36) Notariato e documentazione a Bobbio tra episcopio, capitolo e monastero (secoli XI-XIII)

The documentation preserved in the Archives of the archbishopric, the chapter and the monastery of Saint Columbanus in Bobbio enables to perform a diplomatic analysis – whose chronological limits had to be carefully circumscribed – aimed first, towards an evaluation of the local notarial practice. The local notaries in fact, put their services at the disposal of the different urban institutions. The documents dating to the centuries under analysis mark the passage from charta to instrumentum, and thus have enabled to trace the development of documentary forms as well as to find connections to and influences of the Piacentine notarial milieu. Bobbio’s notarial milieu was in fact heavily dependant on the Piacentine one when it came to the education of its notaries, as attested by similar characteristics in the handwriting. Finally the study considers the chronological uses, in order to better define their evolution, especially in comparison to previous literature. More specifically, the research aims to indentify the time-span and modalities according to which an indictional system was introduced locally.