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Diplomatic Attitudes: From Mabillon to Metadata

Caroline Williams Director
a

School of History, Liverpool University Centre for Archive Studies (LUCAS), 9 Abercromby Square, Liverpool, L69 7WZ, UK E-mail: Version of record first published: 23 Jan 2007.

To cite this article: Caroline Williams Director (2005): Diplomatic Attitudes: From Mabillon to Metadata, Journal of the Society of Archivists, 26:1, 1-24 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00039810500047417

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Journal of the Society of Archivists Vol. 26, No. 1, April 2005, 1 24

Diplomatic Attitudes: From Mabillon to Metadata

Caroline Williams

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Knowledge of diplomatic and the application of its techniques continue to underpin the analysis of current records and record-keeping systems. This article explores the development of approaches to diplomatic from before the publication of Mabillons De re diplomatica in 1681 to its resurrection as an analytical tool at the end of the twentieth century, and considers its relevance for an electronic record-keeping environment.

Record trustworthiness has two qualitative dimensions: reliability and authenticity. Reliability means that the record is capable of standing for the facts to which it attests, while authenticity means that the record is what it claims to be.1

Introduction This statement, supported in national and international standards,2 articulates one of the basic functional requirements of any record-keeping system, whether electronic or paper, that the records that it supports must be able to be trustedthey must have recordness.3 It recognises that this trustworthiness has at least two aspects, one of which relates to content and the other to context. Although newly articulated for purposes of electronic record-keeping, such requirements for the trustworthiness of records are of long standing. Two notorious forgeries, exposed through the application of traditional diplomatic techniques, provide clear examples of failure to meet these two basic criteria. In 1983 the West German Federal State Archives, the Bundesarchiv, under its president, Hans Booms, passed judgement on certain diaries, discovered in the late 1970s, which purported to have been written by Adolf Hitler prior to 1940.
The diaries were not merely fakes: they were a crude forgery, the grotesquely supercial concoction of a copyist endowed with a limited intellectual capacity.
Correspondence to: Caroline Williams, Director, Liverpool University Centre for Archive Studies (LUCAS), School of History, 9 Abercromby Square, Liverpool L69 7WZ, UK. Email: c.m.williams@liverpool.ac.uk
ISSN 0037-9816 (print)/ISSN 1465-3907 (online) # 2005 Society of Archivists DOI: 10.1080/00039810500047417

C. Williams
The paper, the binding, the glue, the thread were all found to be of post-war manufacture. In addition, although the archives researchers had had time only for a brief check of the diaries written content, they had already found a couple of textual errors: two laws relating to agriculture and student organisations were not passed on the dates given in the diaries.4

That they were sufciently convincing to satisfy Hugh Trevor-Roper, an authority on the Third Reich, is another story. A much earlier example, exposed by the humanist Lorenzo Valla in 1440, is the supposed Donation of the Emperor Constantine to Sylvester I Bishop of Rome of rights of supremacy of papal over imperial power. Here the content of the donation displays cultural anachronisms: it referred to the popes bejewelled diadem at a time when silk caps were still worn by pontiffs; and it named Constantinople at a time when the city was still known as Byzantium. The context too was questionable: the only indicative text was interpolated in a later document, and no other external evidence existed to corroborate its validity.5 These examples illustrate the traditional application of diplomatic analysis for the authentication of historical documents. The purpose of this article is to discuss the appropriateness of its application more widely within the record-keeping domain. Diplomatic has been dened as a form of literary criticism that is based on a detailed examination of documentary records in order to understand what they say and to see if it is consistent with what is known of fact.6 It is frequently viewed as an auxiliary science which, along with palaeography and sigillography, underpins the study of documents, usually medieval. Its study comprises a component, albeit diminishing, of archival education and training programmes. Christopher Brooke, formerly a teacher of diplomatic on the postgraduate archives programme at the University of Liverpool, when Professor of History at the University of London, referred to diplomatic as the barbarous name given to the science of documents which had the reputation of a formidable and dismal science . . . a kind of game played by a few scholars, most of them medievalists, harmless so long as it does not dominate or obscure historical enquiry. . ..7 This however no longer offers a realistic picture, even if it did then, since the analysis of all types of documents is undertaken in a range of disciplines, and for a range of purposes only one of which is historical analysis. In recent years approaches to diplomatic have undergone a renaissance, with a reapplication of diplomatic principles within current record-keeping theory and practice. Changes over the years in the ways diplomatic has been applied have been summarised by Heather MacNeil:
Diplomatics was born in the seventeenth century as an analytical technique for determining the authenticity of records issued by sovereign authorities in previous centuries. Its primary purpose was to ascertain the reality of the rights or truthfulness of the facts contained in such documents. In the nineteenth century, historians adopted diplomatics as a tool of documentary criticism for assessing the authority of medieval records as historical sources. At the end of the twentieth century, archivists have discovered new uses for this old science, based on its

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From Mabillon to Metadata

potential as a standard for ensuring the trustworthiness of modern records generally and electronic records specically.8

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This article further analyses the changes in the application of diplomatic techniques to records and record creation. Its contention is that while the rules and methods developed by traditional diplomatic have remained constant, by the end of the 20th century they had broadened in order to full new requirements. Originally applied at a time when the data about record-creating systems could only be deduced retrospectively from their randomly surviving products, experiments are being undertaken using diplomatic techniques to help dene in advance the requisite metadata for guaranteeing reliability and authenticity in electronic systems. It is necessary to consider how successful this reapplication has been, what part archivists have played in the expansion of diplomatic and to discuss how relevant diplomatic principles and techniques still are in informing the work of todays records manager and archivist. Denitions The term diplomatic was originally borrowed from the French diplomatique. The word derived from the title of the earliest treatise on the subject, Dom Jean Mabillons De re diplomatica, rst published in 1681.9 However, apart from the UK, other English-speaking countries talk about diplomatics: using the plural of the noun rather than the singular. Diplomatic, or res diplomatica according to Mabillon, is the establishment of
certain and accurate terms and rules by which authentic instruments can be distinguished from spurious, and certain and genuine ones from uncertain and suspect ones.10

While Valla had shown the alleged Donation of Constantine to be a forgery in 1440, Mabillon was the rst to generate a set of rules, which when applied to specic documents might establish authenticity or, conversely, expose forgery. These were developed as a result of a dispute about the authenticity of privileges of Benedictine abbeys in France. Mabillon was stung into writing De re diplomatica in response to the assertions of Daniel van Papenbroek of Antwerp who argued that certain early grants of privileges, or diplomas, (hence diplomatic) of Dagobert I, king of the Franks, to Mabillons Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Pres among others, were unreliable. Traditional rules as dened by Mabillon argued that:
any proper evaluation of the character, content, and authenticity of a given document must take account of internal as well as external criteria; of the changing fashions of composition, handwriting, and style . . . and of the history, personnel

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and usages of chanceries, notarial ofces and scriptoria from place to place and from period to period.11

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Traditional diplomatists sought to analyse the intrinsic and extrinsic elements of documents in their quest to establish authenticity and reliability. This involved evaluating their physical and intellectual structure and context as well as their content. Such evaluation remains essential today in the attribution of recordness. However, developments in record-keeping by the end of the 20th century meant that, to continue to be useful, diplomatic had to become more broadly applied and its traditional denition reconsidered. The purpose of diplomatic analysis was required to be much wider than Mabillons because of the need to: . . . . . include informal documents as well as formal; encompass aggregations of documents as well as individual ones; consider the organisations and systems producing documents as well as the documents themselves; enable prospective as well as retrospective analysis; encompass electronic as well as paper-based systems.

