IDENTIFICATION OF ANONYMOUS WRITINGS FROM THE TEUTONIC ORDER’S LAND OF PRUSSIA WITH THE AID OF NOTARIAL SIGNATURES¹.
For Prof. Dr. Grasilda Blažienė on the occasion of her 75th birthday on 15 August 2024
Identification of anonymous writings in Prussia of the Teutonic Order based on notarial signatures².
Dedicated to Prof. Dr. Grasilda Blažienė, celebrating her 75th anniversary on 15 August 2024
ANNOTATION
This contribution presents a method for identifying anonymous late medieval practical texts by means of surviving notarial signatures within the context of the same registrarial corpus.
KEYWORDS: Teutonic Order, public notaries, anonymous writings, notarial instruments, notarial signatures, history of the Teutonic Order, medieval and early modern history of Prussia, Livonia, Lorraine and Silesia.
¹ Slightly revised version of the lecture delivered by the author in St. Petersburg at the conference on Western European manuscripts and documents from Late Antiquity to the Early Modern Period in St. Petersburg collections (19–21 September 2019).
² This article is a concise editorial version of a lecture delivered at the conference devoted to Western European manuscripts and historical documents from Late Antiquity to the Early Modern Period. The conference took place in St. Petersburg on 19–21 September 2019.
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DIETER HECKMANN
ANNOTATION
This article presents a method to identify anonymous late medieval texts of use thanks to surviving notary signatures in the context of the same registry.
KEYWORDS: Teutonic Order, public notaries, anonymous writings, notarial instruments, notary signatures, history oft the Teutonic Order, medieval and early modern history of Prussia, Livonia, Lorraine and Silesia.
In editing the Elbląg War Book from 1383 to 1409, published in 2013, it was possible, among other things, to attribute the younger scribal hand to the Elbląg town scribe Bartholomeus Stume³.
At least two basic prerequisites were present for this: 1. Bartholomeus’s scribal hand can first be documented as a secondary hand in 1408 and as the sole hand in 1409. 2. In a document dated 10 December 1403 (Fig. 1), Bartholomeus identifies himself, by means of his autograph signature, as a public notary⁴.
This result opens up further questions, some of which should be taken up below. Does Bartholomeus Stume represent a unique example of a scribal career in a late medieval Prussian town?
³ Heckmann, Kwiatkowski 2013: 28–30.
⁴ Ibid.: 29.
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Identifizierung anonymer Schriften aus dem Deutschordensland Preußen mit Hilfe von Notarsunterschriften
Are there comparable careers in the writing service of other registrarial record creators in the Teutonic Order’s land of Prussia or in chancelleries outside Prussia? What conclusions do identifications of scribal hands permit with regard to contexts of written records? This touches on subject areas such as the influence of public notaries on records administration, provenance research, or the existence of scribal regions. What methodological problems stand in the way of unambiguous assignments of scribal hands? Specifically, one should ask whether there are sufficient text samples at all, whether and to what extent age-related changes in writing have had an effect, or whether the use of new letter forms has created palaeographical obstacles.
1. EXAMPLES OF THE CAREERS OF PUBLIC NOTARIES IN THE TEUTONIC ORDER’S LAND OF PRUSSIA AND IN THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE
The research is far more familiar with the Kulm town scribe Konrad Bitschin than with Bartholomeus Stume. Bitschin’s renown is due above all to the fact that in 1431 he compiled the oldest collection of Kulm law, which acquired great importance in Prussia for both urban and rural forms of settlement. It is unknown when Bitschin obtained his approbation as a public notary. In 1423 he first appears as town scribe of Danzig; in 1430 Bischin entered the service of the Kulm town council, and in 1431 he is documented there as the holder of a vicarage in the parish church. Bitschin gave up his office as Kulm town scribe by 1443 at the latest, probably in connection with obtaining two parish benefices in the diocese of Pomesania. Despite further careers, Bitschin remained loyal to the town of Kulm, for he worked for its council as an occasional scribe, held another vicarage, and maintained a residence in Kulm at least between 1453 and 1456. Bitschin’s scribal hand is identified not through his notarial signature but by means of the incipit of his legal collection5.
Identifizierung anonymer Schriften aus dem Deutschordensland Preußen mit Hilfe von Notarsunterschriften
By contrast, the public notary Peter of Wormditt was in the service of the Order from the beginning of his career, initially as scribe to the commander of the Samland cathedral chapter. He is documented in this capacity on 7 August 1376. After studying law in Prague, Peter of Wormditt entered the writing service of the Grand Marshal of the Teutonic Order, where he is documented from 1396 to 1399. From there he moved to the grand master’s chancery. In July 1403, the grand master appointed him Order procurator at the Curia in Rome. Wormditt held the procuratorship until his death on 27 August 1419⁶. Peter of Wormditt’s scribal hand is documented above all by his correspondence, so that in identifying it, research was not dependent solely on his notarial signature (Fig. 3).
