Dei monasteri e di altre chiese

Abstract

Abstract This paper stems from the research for my PhD thesis to identify, survey and classify the surviving documentary sources, published and unpublished, on Irpinia and the Sannio Beneventano: almost 1600 documents, both public and private, produced in the Lombard and Norman period. More specifically, this study investigates the conservation methods adopted within the archives of religious institutions whose existence and functioning depended on their titula and munimina. While the sources are very reluctant to provide information on the archival practices adopted in major churches and monasteries, the analysis of the diplomatic-archival notes affixed to the verso of the charters nevertheless provides some additional information. Adopting an approach combining palaeography, diplomatics and archive science thus allows us to paint a less generic picture than that hitherto known. The survey and examination of the verso annotations, usually given little attention in editions of the documents, proved highly significant for the identification of historic ecclesiastical archives, for the practices of archiving and preserving the papers, as well as for the identification of specific and recurrent methods of managing and conserving the documentary heritage of the old churches and monasteries, urban or rural, which represented significant gathering and reference places for the territory under their control. For some of these foundations, moreover, the study of unpublished documents has made it possible to add new evidence to what is already historically known.