Documents were written on a variety of material. In antiquity there were documents of stone, metal, wax, papyrus, and, occasionally, of parchment, but only papyrus and parchment (and, very occasionally, wax) were used during the Middle Ages. From the 12th to the 13th centuries, paper also was sometimes available. Papyrus, made from the stem of the papyrus plant, was produced mainly in Egypt; after the Arab conquest of Egypt in the 7th century, the import of papyrus to Europe became difficult. The Merovingian kings wrote their documents on papyrus until the second half of the 7th century, and the popes did so until far into the 11th century. North of the Alps papyrus had finally disappeared by the 8th century, when it was replaced by parchment. Parchment was made from animal hides and was thus easier to obtain. In southern Europe it was made mainly from sheep and goat hides; the insides of the skin were thoroughly smoothed and calcined, while the hairy sides were left rougher. In central and northern Europe, parchment was usually made from calves’ skins, and both sides of the hides were thoroughly smoothed and calcined. Paper came originally from China. During the 8th century ad, it spread to the Arab world and from thence to Byzantium, where it was manufactured from linen and was used from the 11th to the 13th centuries for imperial documents. After that time ordinary paper was used in the Byzantine Empire. In the West the use of paper, most common at first in southern Italy and Spain, had begun to spread by the beginning of the 12th century. Germany and southern France began to import paper from Spain and Italy in the 13th century, and soon afterward it had reached England by way of Bordeaux. But paper did not altogether replace parchment, which long remained in use, especially for solemn documents. The medium for writing was ink, generally a mixture of oak gall and copper vitriol. Originally black, ink made north of the Alps sometimes shows a reddish-brown hue, while that made in Italy may contain tinges of brown and yellow. Over the centuries most of these colours have lightened as a result of atmospheric conditions. The Byzantine emperors used purple ink for their signatures. This custom was occasionally taken over by the Lombard rulers of Italy and, later, by the Norman kings of Sicily. Another custom of Byzantine origin is the use of gold lettering.

Throughout the entire Roman Empire, the language used in documents was primarily Latin. Greek was also used, and, during the latter part of the 6th century ad, it slowly superseded Latin in the East. From then onward, Greek was the language of Byzantine documents until the end of the Byzantine Empire (1453). In the West, the collapse of the empire and the establishment of barbarian kingdoms led to a vulgarization of Latin, written as well as spoken.

Latin has always been used for papal documents and for most public and private charters, and it was used for international documents well into post-Renaissance times, until it was superseded by French as the language of diplomacy. In public and private documents, use of the vernacular alongside Latin gradually developed. Apart from its early and unique appearance in the documents of the Anglo-Saxons in England, no vernacular was used in charters before the 12th century. At the Norman Conquest (1066), use of Anglo-Saxon in English documents soon stopped, and no more vernacular was used there until some Norman French was introduced in the 13th century, and Middle English in the 15th century. There was an increasing use of the vernacular in Italian and French documents from the 12th century and in Germany from the 13th; but in medieval times Latin was never outstripped by the vernacular.

A correct assessment of the hand in which it was written is vital to ascertaining the provenance and authenticity of a document. Thus, the knowledge of paleography, different styles of ancient writing, is a skill essential to diplomatics. The broad basis of such knowledge begins with acquaintance with the general styles of writing current at particular times and places. This varied with the way the pen was held; whether the writing was cursive or had the letters formed separately; whether it was majuscule, all the letters being contained between a single pair of horizontal lines, or minuscule, with parts of the letters extending above and below the lines. There is a further distinction between what is called book hand and the business, or court, hand at one time used for documents.

