The registry system, fully developed in medieval chanceries such as that of the papacy, originally consisted of the entire transcription of definitive – but not all – records. In the course of time – in the face of the growth of the production of records

The registry system, fully developed in medieval chanceries such as that of the papacy, originally consisted of the entire transcription of definitive – but not all – records. In the course of time – in the face of the growth of the production of records and of specialization of systems of registration – it developed into the extraction and transcript only of the identifying elements of records, with the objective of securely controlling their maintenance within a records system and of furnishing proof of the existence of the record over time.