From Charters to Codex

During recent decades, there has been a profound change in the way that researchers have read and interpreted the sources of the Middle Ages. This shift has prompted scholars to reconsider the historical value of the medieval cartularies. From Charters to Codex. Studies on Cartularies and Archival Memory in the Middle Ages features a selection of papers that were presented at the international conference on Cartularies in Medieval Europe: Texts and Contexts held by the Centre for Classical Studies at the University of Lisbon (11-12 June 2015).

This book focuses mainly on cartularies in the strict sense of the term, mostly produced within the ecclesiastical sphere. Moreover, some of the contributions presented here regard (or also regard) documentary collections in volume form that cannot be identified with the libri iurium et privilegiorum as traditionally understood, but were equally born out of the need to organise the parchment charters that formed the archives of their creators and to make them usable for a number of purposes. This volume, which approaches the topic through various case studies, will be of use not only to scholars who are engaged in the study of cartularies but also to researchers who are involved in the broader investigation of how and to what ends medieval institutions established and managed their archival memories.