Signa and Genesis of Notarial Practices in Savoy (12th and 13th Centuries)

Abstract

Around 1200, in the non-Italian territories of the Sabaudian domain, several circles of notarii with heterogeneous statutes appeared, writing acts for private individuals. Italian and French-speaking historians have often presented the origin of the notary in Savoy as an automatic effect of the influence of Italian notary practices. This essay, which focuses on the use of graphic signs, examines the originality of the choices made by the early Sabaudian notaries, who combined elements coming from the Italian model and the transalpine documentary traditions. This formal bricolage, intended to ensure the local expendability of the acts, gave their signa a diplomatic and symbolic function that was sometimes different from the functions of the Italian signa tabellionis.