Re: The dating and authenticity of Roger of Poitou's third

<< When a charter is modified you cannot be sure that someone did not just
take
names of local people and make it appear that they witnessed the charter. >>

But MichaelAnne you have to admit that the mere *fact* that these names
appear on this charter must indicate *some* thing about the names.

Either
A) they were names of local people of some importance or
B) they were names of people the forgers thought *should* be listed as they
had or had had interest in the properties in question.

Either choice indicates something we can still glean from the names listed.

Chris Phillips...

That may be true up to a point, but the great value of a genuine charter is
that it's a contemporary legal document, and is much less likely to contain
errors than a later concoction.

In this case, an attempt is being made to argue a chronological point. If
the charter was forged in the 1130s, there is no assurance that the names of
the witnesses were chronologically appropriate, even if they were real
people remembered from a few decades ago.

Chris Phillips...

I'm sorry, but there have been rather a lot of posts, and I'm not sure which
one you're referring to.

Do I understand correctly that you are suggesting version C is a _genuine_
charter from the 1130s? If so, I don't understand how it can be witnessed by
Godfrey the sheriff, who witnessed the other versions that apparently date
from the 1090s.

Chris Phillips

Chris Phillips

Will Johnson