ABSTRACT Work on the use of documents in the Middle Ages has now accepted that written record-keeping in Europe did not collapse with Roman rule, to be replaced only by orality and memory, but continued throughout the period, albeit to greater or lesser extents from place to place. Nonetheless, much remains unclear about how documents were actually used and understood following the Roman collapse, and how far that reflected continuity with the past. Using the numerous early medieval charters from modern Catalonia, this article argues that, instead of registration in public archives as under Rome, documents here were validated by social consensus about their contents, created by repeated recitation of the texts. This could even be used to create new documents. The article argues that this was an innovative replacement of older institutions of record intended to enable continuing document use, but that it blurs categories both of literacy and orality and of continuity and change; continuity of the land charter was here maintained despite the discontinuity and irrelevance of many other practices. Both documents and their users were agents in these processes, in ways that can instruct us about institutional survival and replacement in times of social change.

中文翻译：

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仪式、宪章和社会记忆：中世纪早期加泰罗尼亚的财产转移仪式

摘要 关于中世纪文件使用的工作现在已经承认，欧洲的书面记录保存并没有随着罗马统治而崩溃，只是被口述和记忆所取代，而是在整个时期继续存在，尽管或多或少地从放置的地方。尽管如此，关于在罗马崩溃后文件是如何被实际使用和理解的，以及这在多大程度上反映了与过去的连续性，仍有很多不清楚的地方。本文使用现代加泰罗尼亚的众多中世纪早期宪章，认为这里的文件不是像罗马那样在公共档案馆登记，而是通过社会对其内容的共识来验证，通过反复背诵文本而产生。这甚至可以用于创建新文档。文章认为，这是对旧记录机构的创新替代，旨在使文件能够继续使用，但它模糊了识字和口语以及连续性和变化的类别；尽管许多其他做法不连续且无关紧要，但在这里仍保持了土地宪章的连续性。文件及其用户都是这些过程中的代理人，可以指导我们在社会变革时期制度的生存和更替。