The different interpretations of sovereign charters in recent diplomatic and historical research, especially with regard to the relations between their legal content and their significance for communication between regional rulers and the souvereigns, as well as the potential of this kind of sources of which our knowledge ist still far from being exhausted, require the continuation of basic diplomatic research. Qualitative advances or methodological changes in diplomatic investigation usually lead to new or modified historical, art-, cultural-, or social-historical interpretations. Documents of the sovereign were the result of negotiations between the recipient and the issuer, in which intermediaries could also be involved. The interests of these three communication and negotiation partners should be taken into account in the examinations of the diplomas. In accordance with the methodological orientation of the series, particular attention was paid to the perspectives of the recipients and the intermediaries. The diplomatic investigation focused on three main questions: 1. Which stages and characteristics reflect the bilateral or tripartite negotiation process or the contractual nature of the diplomas? 2. What role should the diplomas play at the time of their making? 3. How is the relevance of the external and internal characteristics to be assessed with regard to the various functions of the diplomas? In order to answer these questions, following the example of Michael Thomas Clanchy, various stages in the »biography« of royal and imperial documents were examined: on the one hand, their origin or prehistory and, on the other hand, their current range of meanings during the lifetime of the exhibitor, recipients, and intermediaries. This required the comprehension of previously and parallelly written documents of various types and issuers, which were directly or indirectly linked to the respective diploma in terms of content or graphics. For this purpose, originals, various pre-documents (sovereign charters, court-recorts, papal deeds, certificates of other exhibitors) as well as parallel written sources (e.g. duplicates of the documents for the same recipient, diplomas for various recipients involved in an agreement) should be used. In addition, there were copies of the originals in various forms (imitating copies of various degrees, court documents, notarial copies, »simple« copies on separate parchments). In order to trace the current spectrum of meanings of the diplomas, their creation should be analyzed regarding different political constellations of the ruling strata or different situations on the issuing and recipients’ side.

Medieval rulers' records are no longer to be seen as mere legal documents, but rather as highly complex media. They reflect the relations of the elites and are expressed in the text as well as graphically. The "Italia Regia" database project systematically records the rulers' certificates of the 7th to 11th century for recipients of Regnum Italiae according to these aspects. The present volume, which summarizes the contributions of the conference "European rulers and Tuscany in the mirror of documentary tradition", introduces the series of the same name. The results of the research on the individual regions will be published in it. The present volume, among other things, presents the project in more detail, as well as individual studies by French, Italian and German authors on document receivers in Tuscany. In addition, until now unpublished documents are edited and published in picture.