The study investigates some aspects of the relationship between the counts of Savoy and the scribes who produced their documents, and reconstructs the effects that this relationship had on textual structures, authenticating practices and graphic forms. In Piedmont, the dynasty systematically exploited the work of imperial notaries. In the various sectors of the transalpine domains and in the Aosta valley, the documents concerning the counts were written by local scribes (mainly clerics from the entourages of bishops and abbots) until the end of the 12th century; after 1200 many Sabaudian acts were produced by itinerant notaries mainly from the Savoy region. In that area notaries could have an ecclesiastical, Sabaudian or imperial appointment (many of them had more than one) and notary practices differed from the Italian ones in terms of forms, validation methods and extrinsic characters. The notaries who were Sabaudian officers (usually designated as notarii comitis) adapted those practices taking into account many factors: the ambitions of the counts, who looked for both public legitimacy and administrative efficiency; the legal traditions of the areas where the documents had to be used; the outcomes of the dialectic between the professional autonomy of the notary and his subordination to the counts as an officer.