5 - Perpetration, Detection, and Prevention of Forgeries

Summary

FAMOUS FORGERS AS FAILURES

Scholars have tended to focus on the motives for medieval forgeries, but the use of forgery demands pragmatic explanation also. Instead of obsessing over why forgery occurred, one should also consider how it was so frequently perpetrated. Forgers’ tricks have been unpacked using traditional methods and increasingly through scientific testing. But beyond the technical exposure of specific forgeries, there were interesting tendencies in the tricks of medieval forgers. Their means reflected their ends and, thus, forgers’ techniques reveal their mindset and that of their audiences. Forged charters highlight authorities’ assumptions and practices about documents because their persuasiveness depended upon following conventions. Forgers’ craft was thus a functional expression (and thus useful evidence) of medieval thought and culture. So, it is worth exploring how forgery was perpetrated, how it was detected by contemporaries, and what – if anything – authorities did to prevent it.

Of course, when successfully perpetrated, forgers’ work was not detected. But some forgeries failed in the Middle Ages – and they failed for various reasons. Often, medieval forgers did not achieve their goals because the tales they told were overcome by competing stories, which were better composed or just preferred by authorities. Such competing stories will be considered in the next chapter. But sometimes medieval forgers failed because their fabrications were suspected and detected by medieval people they were trying to fool. Such failures to deceive, especially if dramatic or repeated, must certainly have been disturbing. Forgery was more than mere lying since it also subverted the medieval system of signification. In practice, forgeries undermined the credibility of genuine texts and objects and people needed ways to distinguish authentic from fake, and, by extension, separate truth from falsehood.

Inept forgeries with poor form were easily detected and could be rejected by cursory inspection. But what if a counterfeit coin, fake seal, or forged document passed initial inspection only to be suspected later? How did one detect and repudiate a forgery? How could repeat offenses be discouraged? Over time, medieval readers developed methods for detecting forgeries and sometimes took steps to prevent future forgeries. Such attempts at detection and prevention show authorities pushing back against forgers, trying to reassert the validity/credibility of the genuine.