UCL - Diplomacy in the Middle Ages, including elements of chronology, sigillography and heraldry

[HIST2430]

[22.5h] 5 credits

This course is taught in the 1st semester.

Teacher(s): Jacques Pijcke

Language: French

Level: Second

Aims
Main themes
Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)

Aims

By the end of this course, students should be able to determine the validity of acts that seal or attest to covenants, laws or obligations; to scrutinize their constitutive parts or their arrangement; interpet their formulae and specific vocabulary and explain their elaboration. He will be able to date acts whose dating techniques diverged from modern practices. He will have made a first approach to decoding seals and coats of arms.

Main themes

The course should foster the primary objectives of the discipline. That being to class by category acts and related documents. Analyse their tradition, from the rough draft to the original and the various forms of copy. Scrutinize their constitutive parts and their arrangement. Interpret their formulae and their specific vocabulary. Explain their elaboration and, therefore, the organization of chancellories for public acts, ways of drawing up covenants for private acts and procedures for sending them. Determine, finally, the conditions for their validity and seriate the types of anomalies denouncing falsifications. It is obvious that one need progress in knowledge of sigillography, because seals authenticate so many medieval acts, and in knowledge of technical chronology, because dating techniques diverge from modern practices. Along the way, the course can widen perspectives. Study, for example, the system of evidence in medieval society. Penetrating motivations and gauging the skill of forgers. Uncover elements of ideology and factors of mentality buried in preambles, comminatory clauses and even the formulae of acts. Decode the manifold language of seals, where writing and imagery come together.

Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)

Prerequisites : Knowledge of Latin.