The most recent denition articulated by Luciana Duranti appears to enable at least some of these broader applications.
Diplomatics is the discipline which studies the genesis, forms and transmission of archival documents, and their relationship with the facts represented in them and with their creator, in order to identify, evaluate, and communicate their true nature.12

While it supports her contention that diplomatic retains its traditional elements, she argues that diplomatic also has current relevance: the primary contribution of diplomatics to an understanding of electronic records is its analysis of the attributes of a record based on concepts and principles that have evolved over centuries of detailed study of the documentary process.13 The Literature Brookes dismal science was French in origin and the French institutionalised it in the Ecole des Chartes, founded in 1821. Continental writers contributed substantially to the development of the discipline. In tracing the development of diplomatic it is surprising that, given the wealth of sources available for analysis, the UK does not have a better reputation for scholarly writing in the area. However, a number of writers comment on this fact14 and others have offered reasons for the lack, and its effect on scholarship. Hubert Hall, Assistant Keeper at the Public Record Ofce, admitted that English scholarship has toiled painfully in the wake of foreign

From Mabillon to Metadata

science.15 He blamed this partly on the late development of a national archive and a government absorbed by party politics and complacently tolerant of the productions of its Record Commission for failing to develop a national archive on the continental model. Government, he said, merely provided a wholly inadequate Repository under the charge of an ordinary establishment of the Civil Service, the implication being that civil service skills were not sufcient for the scholarly, erudite environment he envisaged.16 As a result he argued that, despite the early production and use of records for legal and administrative purposes, historians were less well served in terms of nding aids to original archives, and so failed to develop the diplomatic skills necessary to underpin research therein. This lack forced the historian to act like the dexterous crustacean that nds a covering for its vulnerable parts amongst the debris of the shore, . . .[he] made shift to fortify his conclusions with the derelict texts and calendars. . ..17 While Hall blames the failure to develop a national diplomatic on the failure of government to develop an appropriate national archive, Kathleen Major, Reader in Diplomatic at the University of Oxford, believed that it was the failure to develop an academic disciplinecentred on an equivalent perhaps to the Ecole des Chartesthat was instrumental. Since no centre of excellence developed, any good work that was done had to be undertaken by individuals in isolation, outside a collective research environment.18 There have of course been many notable editions of early documents by renowned English scholars19 and local record societies.20 But the tendency of many writers on diplomatic, and not only in the UK, has been to concentrate on the analysis of specic types of documents without ultimately extrapolating general rules. Thus the study of what Luciana Duranti calls the core of diplomatics was not developed in England. This core is that all records can be analysed, understood and evaluated in terms of a system of formal elements that are universal in their application and decontextualized in nature.21 Or, as Brooke put it, the need to study it [diplomatic] as a coherent science and not simply to apply its practical uses within ones own specialism.22 Indeed in the UK while we can boast of Madoxs Formulare Anglicanum that it has an excellent introduction, it dates from 1710; Hubert Halls Studies in English Ofcial Historical Documents, a sound if bureaucratic23 exposition of the records of government, dates from 1908 and R. B. Pughs essential general introduction to title deeds from 1947.24 Kathleen Majors complaint in 1964 that what the teacher and student lack is a general handbook on Diplomatic in English or on English Diplomatic25 was not the rst, and still holds good. The needs of the anglophone world have since been met in part by American and Canadian, rather than English, writing. We remain indebted to such continental writers as Mabillon and other Benedictines from the 17th century; and Artur Giry, of the Ecole des Chartes, Harry r a ltere deutsche Geschichtskunde, and Cesare Paoli, Bresslau of the Gesellschaft fu Director of the Archivio Storico Italiano, from the 19th century. De re diplomatica marks the birth of palaeography and diplomatic, analysing material, ink, language, script, punctuation, formulae, abbreviations and so on.26 Giry, Bresslau and Paoli

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produced manuals, although none has been translated into English.27 Recent international developments have reinvigorated diplomatic study. Leonard Boyle, a Dominican, Prefect of the Vatican Library, wrote an exemplary essay entitled Diplomatics rst published in 1976.28 In it he reinterprets the formulae for documentary analysis of Mabillons sparring partner Papenbroeck, demonstrating their universal relevance by identifying a series of questions which might be generically asked of any document under analysis. In the late 20th and early 21st century Luciana Duranti, an Italian archivist who moved to the University of British Columbia, Canada, in the 1980s, has continued to bring relevance to the study. Importing continental teachings in archival science to the English-speaking world, she has at the same time generated a whole new debate which has been consciously stimulated as a result of concern about new forms of documentation and their nature.29 Her Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science was rst published in sections in the Canadian journal Archivaria from 1989 to 1992,30 and as a discrete volume in 1998. This volume, although densely expressed,31 is essential reading. It emphasises the universality of diplomatic and opens a discussion on its applicability within the electronic environment. Subsequently an entire issue of the American Archivist, the result of a joint seminar with archivists from the Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan and Ecole Nationale des Chartes in Paris, was devoted to it in 1996.32 Here and elsewhere writers including Francis Blouin, Elizabeth Yakel, David Bearman, and especially Heather MacNeil consider the application of diplomatic in the bureaucratic, organisational, electronic and legal as well as the historical environment.33 MacNeils contribution is particularly useful in supplying a broad perspective of the science.34 On-going international research in the University of British Columbias InterPARES project, created to help solve the critical problem of preserving trustworthy electronic records for future use, continues to inform this debate.35 Diplomatic: The Scope The scope of diplomatic has not always been so broad. The range and the types of documents to which it was considered appropriate to apply diplomatic analysis have varied over the years. Should the rules of traditional diplomatic be applied, as sometimes argued, to only the most formal of documents, those which demonstrate original probative juridical actsthat is which act as a written witness which is drawn up in a certain determined form and serves as proof of some action or fact of a juridical nature?36 Or should the rules, as more recently applied, be more inclusive, reecting the proliferation of the number and types of records (as well as documents) produced by current systems, permitting records of an informal, personal, nonjuridical nature to be the subject of analysis? These too may need to demonstrate authenticity and reliability. In general, the scope of diplomatic was widening from the very inception of the discipline. Valla and Papenbroeck were concerned with formal documents.

