History in Documents and a Document in History. Ольга Пасько

Чтение книги онлайн.

      1) Give definitions to public documents and private documents.

      2) What`s the difference between evidentiary and dispositive documents?

      3) What documents replaced private documents?

      4) When and why did private document lose their functions?

      5) What was the classification of papal and royal documents?

      6) What is the difference between papal and royal documents?

      2. Find all the types of documents mentioned in the text and give definitions to them in your own words.

      Text 3. Materials used for the early documents

      Read the text and do the tasks after it.

      Documents were written on a variety of material. In antiquity there were documents of stone, metal, wax, papyrus, and, occasionally, of parchment, but only papyrus and parchment (and, very occasionally, wax) were used during the Middle Ages. From the 12th to the 13th centuries, paper was also available.

      Papyrus, made from the stem of the papyrus plant, was produced mainly in Egypt. The Merovingian kings wrote their documents on papyrus until the second half of the 7th century, and the popes did so until far into the 11th century. North of the Alps papyrus had finally disappeared by the 8th century, when it was replaced by parchment.

      Parchment was made from animal hides and was thus easier to obtain. In southern Europe it was made mainly from sheep and goat hides; the insides of the skin were thoroughly smoothed and calcined, while the hairy sides were left rougher. In central and northern Europe, parchment was usually made from calves’ skins, and both sides of the hides were thoroughly smoothed and calcined.

      Paper came originally from China. During the 8th century AD, it spread to the Arab world and from thence to Byzantium, where it was manufactured from linen and was used from the 11th to the 13th centuries for imperial documents. After that time ordinary paper was used in the Byzantine Empire. In the West the use of paper, most common at first in southern Italy and Spain, had begun to spread by the beginning of the 12th century. Germany and southern France began to import paper from Spain and Italy in the 13th century, and soon afterward it had reached England by way of Bordeaux. But paper did not altogether replace parchment, which long remained in use, especially for solemn documents.

      Notes:

      Middle Ages – средние века

      The Merovingian kings [ˏmerǝʋˋvindʒiǝn] – франкская династия королей Меровинги

      the Alps – Альпы

      the Byzantine Empire – Византийская империя

      Bordeaux – г. Бордо

      1. Answer the following questions:

      1) What were documents made of in the past? What materials were used for writing?

      2) Which of them were used during the Middle Ages?

      3) Who was the main producer of papyrus?

      4) Why did North of the Alps papyrus disappear?

      5) What was parchment made from?

      6) Where did paper appear for the first time?

      7) What was paper made from?

      8) What countries in the West Europe used paper?

      2. Make sentences using the words from A and endings from B:

      3. Find in the text the English equivalents to the following words:

      доступный / производить (3 слова) / шкура (2 слова) / папа римский / стебель / разглаживать, выравнивать / прожигать, прокаливать, кальцинировать / торжественный / полотно, лен / оставаться

      4. Find in the text synonyms to the following words:

      vanish (v) _________________________________________

      accidentally (adv) ___________________________________

      perfectly, completely (adv) ____________________________

      substitute (v) ______________________________________

      serious, ceremonial (adj) _____________________________

      extend (v) ________________________________________

      attain, gain (v) _____________________________________

      common, regular (adj) _______________________________

      Text 4. Languages used in early documents

      Read the text and do the tasks after it.

      The medium for writing was ink, generally a mixture of oak gall and copper vitriol. Originally black, ink made north of the Alps sometimes shows a reddish-brown hue, while that made in Italy may contain tinges of brown and yellow. Over the centuries most of these colours have lightened as a result of atmospheric conditions. The Byzantine emperors used purple ink for their signatures. This custom was occasionally taken over by the Lombard rulers of Italy and, later, by the Norman kings of Sicily. Another custom of Byzantine origin is the use of gold lettering.

      Throughout the entire Roman Empire, the language used in documents was primarily Latin. Greek was also used, and, during the latter part of the 6th century AD, it slowly superseded Latin in the East. From then onward, Greek was the language of Byzantine documents until the end of the Byzantine Empire (1453). In the West, the collapse of the empire and the establishment of barbarian kingdoms led to a vulgarization of Latin, written as well as spoken.

      Latin has always been used for papal documents and for most public and private charters, and it was used for international documents well into post-Renaissance times, until it was superseded by French as the language of diplomacy. In public and private documents, use of the vernacular alongside Latin gradually developed. Apart from its early and unique appearance in the documents of the Anglo-Saxons in England, no vernacular was used in charters before the 12th century. At the Norman Conquest (1066), use of Anglo-Saxon in English documents soon stopped, and no more vernacular was used there until some Norman French was introduced in the 13th century, and Middle English in the 15th century. There was an increasing use of the vernacular in Italian and French documents from the 12th century and in Germany from the 13th; but in medieval times Latin was never outstripped by the vernacular.

      (Abridged from the original texts provided by Britannica Encyclopedia)

      1. Answer the following questions:

      1) СКАЧАТЬ