Original or forgery – that's the question scientists are asking themselves in the case of the Lorch Founding Charter (Lorcher Stiftungsurkunde). Is it really from 1102 or could it have been prepared later - in the middle of the 12th century? Formal and content discrepancies had been noticed. The first inconsistency is the script used. Sawtooth-shaped adornments on the letter shafts of the first line and the way in which the letters "r" and "g" were written indicate that the document could not possi-bly have been written around 1100. The scribes first used such decorative and writ-ing elements beginning in the middle of the 12th century. In contrast, the problems with the content are far more complex. They also indicate that the document was prepared several decades after the monastery's founding in order to summarize the specification of the founding date again in a representative document.
Despite these research findings, the Lorcher Stiftungsurkunde is, of course, not worthless or even a deceptive forgery in today's sense. Its content is confirmed by other 12th century official documents, including from Friedrich Barbarossa dated 1154. In accordance with the usual structure of a medieval official document, first the founder and his family are named, i.e. Friedrich, Duke of Swabia and Franconia, to-gether with his wife Agnes of Waiblingen and their sons. Then a list of the witnesses follows consisting of the Bishops of Augsburg, Konstanz, Speyer and Würzburg. Af-ter this comes the "Dispositio", the most important part of the certificate in which the will of the issuing person and the legal contents are specified. This consists of the donation of the monastery to the Pope as the representative of the Church, the right of the monks to freely elect their abbots and the protection of the monastery and the monks by the governor. The document ends with a reference to the (lost) seal of Friedrich of Swabia and with the date. It specifies 3 May 1102 as the date of issue of the certificate.
Today the valuable document is in Austria. It is kept in the archives of the Benedic-tine monastery St. Paul in the Lavant valley. A reproduction can be seen in the church.