Legal Dictionary of Pakistan

diptych

n. [fr. Latin diptycha fr. Greek diptycha "two-leaved"] 1. Roman law. Two tablets usu. made of wood or metal and tied with string through holes at the edges so that they could fold over (like a book with two leaves). 0 Diptychs were often used to send letters, and the text was sometimes written using a stylus, once on the inside waxed leaves and again on the outside, so that it could be read without opening the tablets. 2. Hist. Eccles. law. Tablets used by the church, esp. to register names of those making supplication, and to record births, marriages, and deaths. 3. Hist. Eccles. law. The registry of those names. "The recitation of the name of any prelate or civil ruler in the diptychs was a recognition of his orthodoxy; its omission, the reverse. The mention of a person after death recognized him as having died in the communion of the church, and the introductio