Emperor Otto III donates half of Solkan and Gorizia, together with half of their respective appurtenances, to Werihen, count of Friuli.
In nomine sancte et individue Trinitatis.
Hotto D[ei gratia ser]v[us a]postolo[r]um.
[Omni]u[m fi]delium [n]ost[rorum] tam presencium quam futurorum noverit universitas, quod nos interventu Hottonis nostri amabili[s] ducis fid[eli nostro Weri]hen comiti dedimus medietatem predii quod Iohannia venerabili patri[ar]ch[e Aquilegiensib hoc an]no contulimus, Sil[i]k[a]no [et] Gorza nuncupatum.
Donamus quidem memorato Werihen comiti medietatem prefrictic predii et omnium attin[e]ntium eius, agrorum, camporum, pascuorum, silvarum, venacionum, aquarum a[q]ua[rum]que decu[r]suum, mol[endinorum], piscaci[o]num, viarum et inviarum exsituum vel redituum, tam quisitorum quam inquirendorum.
Si quis [i]gi[tur] hoc preceptum violare vel quorumpere voluerit, eam pena centum libras auri p[er]s[olvat], medieta[em] camere nostre et medietatem supradicto Werihen.
Quod ut verius credatur et firmius observetur, hanc paginam manu pro[pria] coroborantes sigillari iusimus.
Sinumd domni Hottoni s[erenissimi imperatoris Romanorum] agustie.
Data sesto II na f anog Dominice inkarnacion[is M primo, indicti]one quinta decima, anno tercii Hottonis regnantis XVII, inperii suih.
Actum Papie.
Feliciter.
a) Iohanne ed. Manaresi. b) patriarche Aquilegiensi] patriarchae Aquilegiensi em. Sickel; patriarcha Aquilegiensis em. Manaresi. c) sic B: pro prescripti, sicut em. Sickel et Manaresi. d) sic B: pro signum, sicut em. Sickel. e) sic B: pro augusti, sicut em. Sickel. f) II na] sic B; puncta posuit Sickel et Manaresi; fort. pro k(a)l(endas) no(vembris). g) sic B; anno em. Sickel et Manaresi. h) sic B: pro VI, sicut em. Maresi et Sickel.
A placitum held on November 3, 1001, in Verona, where the authenticity of this charter was judged and affirmed – edited here as doc. 1001_PW.
The two other halves of Solkan, Gorizia, and the territories between Soča, Vipava and the Trnovo plateau, were donated on April 28, 1001, to Aquileian Patriarch John and his Church (see doc. 1001_GA). From Werihen, however, the half of these possessions were passed on to his eponymous son, Werihen IV (last appeareance in primary sources in 1052). Werihen IV’s heir was a certain Hadwig “of Mossa” (her maternal side of the family is unknown), who married twice: first to Hermann of Eppenstein with whom she had no children, and then to Count Engelbert I of Spanheim with whom she had several children, including a Henry who would appear in 1102 with the title “de Goriza” (see doc. 1102_DW) and Countess Diemut who married Count Maynard III "Albus", a nobleman whose patrimonial seat of power lay in Upper Carinthia. From the marriage of Diemut and Maynard "Albus" came Maynard the younger who became, before 1125, the advocate of the Church of Aquileia (see doc. 1125_MSP) and the progenitor of the House of Gorizia, thus usually dubbed Maynard I. Since the original “Henry of Gorizia”, Hadwig’s son, died heirless, these Werihen’s possessions were inherited by Diemut’s heirs. Thus, thanks to his marriage with Diemut, the heiress of her mother Hadwig and her maternal grandfather Werihen IV, the patrimony donated in 1001 to Werihen III by Otto III passed on to Count Maynard I, the progenitor of the House of Gorizia. For all of this, see Dopsch–Meyer cited above.
Bottazzi (cited above) has argued that Count Werihen did not, in fact, receive the other half of Solkan and Gorizia (as universally interpreted), but that he received only half of the half that had been donated to Patriarch John IV. The other half, argues Bottazzi, remained under the Empire's jurisdiction. While such a reading is within the realm of possibility, it is highly unlikely and Bottazzi remains alone in arguing for this interpretation.
The copy features a contaminated transcript of the original datatio chronica as the scribe, whose Latin was very poor, only copied two vertical lines followed by an “n” and a superscript “a”. According to Štih (cited above, pp. 42–44), the original date of the charter’s emission must be between September 22, when Otto III was still in Bologna, and November 3, when the placitum to affirm the authenticity of this charter was held (see doc. 1001_PW). According to Štih’s calculations, the possible dates of the charter’s original emission are the following: VI kalendas octobris (September 26), VI nonas octobris (October 2), VI idus octobris (October 10) or VI kalendas novembris (October 27). Štih argues that the option that ought to be favored is VI kalendas novembris and for two reasons: first, Werihen was not present in Pavia on October 14 when a placitum was being held (MGH DD O III, doc. 411), thus he must have arrived there after this date; second, the two vertical lines and the letters “n” followed by a superscript “a” in the charter are most probably a contaminated form of the originally written “kl. nov”, which would give, in its expanded form, “Data sexto kalendas novembris”, that is, October 27. This dating is followed in the present edition as well.