelt, the business is encased in rather florid and portentous language. The document incorporates a number of complex graphic elements which form part of the authentication. It would seem that it was more important to be able to validate the document with reference to this embedded code of signs than to actually read it. The document formerly bore the royal seal, evidently derived from the king's ring, on the lower right of the page, but this has vanished. |
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