Abstracting and Summary Records

Abstract

Different from the purportedly full records giving the interventions of named participants in direct speech, councils can use other types of protocols that deliberately obscure some of these elements, for instance by neglecting to identify individuals by name, and even by recording only the statements of the presidents and their chief aides, or by omitting pertaining documentation. Papyrological records of civil proceedings from the same period reveal these texts to be conforming to conventional bureaucratic practice and so disprove suspicions of manipulation and unreliability of such protocols. By paying attention to the materiality of conciliar records, a case of missed documentation can be attributed to the effects of unsafe storage, not wilful suppression.