SCRINIARII. - From the Latin scrinium (= chest), which properly indicated a cabinet where precious objects and documents were kept, and later came to mean "office" and "archive"; hence certain employees of the Roman imperial Chancery and of the offices of the provincial administration were called s., and in particular those assigned to the archive.

The pontifical Chancery (v.) too, at least from the 8th to the 11th century, had the s., who often combined the title with that of notarii; they wrote the documents and were perhaps also archivists.

In some cities, for example at Rome, the title of s. was used alongside others (tabelliones, curiales, etc.) to designate the notaries (v.) who drew up private documents.

Bibliography2 works

BIBL.: H. Breslau, Handbuch der Urkundenlehre, I, 2nd ed., Leipzig 1912, p. 206; C. Paoli, Diplomatica, new ed. updated by G. C. Bascapé, Florence 1942, pp. 82 and 94. For the pontifical s. up to the year 1099, see L. Santifaller, Saggio di un elenco di funzionari della Cancell. pontif., etc., in Bull. dell'Ist. st. it. per il medioevo e Arch. muratoriano, 56 (1940).

Giulio Battelli

@incollection{ec11_scriniarii, author = {Battelli, Giulio}, title = {Scriniarii}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {XI}, pages = {174}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1953}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/scriniarii} }

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