Formulary and Chancery Practice in Transylvania
during Michael the Brave’s Reign (1599-1600)

Abstract:

The author aims to reconstruct in the present study the role played by the chancery and its writing practices during the reign of Michael the Brave in Transylvania. In the first part the chancery is defined within the whole institutional ensemble of the principality and its development stages are underlined, together with its two individual compartments: cancelaria minor and cancelaria maior. Ioan Iacobinus’ formulary is presented as well; he was the secretary of the Báthory family and of Michael the Brave. Within this formulae styli some Latin writ templates are presented in detail and further analyzed, as the Romanian prince based his issued documents on them. Such are the templates of some letters, like convocatoriae literae, assecuratoria or nova donatio. Some other types of documents are missing from Iacobinus’ formulary, even though they were issued by Michael the Brave’s chancery and were preserved in Hungarian and Slavic. This writing praxis is analyzed in the final part of the study. The author attempts to bring to light the consistency and novelty present in the activity of the Romanian chancery.

Keywords:

Transilvania, Michael the Brave, cancelaria minor, cancelaria maior, secretary Ioan Iacobinus