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2023/2024

Diplomatics

Code: 100328 ECTS Credits: 6
Degree Type Year Semester
2500501 History OT 4 0

Contact

Name:
Jesus Alturo Perucho
Email:
jesus.alturo@uab.cat

Teaching groups languages

You can check it through this link. To consult the language you will need to enter the CODE of the subject. Please note that this information is provisional until 30 November 2023.


Prerequisites

Completing Palaeography is not compulsory but it will help to set you up for study success, particularly if this is your first time studying at UAB.


Objectives and Contextualisation

Studying Diplomatic, you learn how to check the authenticity of the charters and diplomas. You learn how to make a Diplomatarium, that is, a charter’s collection, with exercises on the process of dating medieval documents, reducing to our current calendar the chronological compute of the ancient and medieval eras; to elaborate an abstract, summarizing the diploma's content while being capable of its critical edition.


Competences

  • Developing critical thinking and reasoning and communicating them effectively both in your own and other languages.
  • Mastering the specific methods and techniques of diplomacy.
  • Students must be capable of collecting and interpreting relevant data (usually within their area of study) in order to make statements that reflect social, scientific or ethical relevant issues.
  • Students must be capable of communicating information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialised and non-specialised audiences.
  • Students must develop the necessary learning skills in order to undertake further training with a high degree of autonomy.

Learning Outcomes

  1. Communicating in your mother tongue or other language both in oral and written form by using specific terminology and techniques of Historiography.
  2. Critically distinguishing an authentic diploma from a false or interpolated one.
  3. Identifying the main and secondary ideas and expressing them with linguistic correctness.
  4. Organising and planning the search of historical information.
  5. Properly using the specific vocabulary of History.
  6. Reducing to our current calendar the chronological compute of the ancient and medieval eras.
  7. Solving problems autonomously.
  8. Submitting works in accordance with both individual and small group demands and personal styles.
  9. Summarizing the diploma's content while being capable of its critical edition.
  10. Using the characteristic computing resources of the field of History.

Content

  1. Diplomatic: definition and main aims.
  2. Concept of diploma or charter.
  3. True or false documents, or forgery through interpolation.
  4. Original documents and copies. Records and cartularies.
  5. Medieval cronology. Reducing to our current calendar the chronological compute of the ancient and medieval eras.
  6. Abstracts.
  7. Diplomatic, Palaeographical, intepretative and critical editions.
  8. Heuristic apparatus, and, where appropriate, how to elaborate the corresponding critical apparatus.
  9. How to make a Diplomatarium, that is, a collection of charters.
  10. Problems related to indexing a Diplomatarium. The problem of the adaptation of old proper names to our current languages.

Methodology

The module aims to develop understanding and practical skills in Diplomatic, based around practical sessions. These will be accompanied by classes that review the theory and will use facsimiles of all the original diplomas. Students will be able to demonstrate skills in initiating and carrying forward an independent programme of practical archivist research, editing a collection of a few diplomas, under supervison of Professor. During the module, students will be encouraged to actively participate in class.

Seminar hours: The module will be taught through a series of weekly lecture workshops and seminars. They will be based on systematic study of primary sources prepared in advance and will involve student-led discussions and presentations. The emphasis throughout is on the acquisition and enhancement of specific skills.

Tutorial hours: tutorials and specific learning exercises (individuals or in a small group). You will be offered guidance about the preparation of the assessed tasks in individual tutorials.

Independent learning: to search archive documents, to be able to read diplomas, to write an essay addressing one of the course themes, self-study.

15 minutes of a class will be set aside, within the calendar established by the center/degree, for students to fill in surveys to evaluate the performance of the teaching staff and to evaluate the subject.

The Biblioteca d'Humanitats offers virtual courses aimed at getting to know documentary collections better, bibliographic reference managers or issues such as plagiarism or copyright. The teacher can include one of these courses as an activity: https://www.uab.cat/web/our-services/training-sessions-1345738247880.html

Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.


Activities

Title Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Type: Directed      
Diplomatic: concept and main aims 20 0.8 7, 2
Medieval chronology 20 0.8 6
The adaptation of old proper names to our current languages 20 0.8 8, 9
To make a diplomatarium 20 0.8 7, 2, 8, 6, 9
Type: Supervised      
Edition of a collection of a few diplomas 20 0.8 7, 2, 8, 6, 9
Type: Autonomous      
Written work 50 2 7, 2, 8, 6, 9

Assessment

The continuous evaluation will be based on the activity in class (10%), the quality of the final work presented, which consists of the preparation of a short diploma (40%), and a final exam ( 50%).