In Europe the Roman capital letters, distinguished as rustic or square, uncial, and Roman majuscule and minuscule cursive, influenced all subsequent writing in the West. The Roman curial style (from the Curia, or papal court), used in the papal chancery until the 12th century, was a derivation of late Roman minuscule cursive. After the disintegration of the Western Empire, the Merovingian Franks used a Roman provincial script for their documents. Distinctive forms developed elsewhere, in Visigothic Spain and in Ireland. The Irish script, a half uncial (uncials are rounded letters) and a minuscule script, spread to Anglo-Saxon England and thence to the European continent. Under the Carolingian rulers, a particularly clear and attractive minuscule book hand (Caroline minuscule) was developed; modifications of this gradually became used in documents and eventually spread also to Italy, England, and Spain. A “Gothic,” more pointed form of script developed since the 11th century in northern France and soon spread all over Europe, so that writing became more spidery in appearance. In the early years of the Renaissance, Italian scholars such as Poggio (Poggio Bracciolini) and Niccolò Niccoli developed a minuscule based on the Carolingian, and variants of this style were used by the Venetian Aldus Manutius and other pioneers of printing.

Abbreviations were used in both documents and books. Again, their particular characteristics would contribute to a correct assessment of the probable date and provenance of a document. Roughly two types were used: the suspension, involving the writing of only the first letter or syllable of a word; and the contraction, used first for Hebrew and Christian sacred names, the writing of only the first and last letter or letters of a word or syllable. The Carolingians sometimes used Tironian notes, a form of shorthand devised by Tiro, a freedman of the Roman orator Cicero.

From Roman times the two most important methods of validating documents were by appending the signature or the seal of the sender or promulgator. The practice of using seals for this purpose (and not merely to close a document) was carried over from imperial usage and, by the 8th century, was current among the Lombards and other Germanic tribes in western Europe. Until about the 8th century, the signature of the Merovingian ruler or his delegate was also required for the validation of public documents, but thereafter the seal alone, together with the recognition by a high chancery official, was held sufficient, the king’s signature dwindling into a monogram or mere stroke (the “stroke of execution”). This change was probably accelerated because many medieval kings could not write. Thus, in England, King John sealed, and did not sign, the Magna Carta.

Seals were made of wax or of metal; if the latter, they were called bulls (hence, the use of this term for a certain group of papal documents). The Byzantine emperors used gold seals for their documents; Byzantine officials and ecclesiastics used lead and silver for their bulls. Papal seals were of lead or gold. Wax seals were increasingly used from about the 11th and 12th centuries, and wax was also used for the impression when, later, less formal documents were validated by use of the signet or privy seal. Seals could be two-sided, suspended from the document, or impressed upon it.

Form and content of documents

Normally, each document was divided into three distinct parts: the introduction (protocol), the main text (context), and the concluding formulas or final protocol. There were various subdivisions, and not all the parts here mentioned are necessarily found in every document. The introduction comprises, first, the invocation (invocatio) of God, either by name or through a symbol such as the cross; second, the superscription (intitulatio), giving the name and title of the sender; and third, the address (inscriptio), naming those to whom the document is directed, usually followed by a formula of greeting (salutatio). The actual text of the document can be divided into a number of parts. The first, known as the arenga, expresses in general terms the motive for the issue of the document. The notification (promulgatio), briefly explaining the legal purpose of the document, is followed by the narratio, or exposition of the particular circumstances involved. In the dispositio the donor or promulgator firmly declares his purpose (“I hereby decree” or “I hereby give”); this clause is the vital core of the document, its legal decree of enactment. There usually followed the sanctio, a threat of punishment should the enactment be violated. The main text concluded with the corroboratio, a statement of the means to be used for validation of the document. The final protocol consisted of subscriptions or lists of names of all those, such as the scribe, who took part in the issue of the document and of witnesses to the enactment. The date and place of issue are given, and the final sentence, the apprecatio, is a short prayer for the realization of the contents of the charter. At the bottom of the document, the signs of validation (the recognition, monogram, seal) were then added.

The date given on a document might be either that of legal enactment (actum) or that of the issue of the document recording the (already performed) legal enactment (datum). The form in which dates are given in a document is of particular import in determining its provenance and authenticity. A wide variety of practices were followed at different places and times. For instance, days of the month could be given according to the old Roman system of calends, ides, and nones; by continuous counting throughout the month; or by reference to a saint’s day. Years might be computed from the presumed time of the creation of the world; by the Roman indiction, a 15-year cycle; by the names of officiating Roman consuls; by regnal years of emperor, king, or pope; or from the birth of Christ. Moreover, there were also a variety of ways to determine when the year began.