Tabellion

The Tabellion was has preserved from antiquity to the 18th century in some regions Romansh a secretary or a clerk, the original copies and was allowed to issue enforceable copies. Over the centuries the tabellion's status evolved from a slave to a nobility. The “tabellio” should not be confused with the “notarius”; although the latter has established itself in normal parlance today, it was initially not necessarily higher ranking than the former. In French, however, the word "tabellion" has a derogatory connotation for a poorly educated, provincial notary .

The Roman "tabelliones"

The designation "tabellio" and its area of ​​office are clearly described in the pandects ( digesta justiniani ). "Tabellio" is derived from the Latin word "tabella", which can have the following meanings: tablets, minutes, deeds, contracts, ballot papers. The original "tabellio" is therefore a note-taker, a stenographer who is principally used by politicians, business people, lawyers and generally a number of clerks. Incidentally, he is often a slave and generally only writes for private individuals and for private purposes, often for wills, among other things. When he enters the service of the imperial administration or the church, he attains the more desirable status of secretary and can rise in the hierarchy; however, in this case he may not write down any documents at the request of private individuals. The “notarius” was an assistant to the “tabellio” at this time. The documents of the Roman tabelliones only became legally binding and public in antiquity when they were entered in special registers of the office. In principle, they required the presence and certification of trustworthy persons, most of whom had an official function.

The Italian and southern French tabular ions

After the fall of the Roman Empire, the office of tabellion according to Roman law continued first in the Italian area. From there, the newly defined tabulation activity spread to other European nations, including the German Empire, Switzerland and Bohemia. The function of “notary” became more and more important because the issue of the enforceability of the issued documents was not clearly resolved and not always publicly recognized by all parties.

Very early on (as early as the high Middle Ages) the tabellations wanted, in addition to the witnesses and the notary, the presence of a judge who could grant the enforceability of their documents. Up to the 10th century, the presence of a judge can be found in private documents. For practical reasons, the judges gradually let the notaries perform their office on behalf of the notary, which led to the notary becoming “fides publica” (general trustworthiness). From the 11th century both offices of judge and notary merged, so that the notaries became real magistrates of voluntary jurisdiction. This new form of notary spread over most of the then still partly independent regions of southern France. Already at the beginning of the 13th century they were direct representatives of the authorities there, who were allowed to certify all documents that were entrusted to them as enforceable and conclusive in a mere written form.

The situation changed suddenly with the incorporation of the present southern French territories into the Kingdom of France. They quickly competed with the royal notaries. In the north of the country, a document had authenticity and evidential value solely through the seal of jurisdiction. The king unified the profession with the ordinance of July 1304. This development did not cause the southern French notaries too much of a problem, as their function was given a rather desirable public, state-recognized status. In the northern half of France, on the other hand, tabulations, private notaries and royal notaries were in competition. The profession of tabellion did not exist in the south of France, for example south of a line between La Rochelle and Geneva. There tabellius was a synonym for notarius .

Tabellion in Northern France

In the northern half of what is now France, before the French Revolution in 1789, a clear distinction was made between notary and tabellion. There, civil law was mostly still based on regional wisdom . It is especially true for the regions that were not yet part of the French kingdom, such as Flanders , Artesia or Lorraine . Up until the 16th century, both professions had a clearly separate function:

• The notary wrote the official original (French "minute"); originally he is then only a judge's registry.
• The tabellion kept the documents and made official copies (French: "Grosse").

Since in the Middle Ages a document could only become legally binding in the presence of a notary and two witnesses (or in front of two notaries without witnesses), the tabulations made their sworn assistants or registry lists appear. In each royal area of ​​responsibility, a "tabellionage" (official area of ​​the tabellion) was set up, which was responsible for several notary offices.

With Henry IV and the decree of May 1597, the situation changed, at least in the royal domain: both functions of the notary and the tabellion were combined for practical and probably economic reasons. The royal official then bore the title "notary, document keeper and hereditary tabellion". This decree sealed the end of the tabulations on the territory of what was then the Kingdom of France.

In the French part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation

Debt for 53 éccus blancs , issued on March 6, 1715 by a tabellion in Bouzonville

In the still independent rulers on the periphery of the kingdom before the reunification policy of Louis XIV, however, the name of the tabellion remained in use for a longer time, as the mentioned occupational information in all church registers or civil documents of these regions clearly shows. Incidentally, the surname "Tabellion" has also established itself in northeastern France and Lorraine due to the location, while the surname "Notier" or "Nottier" or "Notary" has become naturalized in the south. In the Duchy of Lorraine, which in 1542 had achieved extensive autonomy within the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation and was therefore able to set up its own administrative and judicial apparatus, each bailiwick and each area of ​​responsibility, whether secular or spiritual, had one or more tabellions available . The practice of tabellionage (i.e. the area of ​​activity of the tabellion) and the old conditions were able to persist in Lorraine until the duchy was annexed by the Kingdom of France in the 18th century. The accumulation of offices in the judiciary, in finance or in local administration was common at that time. At first they led to undeniable social advancement, sometimes even to nobility, which then allowed the incumbent to enjoy a higher standard of living. Apparently one could not support a family from the tabulation activity alone.