Stefan Mathias of Neidenburg provides another prominent example. Like his patron, the grand master’s chancellor Andreas Santberg⁷, Stefan had studied at the University of Vienna. By 1441 at the latest, Stefan was in the writing service of the Bishop of Pomesania. The earliest evidence of his signature as a public notary also dates from this period, in a transsumpt of a document of Pope Clement III dated 6 February 1191, prepared by him (Fig. 4).
Identifizierung anonymer Schriften aus dem Deutschordensland Preußen mit Hilfe von Notarsunterschriften
From the chancery of the Bishop of Pomesania, Stefan Mathias of Neidenburg moved in 1448 to that of the grand master at Marienburg. Stefan was initially provided with a canonry in Warmia, then with the parish of St. Nicholas in the old town of Elbląg, and from 1462 once again with a canonry in Warmia, which he lost for political reasons after the death of Grand Master Ludwig von Erlichshausen in 1467 as a result of the renewed military conflicts with Poland. Following the settlement between Poland and the Order, accompanied by a political amnesty for the supporters of both parties to the conflict, Stefan regained his canonry in 1479. At the instigation of the Polish king, the cathedral chapter of Chełmno appointed him Bishop of Chełmno in the same year. Stefan of Neidenburg held the office of Bishop of Chełmno from 1481, the year of his consecration, until his death in 1495⁸.
For the Holy Roman Empire, from which the Teutonic Order’s land of Prussia had adopted the public notariate⁹, Peter-Johannes Schuler has demonstrated similarly structured careers of public notaries. There, too, a public notary frequently ended his freelance activity when he received a well-endowed benefice or a lucrative office, for example as town scribe, university professor, advocate, or syndic¹⁰. This observation provides sufficient starting points for comparing anonymous writings in the same way with the existing notarial signatures in the registries or collections of the imperial territories and imperial cities.
2. CONTEXTS OF WRITTEN RECORDS
The grand master’s chancellor Andreas Santberg or Johann Birsmıt, Bartholomeus Stume’s predecessor as Elbląg town scribe, had, as far as is known, no approbations as public notaries. They represent a series of examples in which anonymous writings were successfully identified even without a notarial signature, but public notaries in the territorial or municipal writing service deserve particular attention. This is probably connected with the fact that the impetus for the reorganization of Prussian records administration came from their ranks
records administration. This primarily benefited the registry system of both territorial and municipal chancelleries, which brought with it a strengthening of the public faith of the registry and the archive associated with it¹¹. One of the outstanding activities in this context is the registration of the handfesten or grants issued by the marshal’s office, initiated by the then scribe to the Grand Marshal, Peter of Wormditt¹².
Stefan of Neidenburg’s almost twenty-year tenure in the grand master’s chancery, or Stume’s activity from 1408 to 1417¹³ in the service of the Elbląg town council, certainly belong to the exceptional cases, which noticeably facilitates the search for their autograph specimens in the surviving records. Most other scribes, by contrast, frequently changed their employers, so that their autograph writing samples would have to be identified in different archives or archival remnants. Frequent changes of employer, and not least personal interconnections, also fostered tendencies toward standardization, such as the emergence of official books for rationalizing records administration or the development of a chancery landscape with a uniform chancery language or uniform chancery practices¹⁴.
These observations can be regarded as a challenge both for preparing further scribal biographies and for provenance research, particularly concerning registrarial remnants or individual items preserved in the manuscript collections of major libraries. They also encourage the cataloguing of notarial signs and notarial signatures, the two interacting authentication features of public notaries—summarized as notarial execution¹⁵—¹⁶.
Identifizierung anonymer Schriften aus dem Deutschordensland Preußen mit Hilfe von Notarsunterschriften
3. METHODOLOGICAL PROBLEMS IN ASSIGNING SCRIBAL HANDS
In addition to the lack of text samples, the frequently confusing change of ink, the dispersed transmission, and the concealed scribal career, age-related changes in writing often obstruct the identification of an anonymous scribal hand (Figs. 5 and 6 with the youthful and aged hands of Johann Birsmit).
Fig. 5: Youthful hand of the Elbląg scribe Johann Birsmit, 1387, Heckmann, Kwiatkowski 2013: 23
Fig. 6: Aged hand of the Elbląg scribe Johann Birsmit, 1405, Heckmann, Kwiatkowski 2013: 24
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DIETER HECKMANN
Standardization through writing schools or resulting from special requirements for legibility (missal), as well as, not least, the adoption of new letter types, such as Antiqua characters, can likewise prevent or at least make unambiguous attribution more difficult.
SOURCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
Armgart Martin 1995: The Handfesten of the Prussian Oberland up to 1410 and their issuers, Cologne, Weimar, Vienna: Böhlau, 253–259.
Conrad Klaus 1963: The formation of the handfest collection of the marshal’s office. – Preußenland 1, 19–25.
Generalprokuratoren – The Reports of the General Procurators of the Teutonic Order at the Curia, vol. 2, edited by H. Koeppen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1960, 29–34.
