‘Authentic’ Documents

Abstract

This chapter demonstrates that the documents used on various occasions can for the most part be identified as originals, and sometimes as authenticated copies. The secretaries acting in the councils regularly point out relevant document features they can observe that allow them to determine this status. Chief among such features is the identification of signatures or of distinct annotations made in a person’s ‘own hand’. Such features, originally visible to practitioners in the councils and discernible on the original documents, are replaced in subsequent manuscript copying by the identification of ‘a different hand’ in the exemplar, which the copyist observed and noted. Annotations in the hand of the emperor are especially significant; they serve as authoritative instructions and prompt the councils into corresponding action.