Examples of the accumulation of offices in connection with the tabulation activity:

• Nicolas GODEL was General Tabellion, auditor and judge of the copper mines in Thillot, Vosges in 1599.
• Nicolas GODEL, son of the previous one, was appointed on May 20, 1610 by the Duke of Lorraine to the tabellion of several bailiwicks: Nancy , Vosges , Epinal , Châtel-sur-Moselle and the county of Vaudémont .
• Jacques de Ranfaing was 1606 Keeper of the Seals and Tabellion the provost Arches ( Vosges , upper Moselle valley).
• Grégoire FRANÇOIS is mentioned in 1715 in an acknowledgment of guilt by C. FORME as General Tabellion of Lorraine and Chancellor of the Court of Justice of Vahl in the Moselle department.

The publication of the "Confirmation des Ordonannces des ducs Ferri II & IV concernant les tabellions" on October 11, 1629 at the ducal court in Nancy to confirm the statutes and the official duties of the tabellions gives this office an undeniable official character and shows that both the Both the function and the name were still common in the Lorraine region from the 16th to the 18th century. After the Duchy of Lorraine fell to France through the death of the last duke, the former Polish king Stanisław Leszczyński, French notarial law came into force. With that the word "tabellion" was forgotten.

literature

See literature notary

Individual evidence

1. ^ Encyclopédie de Diderot et d'Alembert, Antoine-Gaspard Boucher d'Argis, article on Tabellion of December 1, 1765.
2. ↑ ibid. 1st section.
3. ↑ Dig 48, 19, 9, 533 - See also references from Pandekten .
4. ↑ Cicero in “Pro A. Cluentio Habito oratio”, 184, also during interrogation “Tabella quaestonis”.
5. ^ In Suetonius in Caligula, 29, "tabella dotis".
6. ↑ For the entire section in: Giorgio Cencetti, Dal Tabellione Romano al Notaio Medievale, Collegio notarile di Verona, Verona 1966, p. 19.
7. ^ A. de Boüard, Etudes de diplomatique sur les actes des notaires du Châtelet de Paris, Bibliothèque de l'école des chartes, 1911, Volume 72, Numéro 72, p. 116.
8. ↑ Giorgio Cencetti, Dal Tabellione Romano al Notaio Ages, Collegio notarile di Verona, Verona 1966, p 19: L'Istituto del moderno notariato, come è noto, continua con non grandiflora differenze il corrispondente istituto medievale, che è formazione original, sconosciuta all'antichità, sorta in Italia e dall'ltalia diffusasi nella Francia meridionale, in Svizzera, in Germania, in Bohemia, in Polonia, in Ungheria.
9. ↑ ibid. A. de Boüard.
10. ↑ ibid. A; de Boüard and G. Cencetti.
11. ↑ Tabellionages et juridiction gracieuse en France du Nord au Moyen Âge, Journée d'étude du 14 November 2012, Université de Rouen, Maison de l'Université.
12. ↑ archivesnotaires.tarn.fr Ordinance of July 1304 (fr) and Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêt (fr), website of the General Council of the Tarn Department, Notarial Archives of Haute-Garonne, No. 1 B / 1902.
13. ↑ A. de Boüard, p. 115.
14. ^ A. de Boüard, Etudes de diplomatique sur les actes des notaires du Châtelet de Paris, Bibliothèque de l'école des chartes, 1911, Volume 72, Numéro 72, p. 116.
15. ↑ Nos Ancêtres, Vies et Métiers, "Notaires et Tabellions", No. 29, pp. 29–42, Jan./Febr. 2008.
16. ↑ In the nobility letter (Departement-Archiv Meurthe-et-Moselle No. B57 / Bl. 161) of June 29, 1588 one reads that Nicolas GODEL, first provost and tabellion of the provost of Arches, Bailiwick of the Vosges, was appointed general tabellion of Lorraine . However, this office remained for a long time from son to son in the Godel family along with other usual local offices.
17. ↑ In the open nobility letter of October 2, 1710 (Folio 151, Reg. 1710) from Etienne d'Hableinville, his father Didier d'Hableinville is mentioned at the beginning of the 18th century as the “ General Tabellion of the Duchy of Lorraine ” [1] P. dom . Ambroise Pelletier, General Book of Nobility and Arms of Lorraine and Barr, Nancy, 1758, p. 334.
18. ↑ See all footnotes that refer to a nobility letter that can be traced in the archive.
19. ↑ October magazine "Nos Ancêtres, Vie & Métiers, Dossier Charges et offices sous l'Ancien Régime" no. 15, Sept. 2005 &, p.26.
20. ↑ tourisme-lorraine.fr  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 9.6 MB) Short description of the copper mines in German.  
21. ^ L'Est Magazine newspaper, Cahier de l'Est Republicain of December 26, 1993, article "La Chasse aux Ancetres".
22. ^ Department Archives, Meurthe-et-Moselle B 89 Juillet 1618.
23. ↑ In the marriage contract of his son Claude on June 18, 1606, these two activities are mentioned - Dieuze notary archive No. 3E 8161 Archived copy ( Memento of the original from June 22, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
24. ↑ omegajet.net ( Memento of the original from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. On April 1, 1715 in Vahl. 
25. ↑ Pierre-Dominique-Guillaume de Rogéville, Dictionnaire historique des ordonnances et des tribunaux de la Lorraine et du Barrois, Volume 2, Nancy, 1777: Department Archive No. AD 330/17.