Between Textual Borrowing and Forgery. On Compilatory Practices of Medieval Universal Chroniclers Based on Martinus Polonus

Abstract

The author’s goal is to add to the understanding of the issue of where the border line is that marks the passage from an enlarged copy (an augmented or developed version) of a given chronicle to an independent authorial entity. In this context a side question arises concerning the acceptability of textual borrowing in the face of medieval authorial practices and conventions, i.e. where compiling ends and falsifying begins. The aforementioned issues are discussed on the basis of five historiographical texts composed between the mid–thirteenth and the third quarter of the 15th cent. Their common denominator is their affinity with the famous Chronicle of Popes and Emperors by Martin the Pole (or of Oppavia). Examining the character of the borrowings, their ideological stance, and their political opinions, the author reaches the conclusion that it was not the copy–and–paste technique frequently employed by the chroniclers, but their intentions that decide whether the resulting works should be treated as new entities, sometimes even forgeries.