From Mabillon to Metadata

Papenbroek dealt specically with the most formal diplomata (the donations and privileges) of Merovingian rulers of France pre-1000. Mabillon, however, preferred a broader interpretation, referring to instruments. The strapline to the title of De re diplomatica demonstrates this more elastic and comprehensive approach. While not specically dening instruments it is certainly inclusive: in which is explained and illustrated whatever pertains to the antiquity, matter, handwriting and style of old instruments; to seals, monograms, subscriptions, and dating; and to antiquarian, legal and historical disciplines.37 This broader application continued in France, with the development of the Ecole des Chartes. However, while French disciples of Mabillon followed his more inclusive application, some 19th-century diplomatists, such as the Germans Julius Fricker and Theodore von Sickel, narrowed the application once more, requiring instrumenta to mean Urkunden, that is, original probative juridical documents or those which were the product of a legal system, providing evidence of formal acts, particularly from courts of record. In other words, documents other than those of the most ofcial nature, such as supporting reports, inquiries, administrative correspondence, accounts and so on were omitted from consideration.38 We should not be too surprised at this, since the denition of which records might be deposited in an archive was similarly narrow. In England at about the same time, for example, R. L. Poole, Keeper of the Archives at the University of Oxford, dened the archives of an ecclesiastical institution as essentially two kinds: grants of privilege and title deeds of property. Such items as letter books might exist but these do not come properly under the denition of archives.39 This restrictive scope was maintained until as late as the 1930s. At this date it was argued that documents connected with judicial acts, such as those noted above, might fall within the archival, and by extension the diplomatic remit.40 Similar recommendations came in 1934 in relation to what is still an underexplored area, that of the diplomatic of the ancient records of the Near and Middle East. Ulrich Wilcken, the German papyrologist, argued that ancient diplomatics should not limit itself to legal documents, as did medieval diplomatics, but should work with a broader concept of diplomatics that was to include ordinary letters and records (Akten) of all kinds.41 And in 1961, Robert Bautier, in his inaugural address as professor at the Ecole des Chartes, acknowledged that diplomatic should not be restricted to records of judicial acts to the exclusion of general administrative acts, and that it is not the fact that a document has a juridical character that qualies it to be the object of diplomatics, but the simple fact that it is found in an archive.42 From here it is a short stretch to todays broad remit. When Christopher Brooke, in a talk to the British Records Associations Annual Conference in 1967 said he would willingly have introduced the diplomatic of cookery books had he thought it would serve the purpose,43 he was reinforcing the view that diplomatic might be ubiquitously applied: it is a formal science by denitionthe study of the forms of documents, of every age, including the present, and every continent and every type susceptible of formal investigation [authors italics].44

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Leonard Boyle, originally writing in 1976, sums up this view:

Given the variegated wealth of written documentary remains from all ages, occupations and jurisdictions, from the earliest records in writing to present-day consumer reports, it seems much more realistic and far less precious and selective to describe diplomatics as the scholarly investigation of any and every written documentary source, juridical, quasi-juridical or nonjuridical. This as least has the merit of retaining the openness of the quidquid45 of Mabillon.

And
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the Res diplomatica is, then, an art by which written records from any age and of any kind are made to speak again with a full, distinct voice.46

Boyle and Brooke, in allowing the application of diplomatic to a wider range of documents, are doing so for the purpose of historical analysis. However, for relevance in todays record-keeping environment, as modern students of diplomatic have realised, if diplomatic is to remain useful it needs to be applicable for current recordkeeping as well as historical purposes. Today the successful implementation of business and organisational missions and functions is more than ever before predicated on the management of authentic and reliable records within effective record-keeping systems. Demands imposed by the legal and regulatory environments, for example in the UK by the Freedom of Information Act, 2000, and the Data Protection Act, 1998, the growing acceptance of the need for openness and transparency in record-keeping and the rights of the general public make this a basic requirement. Thus any document or record produced for business purposes must be able to stand up to scrutiny. It must be able to demonstrate such qualities as authenticity, reliability, integrity and usability, transparency and compliance if it is to support the business effectively,47 and it is these qualities that the science of diplomatic has always aimed to analyse. It is clear then that the principles of diplomatic might quite legitimately be applied to all administrative records in any environment. Aggregates and Systems Diplomatic was originally applied to single documents, subjecting each to specic tests: only when a document has been examined with all thoroughness, externally as well as internally, can its witness be evaluated properly, circumstantially, and fully.48 Historians have noted the limitation of diplomatic when applied to more fully documented periods:
The diplomatic approach, so valuable for classical and medieval history, loses much of its validity as other sources of information increase, and efforts to extend its sphere into the modern period have had only a moderate success.49

From Mabillon to Metadata

Not everyone agreed. The ability of the science of diplomatic to develop was seen to depend in part on its ability to encompass the analysis of documents as aggregates and as the products of an organisational system. Hilary Jenkinson, Deputy Keeper of the Public Records, 1947 54, was an exponent of the application of diplomatic beyond the single document or record. His involvement with it involved:
a gradual realisation that to be of any use to the students of archives the science of Diplomatic must be made to apply potentially to a eld much wider that [sic] the rst syllables of its name imply and supplemented by, or subordinated to, studies of the organisation which produced the documents quite independent of their form and writing.50

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The relationship of documents to one another and to their producing organisation was critical here. Jenkinson recognised that the interrelationship between records must be taken into consideration in any diplomatic analysis. He applauded J. H. Hodson, an archivist in local government, an early supporter of the idea in the diplomatic context, specically in relation to court records. Hodson argued that the products of the English courts of quarter sessions had to be approached as a related accumulation of records where individual documents could only properly be understood by reference to others produced by the same organisation. When discussing the publication of the Guide to the records of Essex Quarter Sessions, he commented:
After 70 years of publication of Quarter Sessions records, discussion of their diplomatic remains to be dug as obiter dicta from the corners of editors introductions . . . The main concern is still with the contribution they make to local and social history, and . . . the work and history of the Justices of the Peace. In comparison, the study of the make-up of records and of the ofce-practice of the Clerk of the Peace have been sadly neglected. Nevertheless, because, for this, an integrated system of classication is fundamental, the Essex Guide is the most thorough, as well as the most conscious treatment of the diplomatic of Quarter Sessions records so far. And, taking advantage of its framework and using the methods of description and analysis incidentally evolved in the best Quarter Sessions publications, it is submitted that an independent, comprehensive, and comparative study of the diplomatic of English Quarter Sessions records can at last be made.51

