Rotulus: Difference between revisions
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A '''rotulus''' is a |
A '''rotulus''' is a type of roll, in which a long narrow strip of writing material (perhaps [[parchment]]), written on one side, was wound about its wooden staff.<ref>http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/scroll/scrollcodex.html</ref> The document would be unwound vertically, so that writing perpendicular to the staff could be read.<ref>http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/whats-on/online/crossing-borders/codex</ref> This is opposed to the other type of roll, the [[scroll]], which bears multiple columns of text, with the lines of writing perpendicular to the staff. If made of papyrus, the writing is parallel to the strips of papyrus on the recto. |
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Rotuli persisted for: |
Rotuli persisted for: |
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* |
* Certain legal records in Europe (from which is still derived the title of the judicial functionary known as the "[[Master of the Rolls]]"), also in the Byzantine Empire.<ref>http://grbs.library.duke.edu/article/viewFile/9191/4607</ref> |
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*manuscripts, such as those used for the chanting of the ''[[Exultet]]; |
* Liturgical manuscripts, such as those used for the chanting of the ''[[Exultet]]; |
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* |
* And particularly for mortuary rolls, the documents employed in sending round the names of the deceased belonging to monasteries and other associations which were banded together to pray mutually for each other's dead.<ref>http://grbs.library.duke.edu/article/viewFile/9191/4607</ref> |
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==Mortuary rolls== |
==Mortuary rolls== |
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Revision as of 11:33, 24 August 2014
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (December 2011) |
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A rotulus is a type of roll, in which a long narrow strip of writing material (perhaps parchment), written on one side, was wound about its wooden staff.[1] The document would be unwound vertically, so that writing perpendicular to the staff could be read.[2] This is opposed to the other type of roll, the scroll, which bears multiple columns of text, with the lines of writing perpendicular to the staff. If made of papyrus, the writing is parallel to the strips of papyrus on the recto.
Rotuli persisted for:
- Certain legal records in Europe (from which is still derived the title of the judicial functionary known as the "Master of the Rolls"), also in the Byzantine Empire.[3]
- Liturgical manuscripts, such as those used for the chanting of the Exultet;
- And particularly for mortuary rolls, the documents employed in sending round the names of the deceased belonging to monasteries and other associations which were banded together to pray mutually for each other's dead.[4]
Mortuary rolls
These "mortuary rolls" (in French "rouleaux des morts") were called in Latin "rotuli". They consisted of strips of parchment, sometimes of prodigious length, at the head of which was entered the notification of the death of a particular person deceased or sometimes of a group of such persons. The roll was then carried by a special messenger ("gerulus", "rotularius", "rollifer", "tomiger", "breviator", were some of the various titles given him) from monastery to monastery, and at each an entry was made upon the roll attesting the fact that the notice had been received and that the requisite suffrages would be said.
By degrees a custom grew up in many places of making these entries in verse with complementary amplifications often occupying many lines. These records, some of which are still in existence, preserve specimens of ornate verse composition. They afford materials both for the study of palaeography and also for a comparative judgment of the standard of scholarship prevalent in these different centres of learning.
The use of these mortuary rolls flourished most in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries. Some are of prodigious size. That of the Abbess Matilda of Caen, the daughter of William the Conqueror, was 72 feet long and eight or ten inches wide, but this no doubt was exceptional.
References
- Attribution
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Rotuli". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. The entry cites:
- Léopold Victor Delisle, Rouleaux des morts du IX au XV siecle (Paris, 1866);
- ____, in Bibl. de l'ecole des Chartes, series II, vol. III; Sur l'usage de prier pour les morts;
- Thurston, A Mediaeval Mortuary-card in The Month (London, Dec., 1896);
- Nichols in Mem. Archaeolog. Institute (Norwich, 1847);
- Molinier, Obituaires français au moyen-âge (Paris, 1886);
- Ebner, Gebetsverbruderungen (Freiburg, 1891);
- Wattenbach, Schriftwesen im Mittelalter (3rd ed., Leipzig), 150-74.
