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X.—A Notice of some remarkable Inscriptions on Leaves of Lead, preserved in the Manuscript Department of the British Museum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2012

Walter De Gray Birch
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Extract

In the year 1841 the British Museum purchased of the Reverend Thomas Butler, among some of the most valuable manuscripts and antiquities it possesses, six remarkable inscriptions, one Greek, four Latin, and one Italian, apparently inscribed with a sharply pointed stylus, upon plates of lead, beaten or hammered to about the thickness of a wafer, and now completely patinated. As these do not appear to have been published, I propose to lay before you a description of them, accurate copies of their texts, and a few notes explanatory of the history and dates to which they refer.

Type
Research Article
Information
Archaeologia , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , 1873 , pp. 123 - 136
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1873

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References

page 123 note a Brit. Mus., Add. MS. 12,117.

page 125 note a Hieronyrni Rubei Historiarum Ravennatum, libri decem: Venetis, 1572, p. 187. Cf. Pauli Diaconi libri sex de Origine et Gestis Regum Langobardorum, 1514, lib. VI. cap. xv.

page 126 note a Rubeus, p. 190.

page 129 note a Stephen II., by this possession of Ravenna in a.d. 754, laid the foundation of the temporal power of the Holy See.

page 123 note b Rubeus, l. c., p. 202. Cf. Carolus Sigonius de Rebus Bononiensibus Historia. Frankf. 1604, p. 33.

page 130 note a Il Caroldo dice “che parve al Tiepolo appena creato doge di andar a visitar m. Maria Dandolo ch' era stato suo concorrente, il quale giaceva a letto, et si scusò non poterlo admeter allora. Fu stimato che ciò facesse in disprezzo del duce perchè non lo teneva di quella nobiltà com' era esso Dandolo, della cui prole erano stati molti degni cittadini, et massimamente m. Henrico Dandolo che fu duce di singular virtu dal quale la republica Veneta deve riconoscer gran parte della grandezza sua; et anco diceva essergli spiaciuta questa nuova forma di ascender per sorte al ducato.”—Cicogna, Inscriz. Venez. iv. pp. 534, 535.

page 131 note a Cf. Rubeus, l.c., p. 208. Cire. 801. “Cymaclum etiam [Carolus] cepit ; quamquam, ut ex vetustissimis constat Ursianæ Bibliothecæ monumentis, Ravennatum jurisdictio ad omnes illas civitates permanebat.”

page 134 note a Ducange, Glossarium: s. v. Fodrum.

page 134 note b Cf. Vine. Nannucci, Manuale della Letteratura del primo secolo della Lingua Italiana, 2 vols. Florence, 1856.

page 134 note c The existence of documents of this nature is corroborated by Mons. A. Deloye, in a dissertation Des Chartes Lapidaires en France in the Biblioihèque de l'École des Chartes, t. iii. IIme Series, p. 36. The writer asserts that only two such metallic charters are known in France. The one purporting to proceed from Charlemagne, “in pagina ærea,” is suspected by Mabillon ; the other, a bull of Pope Innocent III. (1198—1216), addressed to the Archbishop of Tours:* Quoiqu'on ne connaisse en France que deux chartes métalliques, …. il est probable que le moyen âge en a produit autant que de chartes lapidaires. Si elles n' existent plus, e'est que les mêtaux s'altèrent par le feu, et qu'ils tentent la cupidité bien plus que le marbre ou les pierres, dont il est difficile de changer la destination.”

page 134 note * Cette bulle était conservée dans l'église de Tours sur une table de plomb ; elle sanctionnait la soumission de l'église de Dol à l'archevêché de Tours. D. Morice, Hist, de Bretagne, t. i. pr. col. 759.

page 135 note a Georgius or Gregory was appointed to the see of Ravenna in a.d. 838; he “… saisit les trésors de son église.” Deodatus or Dieudonné succeeded in a.d. 846. (Richard & Giraud.) “Novæ etiam divinæ legis instrumentum, tabulis ex auro incisum, compluresque preterea ex auro coronas de templo Divorum Johannis et Pauli abstraxerat [Georgius], ut Hludovici Secundi filiam, cui Geltrudæ nomen est impositum, dum sacrâ, baptismatis undâ perfunderetur, sustineret, muneribusque donaret amplissimis.” (Rubeus, p. 214.)