Notker the Stammerer, Saint 527University Press, 1995); T. K. Derry, A History of Norway
(London: Allen and Unwin, 1957).
notaries and the notariate Medieval and Renaissance
notaries wrote acts or contracts and guaranteed their
authenticity and validity. In the countries of customary
law on northern Europe, scribes or notaries wrote acts
that were given reliability by the seals of participants or
by an enclosed guarantee from public authorities. In
countries of Roman LAW, from the 12th century, the
notary documented acts and, acting like a public official,
had the power to authenticate them himself by his signa-
ture and his device or sign. A more elaborate notariate
developed in ITALY, in the 12th century, with the revival
and elaboration of Roman law at BOLOGNA, and rapidly
thereafter developed in the legal systems of southern
FRANCEand the Iberian Peninsula.
THE PROCESSWriting and devising contracts had several steps for
notaries. The first was the minute, brief, or imbreviatura,
in which the notary recorded in simple language what
his clients wanted accomplished in a more formal docu-
ment. He wrote next the original formal instrument,
complete with the required legal clauses and particular
details of the transaction or agreement. The notary
handed over this instrument copied on parchment to his
client. He had written the minute in his register, minute
book, or protocol, which he kept, authenticated, and
then usually passed on to his successor or to a deposi-
tory run by local public authorities. This had the same
authenticity and legal status as the original instrument.
These compilations and documents involved all kinds of
acts including sales, rentals, dowry agreements, peace
accords, receipts, and WILLSor last testaments. They still
exist in huge numbers in Italy, southern France, and
SPAIN.THE PROFILE
Notaries received their office as public officials, akin to
judges, from public authorities after an examination
demonstrated their knowledge of law, legal formulary or
verbiage, and LATIN. In Italian cities they sometimes
gained considerable political power because the develop-
ing COMMUNESneeded bureaucracies and literate people
knowledgeable in the law. Notaries both created and
administrated those bureaucracies. They had important
roles in Latin and VERNACULARculture and education.
They served all aspects of society that could afford to pay
them for proper documentation.
See also ARCHIVES AND ARCHIVAL INSTITUTIONS;
COMMUNE.
Further reading: Geoffrey Barraclough, Public
Notaries and the Papal Curia: A Calendar and a Study of a
Formularium Notariorum Curie from the Early Years of the
Fourteenth Century(London: Macmillan, 1934); C. R.
Cheney, Notaries Public in England in the Thirteenth and
Fourteenth Centuries(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972).Notker the Stammerer, Saint (Notker Balbulus)(ca.
840–912)German monk, scholar
Notker entered the Monastery of Saint Gall as a ver y
young man. A chronicler described him as “weak of body,
sickly, stammering, and shy.” Nonetheless, he became the
monastery’s librarian and was for 40 years a remarkable
teacher. Among his disciples were a bishop of Constance
and a bishop of Freising. After the emperor Charles III
the Fat (r. 881–887) heaped praise on him in 883, he
responded by writing for him the Gesta Karoli Magni
(Deeds of Charles the Great), a contrived, moralizing,
more or less legendary history of CHARLEMAGNE.
Notker was best known for his Book of Sequencesor
tropes and other liturgical writings. Learning from a
monk of Jumièges, he devised a mnemonic method for
remembering the long vocalizations for the singing of the
Kyrieand the Alleluia.Not the inventor of tropes, he
greatly contributed to the development of Carolingian
liturgy, HYMNS, and music. He died in 912.
See alsoCAROLINGIANRENAISSANCE.
Further reading:Lewis G. M. Thorpe, trans., Two
Lives of Charlemagne(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969);
Albert L. Lloyd, The Manuscripts and Fragments of
Notker’s Psalter(Giessen: W. Schmitz, 1958).A procession of the guild of the notaries of Perugia, Biblio-
theca Augusta, Ms. 973, Perugia, Italy (Alinari / Art Resource)