Note in margine al rotulus ASV, A.A., Arm. I–XVIII, 3913. La costruzione di una scrittura processuale

Between 1218 and 1220 the bishop and the communal institutions of Parma were opposed in a trial taking place in Bologna at the court of the bishop Enrico della Fratta. He was choosen by Onorius III as papal judge delegate. Among the conserved sources that allow us to reconstruct this institutional conflict, there is a roll consisting of twenty-seven parchments sewn together that collects the depositions of the trial. Today it is conserved at the Archivio Segreto Vaticano. Up until now the historiography has analized this source from an institutional and political point of view. Instead, in this paper a giu- ridical point of view is adopted and the roll is studied in the light of the the- oretical texts of the trial procedure, in particular those composed in Italy in the thirteenth century. New elements emerge that clarify the genetic context of this source and its function within the trial of Parma.