“Otro pergamino viejo en que están cinco donaciones”: an approach to the pancartas from the Cistercian monasteries of the diocese of Lugo (11th-13th centuries)

Abstract

Among the documentation preserved from the Cistercian monasteries of the Diocese of Lugo – specifically Santa María de Meira, Santa María de Penamaior, and Santa María de Ferreira de Pantón – for the High Middle Ages (11th-13th centuries), around twenty pancartas – that is, parch-ments containing two or more documents – have survived. Through this significant corpus of docu-ments, the present article explores the origins and purposes of this diplomatic practice, drawing the following conclusions: first, pancartas were produced to confirm earlier legal actions that could be challenged by the donor or their heirs; second, to ensure the written record of the documents – whether in the form of complete letters, summaries with essential information, or brief notices – due to the increase in legal transactions involving small nobles and farmers from the area; and finally, to facilitate their consultation and preservation in the monastic archive. To substantiate these conclu-sions, the article undertakes a comprehensive analysis of the different pieces, attending to both their external and internal characteristics (supports and morphologies, scripts, legal authors and scribes, formulas, tradition, etc.).