Ricerc@Sapienza

The A. exploit the corpus of Carolingian diplomas (<851-860> -887) preserved by San Sisto monastery in Piacenza to tackle two major topics in the field of diplomatics: the status of the documentary tradition and the assessment of the authenticity of a chancery record, its legal function and value in relation to the legal system of the time. On the one hand, paleographic and diplomatic exegesis demonstrate that many doubtful charters, dating back to the 9th century, might reveal themselves genuines, originals or contemporary copies at most, and not falses as it has been sometimes argued. On the other hand, the same exegesis proves that in the 9th century, besides an imperial diploma 'ad substantiam' there were others written 'ad confirmationem'.