The unique assessment will consist of three activities: the preparation of the regest of three documents of various types, the reduction to the current calculation of five timelines from the medieval and modern era, and a final exam. Students will be able to take part in the single assessment through a form that they will submit to Academic Management between the following dates: from September 18 to October 6. On these dates, students do not have to justify the reason for their choice. Single Assessment tests may coincide with dates reserved for continuous assessment. Recovery of the single assessment: the same recovery system as for the continuous assessment will be applied.

At the time of carrying out each assessment activity, the teacher will inform the students (Moodle) of the procedure and the date of review of the qualifications.

For recovery, students must have previously been assessed in a set of activities whose weight is equivalent to a minimum of 2/3 parts of the total qualification (Continuous Assessment) or deliver all the scheduled tests (Assessment unique). The student will receive the grade of "Not assessable" as long as he has not delivered more than 1/3 of the assessment activities.

In the written activities, spelling, syntactic or lexical errors are taken into account. The penalty can be between 0.1-0.2 points on the final grade for each mistake made. Repeated errors can discount.

In the event of a student committing any irregularity that may lead to a significant variation in the grade awarded to an assessment activity, the student will be given a zero for this activity, regardless of any disciplinary process that may take place. In the event of several irregularities in assessment activities of the same subject, the student will be given a zero as the final grade for this subject.

In the event that tests or exams cannot be taken onsite, they will be adapted to an online format made available through the UAB’s virtual tools (original weighting will be maintained). Homework, activities and class participation will be carried out through forums, wikis and/or discussion on Teams, etc. Lecturers will ensure that students are able to access these virtual tools, or will offer them feasible alternatives.

 


Assessment Activities

Title Weighting Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Active participation in class 10% 0 0 7, 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 6, 9, 5, 10
Examination (1:30 h.) 50% 0 0 7, 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 6, 9, 5, 10
Written work: edition of a collection of a few diplomas 40% 0 0 7, 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 6, 9, 5, 10

Bibliography

Alturo, Jesús. Chartae Latinae Antiquiores. Part CXII: Spain I. With the assistance of T. Alaix. Dietikon-Zürich: Urs Graf Verlag, 2017. 128 p. Enllaç al catàleg de la UAB.

Alturo, Jesús. Chartae Latinae Antiquiores. Part CXIII: Spain II. With the assistance of T. Alaix. Dietikon-Zürich: Urs Graf Verlag, 2017. 136 p. Enllaç al catàleg de la UAB.

Bresslau, HarryManuale di diplomatica per la Germania e l’Italia. Trad. di Anna Maria Voci-Roth. Rome: Ministero per i beni culturali e ambientali, Ufficio centrale per i beni archivistici, 1998. 1423 p. (Pubblicazioni degli archivi di Stato. Sussidi; 10). Enllaç al catàleg de la UAB.

Cappelli, AdrianoCronologia, cronografia e calendario perpetuo dal principio dell'èra cristiana ai nostri giorni. 3za ed. Milano: Ulrico Hoepli, 1969. 602 p. (Manuali Hoepli). Enllaç al catàleg de la UAB.

Giry, Arthur. Manuel de Diplomatique: diplômes et chartes: chronologie technique: éléments critiques et parties constitutives de la teneur des chartes: les Chancelleries: les actes privés. Genève: Slatkine Reprints, 1975. 944 p. Enllaç al catàleg de la UAB.

Guyotjeannin, Olivier; Pycke, Jacques; Tock, Benoît-MichelDiplomatique médiévale. 3e éd. augmentée. Turnhout: Brepols, 1993. 486 p. (L’atelier du médiéviste; 2). Enllaç al catàleg de la UAB. Enllaç al catàleg de la UAB.

Students will also be directed to online resources, in particular digitised diplomas at, eg, Biblioteca de Catalunya, Arxiu Nacional de Catalunya and other Catalan archives which also Seminari de Paleografia, Diplomàtica i Codicologia has an agreement.

How to cite and prepare the bibliography: https://www.uab.cat/web/study-and-research/how-to-cite-and-create-your-bibliography-1345738248581.html


Software

None