Primary Source - Forgeries

Forgeries

Historians must occasionally contend with forged documents, purporting to be primary sources. These forgeries have usually been constructed with a fraudulent purpose, such as promulgating legal rights, supporting false pedigrees, or promoting particular interpretations of historic events. The investigation of documents to determine their authenticity is diplomatics.

For centuries, Popes used the forged Donation of Constantine to bolster the secular power of the Papacy. Among the earliest forgeries are false Anglo-Saxon Charters, a number of 11th and 12th century forgeries produced by monasteries and abbeys to support a claim to land where the original document had been lost or never existed. One particularly unusual forgery of a primary source was perpetrated by Sir Edward Dering, who placed false monumental brasses in a parish church. In 1986, Hugh Trevor-Roper "authenticated" the Hitler diaries, which were later proved to be forgeries. Recently, forged documents have been placed within the UK National Archives in the hope of establishing a false provenance. However, historians dealing with recent centuries rarely encounter forgeries of any importance.