Description
Book SynopsisThe ecclesiastical archive groups held in our archives have arrived incomplete, unstructured, and dispersed. The convulsive 19th century, the war and disentailment were decisive agents, but not the only ones. In the institutions themselves, changing needs, pragmatism, expurgation, poor conditions, neglect, and abandonment led to many losses since medieval times. Organizing and preserving the patrimonial and administrative archives of the Ancien Régime was a priority in times of change or crisis: it facilitated the management and control of patrimonial assets, allowed to justify properties and rights in the event of litigation, and guaranteed, in short, the survival of the institutions themselves. Beyond the weight of the tradition, the documents provided the firm basis on which qualified clerics or monks, chroniclers of their house, their church, or their order, were able to base their origins, their history, and their greatness. With the contributions of several specialists in written culture and the history of Spanish archives, we will delve into the study of a part of this memory that had to be written and preserved in our cathedrals, monasteries, and military orders in the 12th-18th centuries, and we will get to know some of its makers, their working instruments, and forms of organization.