The signicance of the interrelationship between records produced by an organisation is well known to traditional archival theory, and is one of Jenkinsons four main criteria in his denition of records.52 In addition to this, one also has to consider the relationship between documents attending the accomplishment of a single transaction. For example, the single deed produced as a result of the conveyance of a piece of real property in the 15th century compared with the multiple products of todays process illustrates the relevance of this. Increasing numbers of related documents are used to enact the same action or transaction. From the single document to the le or dossier to the integrated

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record-keeping systemthe results of increasing bureaucracy and complexity of business and administrationhow far can the principles of diplomatic realistically extend? The importance of these interrelationships has been brought to prominence once more when reconsidering concepts of records in the light of electronic recordkeeping. The essential components of recordness have been dened as content, structure and context. Within this trinity, context provides understanding of the interrelationship between the item, the le, and the business in which the transaction is taking place.53 Duranti and MacNeil reinforce Jenkinsons view when they argue that to be useful, modern diplomatic must be able to encompass the interrelated and aggregated nature of archives and look to archival science as well as diplomatic in order to address this issue. In terms of diplomatic they describe this interrelationship as the archival bond: the logical connection or link between documents arising from the same activity.54 This connection, in diplomatic terms, can be made explicit, they argue, for example through a le reference, a classication scheme or le plan, or a registration number which demonstrates explicitly the connection between documents. The need to understand the wider context of documents has long been recognised by both historians and archivists, particularly in terms of elucidating administrative history.
One of the most crucial questions of diplomaticin a sense the basic diplomatic questionis that of determining the context in which a historical document came into existence.55

It is a short step from the discussion of diplomatic in terms of the interrelationship between documents themselves to that of their relationship within the broader contextual framework of the system and organisation that produced them. This step has, however, produced a fundamental shift in the focus of record-keeping professionals. Where once it was the records, the products, which were the focal point, now it is the system that produces them which comes under scrutiny, and the way in which the system itself can be congured automatically to produce the required authentication. Archivists, as part of the archival description process, have been accustomed to analyse the contextual background of archival collections. The International Standard Archival Description (General) (ISAD(G)) includes an area for the description of such contextual elements as the name of the creator, the administrative and/or biographical history, the archival history and the immediate source of acquisition or transfer.56 Recent writers, however, argue that the dynamic nature of organisational and bureaucratic structures, and the need to provide descriptions ever earlier in the life of the record which meet the needs of all those requiring subsequent access whether creator, administrator or archive researcher should force archivists to realign their approach.

From Mabillon to Metadata

Documentation of the activity which generates archival records . . . is a fundamentally different process from the description of records which are in hand. Documentation of organisational activity ought to begin long before records are transferred to archives, and may take place even before any records are createdat the time when new functions are assigned to an organisation.57

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Thus this new emphasis rests more on the analysis of record systems than on the records they produce. Elizabeth Yakel develops this new approach by arguing that the diplomatic skills of archivists should be brought to bear.
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This line of enquiry changes the object of study from the records themselves, which are the basis of modern descriptive practices to records-creating and recordkeeping processes which are a basis for understanding how organizations work. Using a primacy of process approach signies a fundamentally different strategy and shifts the focus from content to context. This approach owes much to diplomatics, yet the strict diplomatic focus on an individual document is switched to the examination of the entire records-creating event and its context.58

Such an approach would enable analysis of past as well as current systems, although there is clearly less evidence available to support the former than the latter. Today national and international standards require record-keeping systems to offer reliability, integrity, compliance, comprehensiveness and systemisation so that they might support records which are themselves authentic, reliable, useable and whose integrity is maintained.59 Access to information about the system enables rigorous analysis of the status of its methods and products. Furthermore, the continuum approach articulated by Frank Upward and others and increasingly incorporated into current theory and practice, particularly in relation to electronic record-keeping,60 assumes that record-keepers will have been involved in the design of the original system, that the systems metadata on which reliability and authenticity depend are built in. In terms of systems analysis early diplomatists had little to draw on. Sometimes they only had the actual document from which to extrapolate data about the person or organisation that produced it, and thus from which to gauge levels of authenticity and reliability. Yet that document, unlike modern ones, contained all the necessary data required for authentication: signatures of scribes, registrars, daters, and the creator or grantor of an act appear on each individual document.61 Chaplais, for example, deduces by comparing the sole evidence of surviving 10thcentury Anglo-Saxon writ-charters that production was variously carried out by ecclesiastical scriptori, the royal secretariat and occasionally by a scribe of the beneciary.62 Issues of authenticity and reliability were less straightforward than we might expect, however. Medieval forgeries were often seen as a legitimate attempt to put the record straight, and although spurious in that they were not produced authentically could be accurate and reliable in the essentials of the information recorded.

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A charter was inaccurate and should be corrected if it failed to give the beneciary a privilege which the donor had obviously intended it to have . . . Writing, or the lack of it, should not be allowed to annul or invalidate previous pious gifts. From this point of view forgery is an inappropriate term. . . Where there was doubt they (monastic houses) were determined to establish the truth for posterity. By truth about the past they meant what really should have happened . . . Thus the monastic approach to records was ambivalent: documents were created and carefully conserved so that posterity might know about the past, but they were not necessarily allowed to accumulate by natural accretion over time nor to speak for themselves, because truth was too important to leave to chance. Without dened standards of authenticity, there could be no denite criteria for distinguishing forgeries from authentic documents.63

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As individuals or organisations (e.g. the papacy or the king) produced greater numbers of similar documents more general rules can be deduced both about the producer and system of production. With the growth of administration and bureaucracies evidence about the creator becomes increasingly accessible and dependable: arguably authenticity can more readily be endowed where a recognisable system, producing predictable products is in place. Enrolment and registration provide early evidence of the systematisation of record-keeping. In England evidence that government began to enrol or register copies of outgoing documents in the form of plea rolls, feet of nes and chancery rolls is available from the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries. Indeed 3 September 1189, the date of Richard Is coronation, became xed as the legal limit of memory because remembrance in litigation now depended primarily on documentary evidence and not on mortal memory.64 The era of the written record had arrived. Analysis of systems over time would also pay attention to the development of increasingly sophisticated ling systems.65 The origins of these can be traced from the 17th century and are possibly shown at their most sophisticated in the Germanic registratur or registry system from the 18th century. Government administrations in Prussia transformed the registry from a post-hoc tool for keeping track of records into a dynamic component of the business process itself.66 Miller argues that this makes it a source for fresh insights into issues arising within the electronic recordkeeping environment. Further recent contributions to the discussion of organisational context and systems over time from the view-point of diplomatic have been made by a number of writers. Francis Blouin notes that complex organisations were already in existence, in the form of the Church and emerging nation states, at the time when the study of diplomatics was rst articulated. He offers insights into both the cultural and bureaucratic issues which shape the context of communications within organisations, looking specically at pre-print culture, print culture and post-print culture.67 Bruno Delmas argues that contemporary diplomatic has to deal with the growth of administrative activities, the elongation of hierarchies, the complication of administrative procedures and the expansion of dissemination

