ABSTRACT
The papal chancery in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries had a virtual monopoly of issuing documents in the name of the pope. In the fourteenth century and later it was no longer the sole body to perform this function, but it continued to be the main one. It was the largest and perhaps the most complex of the various departments within the Roman curia. To give an idea of the scale of the operation, the number of scribes (the officials responsible for engrossing papal documents) had risen to about 110 by 1310, when the pope, Clement V, sought to reduce the number (Tangl 1894: 82–3). It was also the department with the most contact with individuals and institutions outside the curia, for petitioners from all over Latin Christendom approached the chancery in order to obtain a wide variety of graces (for instance, privileges in favour of monasteries and other ecclesiastical institutions or provisions to ecclesiastical benefices) and for judicial business (mainly the appointment of judges delegate to hear cases outside the curia). The vast majority of papal documents were issued not on the initiative of the curia but in response to petitions (or supplications).
