Chirograph (Cyrograph)

From Dead Media Archive
Revision as of 10:41, 31 October 2007 by Schow (Talk | contribs)

Jump to: navigation, search

The Chirograph was a legal document held between two parties and authenticated. Written on a piece of vellum or parchment, a chirograph would be used for various medieval, papal or notarial document which was then irregularly cut apart and divided among the parties.

History and Use

“The chirograph supposedly had its origins in Anglo-Saxon England, where the practice of using notaries to ratify legal documents was not continued generally after the Roman era.”

Authentication

The text on the chirograph was copied twice on the same sheet of vellum or parchment and written between the two sections was the word “cirographum.” The copies were then cut through this lettering, usually in a wavy or irregular manner in order to avoid forged copies. When the two copies were brought together, it would prove the document authentic and free for ratification between the two parties. It would be hard to fake these documents, as the lettering itself was unique as well: "Written in round court-hand, with heavy main-strokes; the strokes below the line drawn out into a point or a hair-line; those above, looped or turned over to the right. In line 2 a transposition of words is indicated by double oblique strokes" (Bond).

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination
Half a Chirograph from the British Museum, Harley Charter

Multiple Meanings

The roots of chirography “really only means a hand-written document – from the Greek, xeiro=hand, and graphos-writing” (Stoller).

Various Uses

Medieval Documents

Papal Documents

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination
The papal chirograph

Notarial documents

Taking Care of Business

Works Cited

  • [[ ]], Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts and their Heritage"