Note g — Chapter IX · [a] (continued 3)

Mabillon speaks of this as the oldest French instrument he had seen. But the Benedictines quote some of the eleventh century. Hist. Litt. t. vii. p. 59. This charter is supposed by the authors of Nouveau Traité de Diplomatique to be translated from the Latin, t. iv. p. 519. French charters, they say, are not common before the age of Louis IX.; and this is confirmed by those published in Martenne's Thesaurus Anecdotorum, which are very commonly in French from his reign, but hardly ever before.