|
Late Old English period
|
Late 11th-early 12th century |
After the early 12th century
|
A-S diploma
- purpose: dispositive of bookland or privileges
- language: Latin except boundary clause
- proem/preamble/arenga
- boundary clause (vernacular: OE)
- anathema
- signa/subscriptions
|
|
Charter
- purpose: evidentiary, but by the 13th century dispositive
- initially a written memorandum of a prior oral transaction
and thus evidentiary not dispositive,
but by the early thirteenth century probably fully dispositive
- language: Latin
- after the early twelfth century, devoid of principal forms of the A-S diploma:
for example, witnesses replaced signa/subscriptions and the charter was sealed.
|
|
Writ-charter with
hybrid diploma forms
- purpose: evidentiary of a prior oral transaction, probably not inherently
dispositive
- language: Latin
- hybrid diploma forms included: preamble to some extent; anathema to some extent;
signa/subscriptions instead of witnesses and seal(s)
- but note that only a small proportion of early twelfth-century writ-charters
had hybrid diploma forms
- Note also that the notification/address within the charter replaced the
writ
|
vesica seal matrix
|
A-S writ
- language: vernacular (OE)
- purpose: notification of the diploma
|
|
Writ
- purpose: now unrelated to the diploma or charter
- its purpose was as an executive instrument, an order, command, precept
- language: Latin (later some in French)
- whilst the charter had a wide, sometimes general address, the writ had
a specific address, to named individuals or officers
- whilst the charter was sealed patent (open), writs became generally sealed close
- writs were often sealed on a tongue (simplex cauda) rather than on
a tag (duplex cauda) like the charter; before
the middle of the twelfth century, however, some charters were sealed on
a tongue
- the writ had thus an administrative function (in the case of royal writs,
often to the sheriff -- the
viscontiel writ), but the royal writ also became 'judicialised',
that is, part of the process of judicial proceedings, indeed to initiate those
proceedings to a large degree
|