GStA PK – Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz, XX. Hauptabteilung [HA], Pergamenturkunden, Schieblade [Schiebl.] 1, Nr. 1a; Schiebl. 62, Nr. 9; Schiebl. L, Nr. 28; Ordensfoliant [OF] 83, 2.
Heckmann Dieter 2009: The public notary in the Teutonic Order’s land of Prussia in the mirror of legal reception and chancery practice. – Preußenland 47, 37–56.
Heckmann Dieter 2011: Administrative simplification in Prussia: the Teutonic Order and public notaries in the 14th and 15th centuries. – Streifzug durch Brandenburg-Preußen. Archivische Beiträge zur kulturellen Bildungsarbeit im Wissenschaftsjahr 2011, Berlin: Selbstverlag GStA PK, 57–67.
Heckmann Dieter 2013: Ferment in administration. The public notariate in the Teutonic Order’s land of Prussia. – Archivallische Zeitschrift 93, 207–220.
Heckmann Dieter 2016: Aspects of the reorganization of the chancery system in the Prussian land of the Order after the Second Peace of Thorn. – Zapiski Historyczne 81(4), 101–116.
Heckmann Dieter 2020: The “Kulm Book of Privileges” (1431–1456). Description for the purpose of cataloguing. – Schriftlichkeit im Preußenland, edited by M.-L. Heckmann, J. Sarnowsky, Osnabrück: fibre Verlag, 187–209.
Heckmann Dieter, Kwiatkowski Krzysztof 2013: The Elbląg War Book (1383–1409). Accounts for Urban Levies, edited by D. Heckmann with the assistance of K. Kwiatkowski, Cologne, Weimar, Vienna: H. Böhlau.
Karp Hans-Jürgen 1996: Neidenburg, Stephan von (c. 1412–1495). – The Bishops of the Holy Roman Empire 1448 to 1648. A Biographical Lexicon, edited by E. Gatz with the assistance of C. Brodkorb, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 498–499.
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Santberg Andreas, Heckmann Dieter 2007: The “Chronicle of the League and Union against Violence and Injustice” by the grand master’s chaplain Andreas Santberg on the prehistory of the Thirteen Years’ War in Prussia (1450–1454), edited by D. Heckmann with the assistance of M.-L. Heckmann, Marburg: N. G. Elwert.
Schuler Peter-Johannes 1976: History of the Southwestern German Notariate. From Its Beginnings to the Imperial Notarial Ordinance of 1512: thesis, dissertation, Bühl: Verlag Konkordia.
Weileder Magdalena 2019: Late Medieval Notarial Documents. Procuratorial Instruments, Authenticated Copies, and Delegated Documents from Bavarian and Austrian Holdings, Vienna, Cologne, Weimar: H. Böhlau.
Identification of anonymous writings in Prussia of the Teutonic Order based on notarial signatures.
Dedicated to Prof. Dr. Grasilda Blažienė. Celebrating her 75th anniversary on 15 August 2024
SUMMARY
While working on the Elbląg War Book of 1383–1409, it was possible, among other things, to establish the identity of the earlier text’s compiler, Bartholomeus Stume, the Elbląg town scribe. Two important circumstances helped reach this conclusion: 1) documents written in the scribe Bartholomeus’s hand were first identified in 1408 as those of an assistant scribe, and in 1409 as those of the principal and sole scribe; 2) in one of the documents from 1403, Bartholomeus had signed as a public notary.
Given the nature of the surviving evidence, such identification in documents from the period of the Teutonic Order’s rule in Prussia is not unusual. This applies not only to the legacy of municipal chancelleries. Even more anonymous writings are identified precisely through public notaries active in the chancelleries of Prussian rulers and officials (the grand master, bishop, and episcopal curia), and of their servants, such as commanders and bailiffs. A particularly well-known and successful example is the contribution of Peter von Wormditt, then the Teutonic Order’s procurator at the Roman Curia, and Stefan Mathias von Neidenburg, who served as Bishop of Chełmno from 1481 to 1495. The authentic signatures of both notaries survive on the notarial documents they prepared. These signatures contain sufficient comparable evidence to permit the reliable attribution of certain anonymous writings, especially those found in chancery documents and correspondence, to a specific compiler. The identification work on the marshal’s office chancery books prepared by Peter von Wormditt has already been completed, while that of Stefan von Neidenburg remains to be undertaken.
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DIETER HECKMANN
The identification of anonymous writings based on notarial signatures is determined by certain circumstances of their registration, arising above all from chancery archives and the large number of surviving received authentic documents. Identification is also made more difficult, among other things, by the lack of suitable text samples. Changes in handwriting can be observed in texts from different periods, as can the use of new letter types, for example, Antiqua characters.
Received on 29 April 2024.
DIETER HECKMANN
Academic archivist emeritus at the Geheimes Staatsarchiv PK, Berlin Rosenstr. 53, D-14542 Werder [email protected]