From Mabillon to Metadata

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and is now concerned less with the determining of the basic text than with evaluating the circuits and the means of elaboration for decisions and their applications.68 The most detailed recent analysis has been generated by the InterPARES Project,69 the rst part of which was undertaken between 1999 and 2002. This project, which is discussed further below, continues to be led by Luciana Duranti.70 Its goal was to formulate principles and methods for ensuring the long-term preservation of authentic electronic records and its methodology involved a rigorous analysis of the role and relevance of diplomatic within the electronic environment. Systems are set up to produce and sustain outputs (documents and records) that are predictably reliable and authentic. If e-systems are set up on the basis of diplomatic, then diplomatic will have to be able to deal not just with aggregates, but with dynamic objects as well as static ones. Diplomatic: Method and Metadata Mabillons methodology, used in his critique of diplomata described above, provided a prototype for a universal analytical tool. Francis Blouin explains:
Mabillon used the following method. He accumulated various examples of documents, looking for a variety of documents from the same source (person or institution). He was particularly conscious about nding documents which came from the same sources and were a result of the same process or procedure. Having assembled his examples, he examined the documents for particular . . . characteristics (internal and external form, support, writing, language and style, etc.). From this he was able to establish certain protocols for specic kinds of documentation that was generated by specic kinds of actions by certain particular individuals and institutions.71

Thus in the process of analysing diplomata, Mabillon extrapolated more general rules. By demonstrating what might be expected to be found in a document any inconsistency or deviation from the norm would be exposed. Most diplomatists, however, have conned their investigations more specically to particular types of documents and so specialist rather than generic rules predominate. Scholars have been mainly interested in using diplomatic skills in order better to understand a specic type or range of documents. They have been less concerned with extrapolating broad ndings in order to develop a generic tool-kit. As Boyle comments:
if one has to cross from one category to another, fresh formulae will have to be learned, new usages to be mastered. To pass from papal bullae . . . to royal charters, or imperial diplomata is no great step. But to move from these areas to manorial accounts . . . consistory court proceedings . . . or the imbreviaturae of notaries is, in each case to enter another world of vocabulary, usages and conventions.72

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However, Boyle continues:

even with . . . collections of facsimiles and transcripts at ones back, and a battery of dictionaries, manuals, and aids at the ready, there are still certain basic questions which must be put to each document, if it is to answer fully and without reticence as a witness to history.73

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Of course, that there is a range of basic questions that one needs to ask of any document in order to understand it properly is well recognised.74 Boyle offers his own set of questions. His methodology, based on the retrospective analysis of individual medieval documents, may be contrasted with that of Duranti, whose methodology was intended to serve as a model in recommending requirements for prospective, aggregated dynamic authentic electronic records. This comparison between the traditional and the new diplomatic may be used to test how far the latter stands up to scrutiny: how well does the traditional methodology meet the requirements of the new documentary format and medium? Boyle based his set of questions on the methodology used as a framework for the discussion of the circumstances of human acts notably by lawyers, from classical times, in the belief that one needs to be able to view such acts from all angles if one is to judge their circumstances appropriately. Re-arranged for application to documents, these are Quis? Quid? Quomodo? Quibus auxiliis? Cur? Ubi? and Quando? That is Who? What? How? Who else? Why? Where? And When?75 He argues that this kind of analysis allows the questioner to form a secure and unblinkered judgement of the nature, intent, and purport of the deliberate act of will that is expressed in the production of a document, and which determined its contents. Who? . Refers to the identity of the principal people involved: person or actor behind the document and the person to whom the act is directed: the recipient.

What? . What was being done by the given person? In diplomatic terms, what that person did was to cause a record to be made of some event. Examination of the document itself enables conclusions to be drawn about its purpose.

How? . This requires an analysis of the form or manner in which a document is drawn up. It comprises medium and format, formulae and style.

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Why? . Ascertains the precise purpose and therefore the point of a document and bears directly on its content.

Who else? . Who assisted the principals in the action? For example, in the physical creation of the document: the clerk, notary, secretary etc. or as witnesses?

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Where? . The place of origin and destination of documents is an important factor in determining their authenticity and credibility.

When? . Chronology is vital for both the understanding and the evaluation of any document.

The application of this set of model questions remains relevant to the evaluation of documents. Its elements are recognised implicitly by Duranti in her analysis of the attributes of electronic records, although differently expressed:
A diplomatic analysis of various types of electronic records shows that the necessary and sufcient components of an electronic record are the same as those of its traditional counterpart, although they may manifest themselves in different ways.76

Duranti has rened her own analysis of the attributes of an electronic record over time. The eight attributes noted below are drawn from an article published in 1999. They are: . . . . . . medium: the physical carrier of the message; physical and intellectual form: the rules of representation that allow for the communication of the message; action: the exercise of will that gives origin to the record; persons: the entities acting by means of the record; context: the juridical, administrative, procedural and documentary framework in which the record is created; content: the message that the record is intended to convey.77

Over and above these is Durantis diplomatic equivalent of the concept of interrelationship, which she calls the archival bond: the relationship linking each record to the previous and subsequent ones.

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These are based directly on an earlier and rather more detailed list cited in her 1989 92 articles subsequently published as Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science which are, in turn, derived in part from continental writers such as Giry, Pratesi and Carucci.78 These elements can be further categorised. Traditional diplomatic articulates a distinction in the elements of a document between those that represent fact and those that represent form: that is, between what the document was about (content) and its actual construction or make-up, both physical and intellectual. Form has been divided into two contextual areas: extrinsic for those elements relating to the documents physical form (e.g. medium, format, script, language) and intrinsic for those relating to its intellectual form, the way the content is presented and articulated (e.g. heading, titling, originator, date, text, attestation). In Boyles terms extrinsic comprises the how and what, while intrinsic comprises the when, where, who, who else. Fact, or content, is contained within the text part of the intrinsic elements and is represented by Boyle as answering the question why? To Duranti extrinsic elements basically comprise the medium, script, language and physical form, while the remainder are seen as intrinsic elements. All of these elements are necessary for a complete, authentic and reliable record. Duranti and MacNeil argue that on the basis of diplomatic analysis electronic records comprise in essence the same attributes as traditional records.79 They agree that the difference, of course, is that while in the latter the message and the medium are inextricably linked, in the electronic environment they are separately maintained within the system. Information about the extrinsic and intrinsic elements of a record, obvious to the naked eye in a papal bull or bargain and sale, are less explicit in e-records. Comparable extrinsic and intrinsic elements in the electronic environment are known as metadata, or data about data and similarly comprise contextual information supporting the content or subject matter of a document. Equally the extrinsic and intrinsic elements of a paper document, that is its physical and intellectual form, are just as much metadata as in the electronic environment. Metadata which is automatically captured in paper systemsextrinsically in its medium (e.g. paper) and format (a le) and intrinsically, intellectually, in such elements as its creator, date, destination, titling, etc. must be explicitly and deliberately captured and maintained in an electronic system for the continued understanding of records over time. This is particularly important if such metadata are merely implicit (such as the intention of the use of bold or italic on a page) in paper systems. The preservation of a permanent record requires the preservation of both the record content and its allied metadata. The comparison of two denitions of metadata, one from the UK National Archives, an organisation with no overt interest in diplomatic, with one from Heather MacNeil, demonstrates that the relevance of traditional diplomatic analysis remains in the electronic environment albeit expressed through a different vocabulary.

