Dear Luciana, the discussion develops: You hit one point that results from the multilinguality of our project: As we are all scholars of diplomatics (although some became archivist ...) the notion of "document", "Urkunde", "act" seemed to be clear - and I decided to use "charter" as the expression in the DTD, knowing that in english the proper word would be 'document'. But "document" could be any kind of record, internal memoranda as well as an excel-sheet etc. "Charter" sounds a bit like "carta" and might evoke good associations in our minds. But you're right: A "charter" is something more specific in english. One reason why english as principal language of the DTD is a worry to me. And a reason why I stress so much on the VID: There we have the following definition: Un acte écrit (Lat.: Scriptum, scriptura, instrumentum) est un écrit où se trouve consigné, soit l'accomplissement d'un acte juridique, soit l'existence d'un fait juridique, soit encore éventuellement un fait quelconque dès lors que l'écrit est rédigé dans une certaine forme propre à lui donner validité. (VID n.3) (GV: A 'written document' is something written (a document/paper/writ ...), on which the execution of a legal act, the existence of a legal fact or any other fact is noticed and drawn up in a special form to give it authenticy - it's hard to trranslate something from one foreign language to another :-) and the following expressions: dt.: Urkunde - en.: written document - esp.: documento - fr.: acte écrit - it.: atto, documento - lat.: instrumentum, scriptura, scriptum Should we use 'instrumentum'? Maybe the latin word is the best ... But as Gautier pointed out rightly: Let's start with the concepts: Names and other encoding standards are the second step. We are talking about the "instrumentum"- concept that is - at the moment - called "charter". If I followed the discussion correctly, we start to add things to the traditional diplomatic concepts: The transmission as part of the authenticity (Luciana), the differentiation between an abstract concept of "instrumentum/charter" and it's material manifestations (Patrick). I will try to consider that in my improvements of the DTD-proposal. All the best Georg Luciana Duranti schrieb:
At 01:13 AM 20/02/2007, Georg Vogeler wrote:
We do need something that comes from our understanding what charters are ("historical texts with at least one physical representation on which its legal validity was based" - can anybody native speaking help me with this definition? :-).
That would be a historical "instrument," a document which gives formal expression to a legal act.
And you see: all three models you cited aren't really interested in the authenticity of a document. A scholar of diplomatics is ("discrimen veri ac falsi" ...).
amen...and I would add that such assessment is as much based on the extrinsic and intrinsic elements of form of the record and on its /traditio /or transmission as it is on its documentary context (archival description, being a collective authentication of the fonds and its internal relationships, provides the basis for that) and on the trustworthiness both of the custodian of the original record and of the person responsible for the digitization and for the maintenance of the digitized material. This is why metadata should be distinguished into two categories, according to the components of authenticity: identity metadata and integrity metadata. The former identify the original record, just like a regestum does, defines its status of transmission, establishes its place in the original aggregation of records, and names the legitimate custodian(s) overtime, while the latter identify the characteristics of the digitized version in terms both of digital presentation and of documentary manifestation (keeping in mind that digitization gives the illusion to users of dealing with a facsimile, but nothing could be further from it that a digitized copy of an analogue record), the responsibility for digitization, the date, the primary responsibility for maintenance of the digitized copies, subsequent upgradings and migrations with dates and responsibilities (do not forget that technological obsolescence is going to be increasingly frequent), new presentations etc.
However, as others have mentioned, the encoding of the record itself is separate from the encoding of its abstract and from the creation of the metadata for the digitized version of record and abstract. It seems to me that all three models mentioned earlier confuse those different things. In addition, the terminology of TEI is not consistent with any archival metadata schema which may be incorporated in any recordkeeping system which will hold and retrieve the digitized version. Consistency of terminology among those three components (encoding of the record, encoding of the abstract and metadata) is vital. However, indeed, the first thing to agree upon is what is the record for which we wish to develop an encoding language. What is a charter? Until today I spoke on the assumption that we were all on the same page as it regards what a charter is, but now I am getting this funny feeling that we are not. So, I will tell you what I think we are working on, and then you tell me whether you really referred to a much broader concept (including writs, deeds, etc.)
Charter:
"An instrument emanating from the sovereign power, in the nature of a grant, either to a whole nation, or to a class or portion of the people, to a corporation (e.g. city, university), or to a colony or dependency, assuring to them certain rights, liberties, or powers." This is the definition I prefer because it embraces both form and act and applies to charters through time.
Encyclopedia Britannica: "a document granting certain specified rights, powers, privileges, or functions from the sovereign power of a state to an individual, corporation, city, or other unit of local organization. ...in medieval Europe, monarchs typically issued *charter*s to towns, cities, guilds, merchant associations, universities, and religious institutions; such *charter*s guaranteed certain privileges and immunities for those organizations while also sometimes specifying arrangements for the conduct of their internal affairs. By the end of the European Middle Ages, monarchs granted *charter*s that guaranteed overseas trading companies monopolies of trade (and in some cases government) within a specified foreign geographic area. ...Modern *charter*s are of two kinds, corporate and municipal. A corporate *charter* is a grant made by a governmental body giving a group of individuals the power to form a corporation, or limited-liability company. A municipal *charter* is a law passed by a government allowing the people of a specific locality to organize themselves into a municipal corporation/i.e.,/ a city. Such a *charter* in effect delegates powers to the people for the purpose of local self-government."
Because the charter is a also a documentary form, it may be used to give solemnity to an act that does not have the nature of a grant, such as the Canadian Charter of Rights, which is established by the people as represented in the legislature, but issued by the Queen.
Is this the entity we are talking about, or is it too limited a concept?
Luciana
Dr. Luciana Duranti Chair and Professor, Archival Studies Director, InterPARES Project ( www.interpares.org <http://www.interpares.org/>) School of Library, Archival and Information Studies The University of British Columbia Suite 301 - 6190 Agronomy Road Vancouver, B.C.V6T 1Z3 Canada Tel. 604/822-2587 FAX 604/822-6006 http://www.slais.ubc.ca/PEOPLE/faculty/faculty-bio/duranti-bio.htm http://www.interpares.org/ld/
-- ------------------------------------- Dr.Georg Vogeler Historisches Seminar - Abt. Geschichtliche Hilfswissenschaften Ludwig-Maximilians-Universtitaet Muenchen e-mail: g.vogeler@lrz.uni-muenchen.de Internet: http://www.geschichte.uni-muenchen.de/ghw/personen_vogeler.shtml