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The Donation of Constantine and the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals.
Geometry, Pride: A reading: when an office writes its own authority, forgery becomes a method.
In plain words
Two forgeries shape the medieval church: the Donation of Constantine, a fake deed granting the popes power over the West, and the False Decretals, invented church law. Forgery as method: authority written up and the papers manufactured to prove it, and both were later convicted by their own Latin.
The mechanism
FORGERY AS METHOD — the office writes its own authority, and the papers are manufactured to prove it
How it was checked
- EvidenceT7 PRIMARY DOCUMENT / MEASUREMENT; Status: COMMITTED; a capture
- Letter eraTHE CAPTURE 313 to 1302
- Plate — School of Raphael, Sala di Costantino, Vatican Palace, 1520–24 · Public domain · source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Donationconstantine.jpg
- SourcesPRIMARY DOCUMENT — convicted by their own Latin: Valla 1440, Blondel 1628