Regimes of Archival Authenicity: Treasuries, Sovereigns and Communities in the Formation and Ordering of Archival Records since the Middle Ages
Description
Since late Antiquity, a key feature distinguishing those documents and records that we call archival among the broader circulation of texts in European society has been their status within implicit or explicit regimes of legal authenticity. Archival authenticity always remained closely tied to the distrbution of power in society, but simultaneously responded to both the accelerating production of authentic records as well as to the evolving demands from various kinds of authorities. This talk will begin by tracing the shifting regimes of authenticity that characterized diverse archival accumulations and their ordering in repositories, from distributed medieval treasuries through centralizing early modern chancelleries, culminating in the rupture between philological and sovereignty-based archival authority around 1700. I will then turn to the role that communities played in the authentication and recognition of archival material under each regime, drawing on contemporary theories of ‘community archives’ to develop a richer understanding of the formation and survival of counter-archives as well as archives in early modern Europe.
Start Date
16-8-2017 10:30 AM
End Date
16-8-2017 12:00 PM
Regimes of Archival Authenicity: Treasuries, Sovereigns and Communities in the Formation and Ordering of Archival Records since the Middle Ages
Since late Antiquity, a key feature distinguishing those documents and records that we call archival among the broader circulation of texts in European society has been their status within implicit or explicit regimes of legal authenticity. Archival authenticity always remained closely tied to the distrbution of power in society, but simultaneously responded to both the accelerating production of authentic records as well as to the evolving demands from various kinds of authorities. This talk will begin by tracing the shifting regimes of authenticity that characterized diverse archival accumulations and their ordering in repositories, from distributed medieval treasuries through centralizing early modern chancelleries, culminating in the rupture between philological and sovereignty-based archival authority around 1700. I will then turn to the role that communities played in the authentication and recognition of archival material under each regime, drawing on contemporary theories of ‘community archives’ to develop a richer understanding of the formation and survival of counter-archives as well as archives in early modern Europe.
