Giovanni Orlandi

Taking issue on Theo Kölzer’s new edition of Die Urkunden der Merowinger (2001), the present paper sets out to examine some particular problems still arising from the language of this corpus of documents, within which the inquiry is here limited to those preserved in the original (c. 620 - 720 A.D.). Special attention is paid to questions pertaining to textual criticism, mainly on the limits to be set to the application of emendatio in this sort of texts. The discussion of orthography, which turns out to be much less arbitrary or capricious than one may believe at a first glance, is followed by the examination of some interesting cases in the fields of morphology, syntax and vocabulary. One result is the impression of a notable effort, made towards the end of the 7th century, to regain the orderly allure of the diplomatic prose of antiquity.