The form of lease and rental contracts in Toledo during the rise of the notary public (1280-1350)

Abstract

The public notary in Castile appeared during the second half of the 13th century, thanks to the legislative project of Alfonso X and the influence of Roman law from Italy. Along with its establishment, there was also a renewal of the forms used in notarial documents, which were included in Alfonso's regulations and began to spread throughout the Crown. However, it seems that they were not accepted and assimilated by Castilian-Leonese public notaries until they acquired legal value in the Order of Alcalá de Henares of 1348. Among the types of notarial documents were those related to the transfer and exploitation of land, such as leases or rentals, a very common type of document, but one that has received little attention from specialists on Diplomatics in the late Middle Ages. This work focuses on the lease agreements and rental contracts suscribed by notaries public in the city of Toledo between 1280 and 1350, through the analysis of these sources using digital tools and the comparison between their forms and those collected in Tercera Partida, a corpus by the scriptorium of Alfonso X that began to be disseminated at the end of his reign. The main objective of this research is to observe what forms were used by Toledo's public scribes and what similarities and differences existed with Partidas.