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Parchment is a document written on a specially
processed animal skin. Only the most important and significant
documents took the form of a parchment: royal privileges, donations,
papal bulls, international agreements etc. These documents serve as
sources for various sciences: history, art, sfragistics,
paleography, history of religion, diplomacy and others. They also
contain valuable data for the history of political and social life,
history of social and legal family relations, historical geography,
toponymy, genealogy and linguistics.
At present the Manuscripts Department of the Library of
Lithuanian Academy of Sciences (LLAS) preserve 1412 parchments
covering the period from the eleventh century to the beginning of
the twentieth century. This is one of the largest collections of
parchments in the Baltic States. Geographically, these
parchments account for the objects in the territories of Lithuania,
Poland, Byelorussia, Latvia, Estonia, Russia, Ukraine, Germany,
Austria and Italy. Among them are examples of the oldest written
documents; some of them – privileges of Grand Dukes Vytautas and
Jogaila of Lithuania – are the only ones in Lithuania.
For a
long time these documents were accessible only to a narrow circle of
scientists. However, the increased interest in the country’s history
proved the need to make these collections available to a wider
public. New technologies provide for a possibility to preserve
original documents and make high quality copies of them.
The
aim of the Parchments'
Digital Images Archive is to make digital images of parchment
documents preserved in the depository of the Manuscripts Department
of LLAS available to everyone.
The present archive presents
digital images of 121 parchments. The selected documents cover the
earliest period: from 1187 to 1500. Only those in very good, good or
satisfying condition are included; a number of them have been
restored or underwent repairs. The digital image archive does not
include fragments of documents of this period, neither the remains
of the fifteenth century code.
Documents are accompanied by
short archival
descriptions in Lithuanian and English, arranged according to
the Parchment Catalogue by Rimantas Jasas (1980). Personal
names, place names, dates, document authenticity and bibliography
have been revised.
For the more convenient search for the
necessary documents, the list of all digitized parchments is
provided, the indices of personal and place names have been
prepared, and the documents are grouped according to their origin
and chronology.
High quality digital copies can be studied
at the Manuscripts Department of LLAS. Under special arrangement,
readers and publishers may obtain copies of these images.
We
express our sincere gratitude to the consultants Edmundas
Rimša (Lithuanian Institute of History) and Marija
Razmukaitė (Institute of Lithuanian Language) for
their kind assistance.
We expect to develop and expand the Parchments'
Digital Images Archive and our team is
looking forward to your comments and suggestions.
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