The «Documentary Culture» of Ronald Witt: A New Perspective on the History of Medieval Culture?

Abstract

The article discusses the concept of «documentary culture» in Ronald Witt’s The Two Latin cultures. The starting point is a historiographical contextualization of the work, followed by a reflection on the categories of «culture» and «documentary culture» in Witt's research. Then the discussion traces the trajectory of the «documentary culture» in the book, to arrive, in a last section, to a discussion of three critical points: the choice of the Carolingian age as a starting point; the development of communal documentary practices; the centrality of chanceries in the cultural processes investigated.