By the king, queen or infanta: the notaries of Torres Vedras between the 13th and 15th centuries

Abstract

To know the notary public of Portuguese village and cities is an exercise that goes beyond a simple diplomatic analysis of medieval documentation. In fact, the analysis of these writing officials allows us to have a greater knowledge about the medieval professionals present in the cities, the social and clientelist relations and the economic resources that each one tried to reach, and, at last, the cultural development of a given zone. It is our intended to let known the torriense notary that worked between the reigns of D. Dinis (1279-1325) and D. Afonso V (1438-1481), analyzing their careers. Establish connections between the numbers of the torriense notary public and historical events such as the Black Death, the siege of Torres Vedras of 1384 or who held power over the village. To know and analyze the signum used by Torres Vedras' writing officers and make some parallels with the signum of notaries in Lisbon. Another issue that was attempted was the titles of these men: a particularly interesting period to analyze the forms of titles used by notaries is that of 1383-85. Although, we have notaries of the king, queen and infanta in the period under analysis. We also want to know the documents typology produced in Torres Vedras and compare with what happened in other villages and towns of the kingdom.