西欧中世纪史料学初探--以德意志王国的帝王诏旨为例

A Preliminary Study of the Historical Sources from the Medieval Western Europe:Taking the Holy Roman Empire Edicts as Example

判断史料类别、衡量其信息价值是史学研究的前提和基础。德意志王国的帝王所颁发的诏旨是探究中世纪欧洲历史的核心史料,具有不可替代的文献价值。为释读此类官方文书,研究者应该具备一定的史料学专门知识,这就需要掌握历史辅助科学。德语学界已然将历史辅助科学发展成为完整而独立的学科。通过参考和借鉴德语学者在该学科的丰硕成果,研究者在释读中世纪帝王诏旨的时候,不但可以快捷地获取其现代刊本,而且能够有章可循地分析文书的形制与格式,以便精准地切中这类一手史料之内容要害。

Categorizing sources and assessing the value of them are the basic and foundation technique of historical research.The imperial edicts of the Holy Roman Empire are essential sources for exploring the history of medieval Western Europe.In order to interpret these documents,a historian needs to have necessary knowledge of auxiliary sciences of history.The German-speaking academic community has developed this type of knowledge into a complete and independent discipline.By drawing on the fruitful achievements of German scholars in this discipline,concerned researchers can not only obtain the modern versions of the needed medieval imperial documents,but also analyze the formation of these documents effectively,which would help to understand the content of the sources.