Private certificate
Diplomatics designates all documents from the Middle Ages and the early modern period as "private documents" that do not come from the chancellery of the rulers (kings, emperors) or popes. It is therefore an exclusion term which, in the sense of "all other", combines very different types of documents, such as B. the subjective Charter , the objective Notitia , the notarial instrument , Chirographen private seal certificates , certificates of bishops, Prince certificates or municipal charters. Diplomatics therefore uses the term in quotation marks whenever possible.
Jurisprudence
The term " private document " (also private or privately written document) designates in German civil procedure law the written form of the documents, which are handwritten or not, which are not public documents (i.e. not issued by a public authority , a notary or a registrar ). The private document has inferior evidential value compared to the public one and comprises the following sub-forms:
- just hand-signed certificate
- Seal certificate, sealed certificate: private certificate issued under a private seal (hand or company seal)
- Witness certificate, certificate before witnesses: private document signed in the presence of two witnesses
literature
- Alfred Gawlik : private certificates . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages . Volume 7, Col. 222-224.
- Reinhard Härtel : Notarial and ecclesiastical documents in the early and high Middle Ages (historical auxiliary sciences 4), Vienna / Munich 2011.