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According to the National Archives:

the term metadata refers to the following areas: . data contained within the document, or other electronic object, other than its intellectual content (e.g. its structure and layout) . information about the record and its relationships with other records in the assembly: for example, title, originator, classication and indexing, distribution . information about the use of the record: business activity, subsequent versions made, audit trail.80

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MacNeil expresses it thus:

Metadata may be classed into two main categories . . . Metadata of the electronic system consists of data that describe the operating system, the program generating the records, the physical location of the records in the electronic system, which are stored in the systems data directory, and the value of each data element, which is stored in the systems data dictionary . . . Metadata of the records . . . consists of data that place the record within its documentary and administrative context at the moment of its creation, e.g. the name of the sender, receiver, and creator. In some electronic systems, such data are stored in the data dictionary; in others they are assembled into a document prole attached to the record.81

In comparing these statements with those of the two traditionalists below it is arguable that the strongest link between the diplomatic of the past and its application to current requirements for recordness lies in its role in dening metadata. While the fundamental assumptions of Mabillons treatise:
were that the context of a documents creation is made manifest in its physical and intellectual form and that this form can be separated from the documents content and examined independently of it82

Boyle himself argues:

To profess to be concerned only with forms and formulae is to deny [records] nature. The forms and formulae were designed the better to preserve the burden of the document. They cannot be divorced from that central reality without losing their identity, though, of course, they may protably be considered in their own right for a better understanding of the whole.83

Reference to current metadata standards demonstrates a similar preoccupation with forms and formulae. Such standards are intended to enable the construction of reliable records and to improve cross-domain discovery across a range of types of information and have been familiar in the library environment for years.84 While community-specic initiatives develop detailed metadata sets, these tend to use Dublin Core as a starting point.85 Dublin Cores 15 elements, which include, for

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example title, creator, subject, date, type, format and source, are used both in the creation of authentic records and in aiding access to them. They show a marked similarity with those required by the early diplomatists for a demonstration of authenticity in historic documents. Indeed a case could be made to support the idea that the rst metadata standard was promulgated in 1681, by Mabillon. Diplomatic in the Electronic Environment The relevance of diplomatic to electronic record-keeping informs all of Durantis work. As such it has tended to develop in parallel to, rather than in relation to, other research projects into electronic record-keeping, maintaining separate principles and a different vocabulary. First in the project developed between the University of British Columbia and the Department of Defense I 1993 7 (the UBC/DoD project),86 and then in the international InterPARES project87 the underpinning hypothesis and the theoretical roots have been that of diplomatics, archival science and law.88 As mentioned above a major thrust of recent research in general has been the quest to establish and provide for the elements necessary in a software system to support, in electronic records management systems, the authenticity, reliability, integrity and usability of electronic records. Whereas parallel research projects have concentrated on dening the functional requirements for record-keeping systems (such as classication, retrieval, storage and destruction)89 and subsequently in related ndings to the ISO 15489 Duranti has dened these requirements differently. She has commented that establishing functional requirements for record-keeping systems has not been the main purpose of the UBC project: it is more concerned with the denition of records though functional requirements may become an end product.90 None the less, Erlandsson observes that the nal outcome of the UBC/DoD project appeared to refer less to the inuence of diplomatic than had been anticipated.91 The rst phase of the InterPARES project looked at issues around ensuring the continued authenticity of non-current electronic records designated for permanent preservation, dividing the work into four domains: authenticity, appraisal, preservation and strategies. Ultimately, in discussing the ndings of the Authenticity Task Force Heather MacNeil, a central member of the team, acknowledges that diplomatic analysis would not, on its own, enable the formulation of principles and methods for ensuring the long-term preservation of authentic electronic records:
Our experience with analysing electronic systems from the perspective of contemporary archival diplomatics taught us much about the limits of diplomatics . . . As it is currently articulated, contemporary diplomatics remains rooted in a very traditional conception of what a record is . . . While it is quite effective in decomposing electronic systems containing digital objects that behave like traditional records . . . it is less helpful in decomposing electronic systems containing digital objects that behave differently, i.e. in systems in which entities are uid and less easy to circumscribe.92

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She suggests that the value of diplomatic analysis in understanding electronic systems might be enhanced by:
A reorientation of its concepts and principles . . . to accommodate a broader interpretation of the characteristics of electronic records . . . In specic terms this might mean focusing less attention on establishing whether the record is complete, stable, and unchangeable, and more attention on determining whether and to what extent the system is capable of tracking changes and how that tracking function might be managed over time.93

In terms of methodological outcomes, the authenticity task force found that:

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because of the complexity of electronic records and record keeping, it is both difcult and problematic for those researching or managing electronic records to identify a single, appropriate unit of analysis. Diplomatics approaches the issue from the perspective of the individual record; archival science, from that of the record aggregate; and systems analysis, from that of the automated information or record-keeping system. Each of these perspectives contributes to both understanding the nature of the record and its long-term preservation. What is also required, however, is an overall systems approach that takes into account the total record-keeping environment, that is, the sum of all of the contexts identied through InterPARES.94

Conclusion It is apparent that the fundamentals of diplomatic, to the extent that they are able to support the creation of authentic documents, remain central to our understanding of the nature of the record. Less discussion has taken place over the meaning of what comprises a reliable record however in relation to the truthfulness of its content, and indeed further debate would be useful. This issue was obliquely referred to above in the case of the Anglo Saxon writ-charter where the truth was too important to leave to chance and the unauthentic document was created in order to record the true facts of donations of land. However, the reliability of facts and its relationship with truth are difcult areas for the archivist, areas which some might argue are not our concern. Jenkinsons positivist view that the archivist is the most seless devotee of Truth the modern world produces95 by implication endows records with attributes that are no longer fully recognised. Historians and archivists, working in an environment where debates are viewed in part through post-modern lenses, now recognise that most records can lead to a number of interpretations, or narratives. The document is not objective, innocent raw material but expresses past [or present] societys power over memory and over the future: the document is what remains and that indeed the past is not a foreign country waiting to be discovered but, rather, an empty space waiting to be lled by the historian.96 The archivist, in facilitating the creation of authentic records which are to some degree capable of standing for the facts to which they attest, must also acknowledge that their content will remain open to interpretation.

