The writing of the of the notaries public of episcopal appointment in the central area of Asturias: 13th and 14th centuries

Abstract

This paper analyzes the writing of the notarial offices in the episcopal jurisdictions of Oviedo in the center of Asturian territory during part of the Late Middle Ages. It’s intended to contribute to the study of the evolution of Gothic script types in Late medieval Asturias in a rural environment, but also know how and where writing learning occurs, as well as the possible school relations between the titular notary and the staff who work at his service. It will help us to determine if notaries are in charge of teaching graphic rudiments, that is, if a initial writing training is also given. For this, the palaeographic analysis of the writing used in these rural notarial offices will be carried out through the original public documents preserved from the time of the implantation and consolidation of the notary. Due to its volume, the documentary production of Nicolás Pascual, a notary public in Las Regueras and Peñaflor, stands out, from which we will extract much of our conclusions by offering the rest of the notaries a very fragmentary image by the shortage of notarised documents localized for the other public notaries.