![]() The 12th century text Dialogus de Scaccario - written by Richard FitzNeal, Lord Treasurer during the reigns of Henry II and Richard I - instructs the use of sheepskin for royal accounts as “they do not easily yield to erasure without the blemish being apparent.” Surviving texts hint at the use of sheepskin as an anti-fraud device. As physical objects they are an extraordinarily molecular archive through which centuries of craft, trade and animal husbandry can be explored.” However modern research techniques mean we can now not only read the text, but the biological and chemical information recorded in the skin. Doherty said: “The text written on these documents is often considered to be of limited historic value as the majority is taken up by formulaic rubric. Until now so little was known about these documents, many were incorrectly cataloged as calfskin vellum, when they were actually made of sheepskin parchment.ĭr. Many were discarded, burnt, or even repurposed into lampshades during the 20th century after the Land Registry Act of 1925 meant they didn’t need to be kept. ![]() But it now appears as though this concern extended to the choice of animal skin they used too.”īecause they are so durable, millions of old legal documents survive in British archives and private collections, but they are often neglected because of their supposed lack of historic value. Sean Doherty, an archaeologist from the University of Exeter who led the study, said: “Lawyers were very concerned with authenticity and security, as we see through the use of seals.
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