1077_HP

The charter is almost a verbatim replica of Otto II's 983 confirmation charter (see doc. 983_OP).

The charter, however, presents great difficulties in determining its authenticity and dating.

First, the document is only preserved as a later copy, the oldest of which is the 1286 notarial document that was considered lost (it was lost already in 1937 when the MGH editors of Henry IV’s diplomata prepared their monumental edition), but that subsequently resurfaced in the State Archive in Venice.

This 1286 copy (B in this edition) differs from the late-15^th-century copy in the Liber iurium episcopalium I (C in this edition) in several important places in the charter’s eschatocol.

Namely, B has the anno Domini dating unfinished (“anno Dominice incarnationis millesimo”) and the 13^th indiction, whereas C has the anno Domini dating complete and stating the year 1060 (“anno Dominice incarnationis millesimo sexagesimo”), but without the indiction year. Both B and C date it to the 21^st year of Henry III’s reign (although a case could be made for reading only “primo” instead of “vicesimo primo” in C as the first word is crossed out) and both have it issued in Verona.

Taking all of the eschatocol's elements into consideration, one arrives at only one plausible solution: the Henry III refers to a monarch who reigned from 1054 to 1105 as the king of the Romans (from his father’s death in October of 1056 as the sole monarch) – that Henry is customarily referred to in scholarship as Henry IV, but he at times appears in primary sources as Henry III because Henry I the Fowler (r. 919–936) had neither been crowned emperor nor did he have any authority in the Kingdom of Italy). Thus, the 21^st year of his kingship corresponds either to the year 1075 or 1077 of Henry IV. The 13^th indiction corresponds to the year 1075.

However, Henry IV was not in Verona in the March of 1075; he was in fact in Germany throughout that year.

In the March of 1077, however, Henry IV was indeed in Verona where he issued four charters to various recipients in the Regnum Italicum, including this one to the Bishopric of Poreč (cf. docs. 287-290 in MGH DD H IV, pp. 374-380). Out of these four, two (docs. 287–288) are dated anno Domini 1077, 15^th indiction, 26^th year of Henry’s appointment as the king of the Romans (“anno ordinationis Heinrici quarti regis XXVI”), and the 24^th year of his kingship (“regni vero XXIV”). One document (doc. 287) even refers to the king as Henry III. Three documents were reviewed by Gregory, the bishop of Vercelli (doc. 289 lacks the recognitio and the dating).

The editors of the MGH edition proposed a creative, but informed solution: the original charter was drafted by the recipient, outside of royal chancery, and it must have featured a lacuna in the dating by anno Domini, hence the incomplete phrase in B “anno Dominice incarnationis millesimo”. This incomplete phrase was then carelessly “completed” by the late-15^th-century copyist of C. Finally, the indiction “XIII” was simply erroneously copied instead of the original “XV” which would correspond to 1077, indeed a common mistake. Moreover, the document features both the intitulatio and the monogram that belong to Henry II’s diplomas, not Henry IV’s. Thus, the charter drafted outside of the imperial chancery must have been based completely on a nowadays lost charter of Henry II, which was in turn based on Otto II’s confirmation charter of 983 (doc. 983_OP). Finally, the recognitio clearly reveals the name of Hiltolph, the archbishop of Cologne, who was indeed the archchancellor of Henry IV’s Italian chancery at the time. Therefore, the charter’s authenticity is confirmed.

Compared with Otto II’s diploma of 983, the enumeratio bonorum is much more elegantly styled in this charter, removing any doubts regarding the antecedents of pronouns with carefully placed conjunctions: the original “et castrum Pisinum, Medelanum” is inverted and now sounds much better as “Medelanum et castrum Pisinum”; an “et” is added before the clause “quod a regibus largitum est”, removing any doubts that the clause refers to Rovinj; another “et” is added before the clause “quantum ad Episcopatum sancte Parentine ecclesie donatum est”, again removing any doubts that the clause refers to possessions in Dvigrad and Bale; finally, the awkward reference to King Hugh is completely removed. These improvements to the enumeratio bonorum were most probably made already in Henry II’s deperditum.

When he discovered this charter in 1286, Bishop Boniface aimed to rekindle the flame of an old conflict, one originally fought in the late 10^th and 11^th centuries between the bishops of Poreč and the patriarchs of Aquileia over the temporal jurisdictions of Rovinj, Dvigrad, and Bale. Interestingly, even though he had the charter read out loud in front of the audience of clergy and the citizens of Poreč and its territory, Bishop Boniface eventually gave up on this charter and went back to Otto II’s interpolated original which he brought before King Rudolph I, asking the monarch to confirm the charter (which he did in 1291, see doc. 1291_RP). He subsequently waged war armed only with Otto II’s charter of 983 and its confirmation by the incumbent King Rudolph I, but the charters proved to be particularly impotent weapons.

Bishop Boniface eventually failed in his attempt at resurrecting an episcopal lordship that, at least according to surviving primary sources, had never been realized. Just as his predecessors lost the battle against the patriarchs of Aquileia, so too did Bishop Boniface lose his, this time to Patriarch Raymond della Torre (who continued to hold Dvigrad and Bale), to the counts of Gorizia (who continued to hold Pazin and, most probably, various jurisdictions in Tar and Vižinada, although recognizing that they held them from the bishops of Poreč), and to Venice (who continued to hold the lion’s share of claimed territories: Motovun, Poreč, and Rovinj). This was also the last attempt at such a vast episcopal lordship in the Diocese of Poreč.