Talk:Diplomatics

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I see that this article doesn't have a single word on its discussion board. So, I feel quite special in being the first. I am coming from an Archival Theory background, especially when approaching the subject of diplomatics. Much of what I know about the subject is how diplomatics relate to archival science and I have been debating back and forth about whether or not I should create a subheading in the article to further explore this idea. Or perhaps it would be better suited for the Archival Theory page? Any suggestions? OwlOfMinerva7 (talk) 23:51, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say it should go here, with a brief summary and link under Archival Science. GrindtXX (talk) 19:29, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have a slight problem with this page, both as it was until a few weeks ago, and as recently expanded by User:OwlOfMinerva7, which is to do with the basic definition of Diplomatic(s). (I'm British, by the way, so I use the word in the singular - but that's a minor point.) I would have said that Diplomatic has to do with textual analysis - anatomising the protocols, structure and relationships of the different parts of the text of a formal document, and studying its semantics. I'd also have said that it's absolutely not to do with the materials, script and other physical features of the document - those come under palaeography, sigillography, etc; nor is it to do with provenance. If you're wanting to authenticate a document or detect a forgery, you have to employ all those tools, but they're parallel and quite distinct areas of study, and don't come under the head Diplomatic(s). You can study the diplomatic(s) of a document perfectly satisfactorily from a transcript. And yet, on this page, I find Diplomatics being used as an umbrella term to include the study of a document's palaeography, materials and provenance as well as its language; and this seems to be backed up by Webster's mention of "signatures". I don't think I'm completely wrong, and I've been tempted to make a fairly radical edit; but I wonder whether (quite apart from the presence or absence of the 's') the word is used slightly differently in North America to the way it is in Britain. Comments? GrindtXX (talk) 20:14, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

They're all closely related (along with codicology, etc), but the way I learned it, in North America, is the same as you have described. Adam Bishop (talk) 20:22, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have to say I'm not much of an expert in this area. I've only recently been introduced to it. The first thing I understood about the topic is that it has often been confused with paleography, because of their origins deriving from similar moments in history, but it is not paleography. I had hoped to communicate this with my edit. Also, that provenance is not something which Diplomatic(s) concerns itself with either. In regards to the use of the 's' ending, what I have learned about Diplomatics comes from the italian author Luciana Duranti, who also uses an 's'. (I am Canadian, if that changes anything) — Preceding unsigned comment added by OwlOfMinerva7 (talk • contribs) 00:24, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I also was confused by the dictionary definition of it, and debated about deleting in. However, this is my first Wikipedia edit, I have been very cautious in my actions. OwlOfMinerva7 (talk) 00:28, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the Wikipedia motto is Be bold; so I have been. There's still plenty of room for improvement, but I've deleted my main cause for complaint, which was the definition with the four bullet points, only one of which (it seemed to me ) fell under the strict definition of diplomatic(s). GrindtXX (talk) 19:55, 29 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It might be a continental point of view, but in the German, French and Italian tradition diplomatics/diplomatic deals explicitely with the external features of the documents too, using palaeography as a tool. External features include the writing support, non-script graphical elements (like special signs of notaries), seals etc. --GVogeler (talk) 12:12, 27 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

One sentence of the article reads "Diplomatics grew from a need to establish new standards of authenticity through the critical analysis of the external and internal forms of documents."

My uneducated guess is that "external" means the physical properties of the document (eg. signs of ageing) and "internal" means "the words that appear on the document".

I'm not really asking this question because I am overly interested in the answer but, instead, with the desire that a Wikipedian will add to the article in such a way that random passers-by can make sense of that particular part. --bodnotbod (talk) 07:39, 1 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I think those are the intended meanings. I will change to "physical" and "textual", which I hope is clearer; but will reverse the order, as (as discussed in the "Definitions" section) diplomatics has far more to do with analysis of the text than of any physical aspects. GrindtXX (talk) 12:33, 1 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I hope you don't mind but I used you as a bit of a guinea pig for the "thank you" function. I've been away from WP for years. I noticed that, alongside options to revert edits, I could now click a 'thank you' thing. I have done this for your contribution above. I then checked your talk page to see what automated delights it had put there. But nothing! So, I'm going to have to do a bit of searching to figure out quite what it is that I've accomplished. If you get a thank you... well, I assume it will tell you it's from me. But I don't know at this stage. --bodnotbod (talk) 07:20, 3 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

... ah, never mind. I can see now that it goes into your "notifications" thing, which I have hardly used yet except to clear out a few year's worth of stuff from it. :) --bodnotbod (talk) 07:23, 3 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]