Keeping Record

The Materiality of Rulership and Administration in Early China and Medieval Europe

Abigail S. Armstrong, Matthias J. Kuhn, Jörg Peltzer, Chun Fung Tong

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN:
  9783111323626
• eBook ISBN:
  9783111324227
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: Literature

The production and retention of written records was a common and important facet of pre-modern rulership and administration. Much of our understanding of governmental practices and expressions of authority come from the contents of such documents, which have been well studied. Less studied, however, are the records themselves as artefacts.

This volume is an attempt to redress this balance by taking a more holistic, material approach to a range of written records. Through a series of case studies, this volume explores questions regarding the material characteristics of various records and their use. It demonstrates that the material features of the records, including the size and shape, the hands that wrote them and the material substrate, can shed new light on the functioning of government and the declarations of power these records asserted.

The ten contributions of this volume focus on records from a variety of rulers, political systems and administrations. With four case studies from early China and six from medieval Europe, this volume offers transcultural perspectives to demonstrate how different cultures expressed rulership and administration materially through the use of text-bearing artefacts.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• A Material Approach to Written Artefacts of Rulership and Administration: An Introduction
• The Charter Scribes of King Henry III A Palaeographical Investigation of English Royal Charter Engrossments and Enrolments, 1259–1265
• The Scribe and the Witnesses: The Drafting of Witness Lists in the Charters of the Counts of Flanders (1071–1191)
• To Write or to Seal? New Evidence on Literacy Practices in Early Imperial China
• Handwriting in the Official Documents from Liye and Bureaucratic Politics in the Qin Empire
• Between Slip and Tablet Rulership and Writing Support in Eastern Han China, 25–220 CE
• Record-Keeping on the Estates of the Earls of Northumberland Drafts, Templates and Innovation?
• Layouting Authority Graphic Reflections of Power Relationships in Early Chinese Administrative Documents
• Enrolling Lines of Power: Yorkist Pedigree Rolls as Material Evidence of Kingship Depicting Royal Authority through Genealogical Reasoning
• The Cartulary as a Visual Representation of Rulership King Henry IV of England (1399–1413) and the Great Cowcher (London, TNA, DL 42/1−2)
• The Power of Bookkeeping in Late Medieval Friedberg and Gelnhausen
• Notes on Contributors
• Indices