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In response to the questions posed at the outset, it is clear that not only have diplomatic techniques developed over time to encompass new needs, but that archivists too have sought consciously to foster such developments under the name of diplomatic. It is clear that virtually all documents and records, whether formal or informal, are eligible for diplomatic analysis. Likewise, with the multiplication of documents, diplomatic can be used to analyse not just the single document but aggregates of documents and their contexts too, for a broader understanding. Traditional diplomatic certainly encountered record-keeping systems, and the traditional diplomatist undoubtedly recognised the value of identifying the elements of a system in the quest for establishing forgery. The case has been argued that diplomatic techniques can to some degree be applied to systems as well as products, but recognises that, given the ever-changing nature of living organisations their contribution may be limited.97 The undoubted value of diplomatic when applied to authentication in the electronic environment is clear, although it is necessary to acknowledge its limitations within a dynamic environment. In terms of electronic record-keeping it seems the case that systems incorporating functional requirements offer more broadly based solutions to electronic records management than can diplomatic analysis, with its emphasis at the level of the individual document. There is no doubt, however that diplomatic has been reinvented as a tool for understanding the records-creation process of twentieth century bureaucracies.98 The threads of traditional diplomatic will always be relevant in any retrospective analysis of the individual record. They also cannot be ignored in any predictive environment because those elements or attributes of a record necessary to demonstrate its authenticity and reliability, that is the internal and external features articulated by Mabillon and Boyle in traditional diplomatic and in the current environment by compliance with record-keeping metadata standards, are constant. The whole of the diplomatic process is intriguing, and lies at the heart of the archivists understanding of the record. Archivists cannot fully understand the records they manage without the application, consciously or unconsciously, of diplomatic techniques. Although these cannot provide all the answers to questions generated within the dynamic electronic environment, diplomatic remains central to the work we do and its timely revival has served to remind us of this. Notes
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] MacNeil, Trusting Records, xi. AS 4390-1996, Records Management; BS ISO 15489-1:2001, Information and Documentation. Erlandsson, Electronic Records Management, 19. Harris, Selling Hitler, 24, 345. MacNeil, Trusting Records, 12. Boyle, Diplomatics, 82. Brooke, The Teaching of Diplomatic, 1. MacNeil, Trusting Records, 86. Mabillon, De re diplomatica libri sex.

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[10] [11] [12] [13] [14]

21

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[15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31]

[32] [33]

[34] [35] [36] [37] [38] [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [44] [45] [46]

Translated from Latin by Cheney, The Study of the Medieval Papal Chancery, 7. Boyle, Diplomatics, 86. Duranti, Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science, 45. Duranti, Concepts and Principles for the Management of Electronic Records, 153 75. For example, Galbraith, An Introduction to the Study of History, 25; Brooke, The Teaching of Diplomatic; at the British Records Association Conference, 1967, reported in Archives viii (1967 68), 133; Major, The Teaching and Study of Diplomatic in England, 114 18; Jenkinson, Archives and the Science and Study of Diplomatic, 345. Hall, Studies in English Ofcial Historical Documents, 57. Ibid., 58. Ibid., 11. Major, The Teaching and Study of Diplomatic, 115. In the tradition of Davis, Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066 1100. Such as Stubbs, Select Charters; Farrar, Early Yorkshire Charters. Duranti, Eastwood, and MacNeil, Preservation of the Integrity of Electronic Records, 11. Brooke, The Teaching of Diplomatic, 7. According to Brooke, The Teaching of Diplomatic, 2. Madox, Formulare Anglicanum; Hall, Studies in English Ofcial Historical Documents; Pugh, Calendar of the Antrobus Deeds Before 1625. Major, The Teaching and Study of Diplomatic, 118. Mabillon, De re diplomatica libri sex. Manuel de diplomatique, 1893; Handbuch der Urkundenlehre fur Deutschland und Italien, 1889; and Programma scolastico di palaeograa latina e di diplomatica, 1894 1901, respectively. Boyle, Diplomatics. Duranti, Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science. Archivaria 28 33, Summer 1989 to Winter 1991 2. This was my rst major effort at writing in English . . . I had never written a sentence shorter than ve lines and a paragraph shorter than one page, Duranti, Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science, 4. American Archivist (fall 1996), 59. For example, Bearman, Documenting Documentation; Bearman, Diplomatics, Weberian Bureaucracy, and the Management of Electronic Records in Europe and America; Blouin, A Framework for a Consideration of Diplomatics in the Electronic Environment, 466 79; Yakel, The Way Things Work: Procedures, Process, and Institutional Records, 454 64; MacNeil, Trusting Records. MacNeil, Trusting Records. US-InterPARES Project, InterPARES Interpreted.. From Bresslau, Handbuch der Urkundenlehre fur Deutschland und Italien, in Boyle, Diplomatics, 87. Boyle, Diplomatics, 86. Ibid., 87. Vaisey, Now and Then: Reections on Forty Years in Archives, 120. For example by Georges Tessier, Professor of Diplomatics at the Ecole des Chartes, cited in Boyle, Diplomatics, 87. Posner, Archives in the Ancient World, 11. Boyle, Diplomatics, 87. Report on the British Records Association Annual Conference, Archives viii, 134. Brooke, The Teaching of Diplomatic, 1. That is, whatever pertains. . ., see above. Boyle, Diplomatics, 91.

