The Power of the Pen : Cadis and Their Archives. From Writings to Registering Proof of a Previous Action Taken

Christian Müller (1)

1 IRHT - Institut de recherche et d'histoire des textes

This study is about cadis’ archives and their institutional importance from a long-term perspective. It combines information on the cadi’s archive as reported in documentary sources from the middle of the eighth century onwards with an analysis of surviving legal documents and with juridical discussion on the legal status of writing as proof of a past action in fiqh literature in a strictly chronological approach. Putting these rather disparate elements together reveals a fundamental change in the use of writing an attestation and the cadi’s archive during the period of time considered here. The refusal by ninth-century jurists to see a judge being bound to conduct a lawsuit by writings from their predecessor’s archive was eventually replaced by accepting cadis’ certificates as a means of proof. This legal change involved the tenth-century sophistication of attesting as a witness in two stages, where a written attestation implied that the witnesses had a legal obligation to provide an oral account of the matter at hand to the cadi. Hence, documents from a cadi’s archive acquired the function of a ‘living’ archive that could safeguard subjective rights for long periods of time.

Domaines: Histoire; Droit

Christian Müller. The Power of the Pen : Cadis and Their Archives. From Writings to Registering Proof of a Previous Action Taken. Alessandro Bausi; Christian Brockmann; Michael Friedrich; Sabine Kienitz. Manuscripts and Archives. Comparative Views on Record-Keeping, 11, De Gruyter, pp.361-385, 2018, Studies in Manuscript Cultures, 9783110541366. ⟨10.1515/9783110541397-013⟩. ⟨hal-01831045⟩