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Made explicit in BSISO 15489. Boyle, Diplomatics, 89. Galbraith, An Introduction to the Study of History, 25. Jenkinson, Archives and the Science and Study of Diplomatic, 346. Hodson, The Need for a Comparative Study of the Diplomatic of Quarter Sessions Records, 4 5. Along with authenticity, naturalness and impartiality. Jenkinson, A Manual of Archive Administration, 12. Erlandsson, Electronic Records Management, 19. Iacovino, Common Ground, Different Traditions. Cheney, The Study of the Medieval Papal Chancery. International Council on Archives, ISAD(G) International Standard Archival Description, 18 22. Bearman, Documenting Documentation, 38. Yakel, The Way Things Work, 455. BS ISO 15489-1:2001, 7.2, 8.2. Upward, Modelling the Continuum as Paradigm Shift in Recordkeeping and Archiving Processes and Beyond, 115 39. Yakel, The Way Things Work, 460. Chaplais, The Anglo-Saxon Chancery, 160. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record, England 1066 1307, 322, 149. Ibid., 152. For example, Delgado, The Enormous File. Miller, The German Registry, 43. Blouin, A Framework for a Consideration of Diplomatics in the Electronic Environment, 466 79. Delmas, Manifesto for a Contemporary Diplomatics, 438 52. International Research in Permanent Authentic Records in Electronic Systems. For project description and ndings see The Long-term Preservation of Authentic Electronic Records: Findings of the InterPARES Project, August 2002. Available from http://www.interpares.org (accessed 12 January 2004). Blouin and Delmas, Special Section on Diplomatics and Modern Records. Boyle, Diplomatics, 92. Ibid., 93. For example, that for complete understanding of any record [students] must be able to answer . . . three fundamental questions: Who wrote it? When did he write it? Why did he write it? Purvis, Ecclesiastical Records, 2. Boyle, Diplomatics, 93. Duranti, Concepts and Principles for the Management of Electronic Records, 156. Ibid., 156. Duranti, Diplomatics: New Uses for an Old Science, 134, footnote 3. MacNeil, Trusting Records, 96. Public Record Ofce, Management, Appraisal and Preservation of Electronic Records, 33. MacNeil, Trusting Records, 96. Ibid., 21. Boyle, Diplomatics, 90. AACR2 MARC, for example. Dublin Core Metadata Initiative. The ISO 15836:2003 which describes the element set is available from http://www.niso.org/international/SC4/n515.pdf (accessed 12 January 2005). Duranti, Eastwood, and MacNeil, Preservation of the Integrity of Electronic Records. See http://www.interpares.org (accessed 12 January 2005).

[47] [48] [49] [50] [51] [52] [53] [54] [55] [56] [57] [58] [59] [60] [61] [62] [63] [64] [65] [66] [67] [68] [69] [70]

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[71] [72] [73] [74]

[75] [76] [77] [78] [79] [80] [81] [82] [83] [84] [85] [86] [87]

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[88] Duranti,Concepts and Principles for the Management of Electronic Records, 45. [89] For example, University of Pittsburgh, Functional Requirements, Production Rules Version of the Functional Requirements and Metadata Requirements for Evidence Reference Model for Business Acceptable Communications, reproduced in Erlandsson, Electronic Records Management, 102 13; the UK National Archives, Functional Requirements for Electronic Records Management System; and the European Commission, Model Requirements for the Management of Electronic Records. [90] Erlandsson, Electronic Records Management, 35, footnote 92. [91] Ibid., 40 41. [92] MacNeil, The Findings of the Authenticity Task Force of InterPARES, 32. [93] Ibid., 32. [94] Available from http://www.interpares.org/book/interpares_book_d_part1.pdf (accessed 12 January 2004). [95] Jenkinson, The English Archivist, 259. [96] Cook, Archival Science and Postmodernism, 7; MacNeil, Trusting Records, 67. [97] Yakel, The Way Things Work, 459. [98] MacNeil, Trusting Records, 87.

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Erlandsson, Alf. Electronic Records Management: A Literature Review. ICA Committee on Electronic Records, April 1997. European Commission. Model Requirements for the Management of Electronic Records, 2002. Available from http://www.cornwell.co.uk/moreq (accessed 12 January 2005). Farrar, William. Early Yorkshire Charters. Yorkshire Archaeological Society, 1914 16. Galbraith, Vivian Hunter. An Introduction to the Study of History. London: Watts & Co., 1964. Hall, Hubert. Studies in English Ofcial Historical Documents. Cambridge: University Press, 1908. Harris, Robert. Selling Hitler: The Story of the Hitler Diaries. London: Faber and Faber, 1986. Hodson, J. H. The Need for a Comparative Study of the Diplomatic of Quarter Sessions Records. Bulletin of the Society of Local Archivists 8 (December 1951): 4 5. Iacovino, Livia. Common Ground, Different Traditions: An Australian Perspective on Italian Diplomatics, Archival Science and Business Records. Archives and Manuscripts 29 (2001): 118 48. International Council on Archives. ISAD(G) International Standard Archival Description. 2d ed. Ottawa, 2000. Available from http://www.ica.org/biblio/isad_g_2e.pdf (accessed 12 January 2005). Jenkinson, Hilary. A Manual of Archive Administration. 2d ed. London: Lund, Humphries & Co., 1937. . The English Archivist: A New Profession. In Selected Writings of Sir Hilary Jenkinson, edited by Roger H. Ellis and Peter Walne. Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1980. . Archives and the Science and Study of Diplomatic (Society of Archivists Presidential Address (not delivered) 1955). In Selected Writings of Sir Hilary Jenkinson, edited by Roger H. Ellis and Peter Walne. Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1980. Mabillon, Jean. De re diplomatica libri sex. Paris, 1681. MacNeil, Heather. Trusting Records: Legal, Historical and Diplomatic Perspectives. London: Kluwer Academic, 2000. . The Findings of the Authenticity Task Force of InterPARES. Archivaria 54 (fall 2002): 32. Madox, T. Formulare Anglicanum. London, 1702. Major, Kathleen. The Teaching and Study of Diplomatic in England. Archives 8 (1964): 114 18. Miller, Thea. The German Registry: The Evolution of a Recordkeeping Model. Archival Science 3 (2003): 43 63. Posner, Ernst. Archives in the Ancient World. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972. Public Record Ofce. Management, Appraisal and Preservation of Electronic Records. Vol. 1, Principles. London: Public Record Ofce, 1999. Pugh, Ralph Bernard. Calendar of the Antrobus Deeds Before 1625. Devizes, 1947. Purvis, J. S. Ecclesiastical Records. Journal of the Society of Archivists 1 (1955 59): 2 6. Stubbs, William. Select Charters. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1929. UK National Archives. Functional Requirements for Electronic Records Management System, 2002. Available from http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/electronicrecords/function.htm (accessed 12 January 2005). Upward, Frank. Modelling the Continuum as Paradigm Shift in Recordkeeping and Archiving Processes and Beyond: A Personal Reection. Records Management Journal 10 (2000): 115 39. US-InterPARES Project. InterPARES Interpreted: A Guide to Findings on the Preservation of Authentic Electronic Record. Available from http://www.interpares.org. Vaisey, David. Now and Then: Reections on Forty Years in Archives. In Essays in Honour of Michael Cook, edited by Margaret Procter and Caroline Williams. Liverpool: LUCAS, 2003. Yakel, Elizabeth. The Way Things Work: Procedures, Process, and Institutional Records. American Archivist 59 (fall 1996): 454 64.

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