Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The transition from ecclesiastical scribania to professional notariate in Santa Coloma de Queralt

2012; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 39; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/03044181.2012.738787

1873-1279

Gregory B. Milton,

Medieval History and Crusades

Abstract Commerce and notarial writing were closely related activities for the Mediterranean world of the thirteenth century, and both were integral to rural commercial communities by the last decades of the century. The transformation of the scribania of Santa Coloma de Queralt from proto-notarial to professional notarial institution during the second half of the thirteenth century demonstrates the changes in the process of written documentation and the growth of commercial activity as sophisticated economic and political development occurred in many areas of rural Catalonia. The professional notarial scribes of the period provided administrative services in many different arenas, but more significantly provided a reliable means – accurate, flexible and legal – of monitoring the commercial transactions they recorded for their customers. The value of professional notarial writing helped create and further the increased commercial activity of the period within the Crown of Aragon. While scholars have long considered this process in major urban centres, it was also a significant factor for rural communities in Catalonia, which utilised and benefited from regular access to professional writing for the necessities of daily life. Keywords: notary scribania commerceCrown of AragonCatalonia Notes 1 The following abbreviations are used in this article: ACA: Arxiu de la Corona d'Aragó; AHCB: Arxiu Històric de la Ciutat Barcelona, Fons Municipal; AHCC: Arxiu Històric Comarcal de Cervera; AHT: Arxiu Històric de Taragona (all references come from Fons Notarials, Santa Coloma de Queralt, unless otherwise noted). José Bono, Historia del derecho notarial español. 2 vols. (Madrid: Junta de Decanos de los Colegios Notariales de España, 1979–82). 2 Of the recent studies, Rafael Conde y Delgado de Molina and Francisco Gimeno, ‘Notarias y escribanias de concesion real en la Corona de Aragon (s. XIII)’, in Notariado público y documento privado: de los orígenes al siglo XIV. Actas del VII Congreso Internacional de Diplomática, Valencia, 1986. 2 vols. (Valencia: Generalitat Valenciana, Conselleria de Cultura, Educació i Ciència, Diputacions d'Alacant, Castellò i València, 1989), 1: 281–329, provides an overview of the creation and expansion of centres of writing; see also Ignasi Baiges i Jardí, ‘El notariat català: origen i evolució’, in Actes del I Congrés d'Història del Notariat Català (Barcelona, 11, 12 i 13 de novembre de 1993), ed. Josep Maria Sans i Travé (Barcelona: Fundació Noguera, 1994), 131–66; two studies in Actes del II Congrès d'Història del Notariat Cátala, ed. Juan José López Burniol and Josep Maria Sans i Travé (Barcelona: Fundació Noguera, 2000), examine specific themes in this expansion: Marc Torras Serra, ‘Escrivanies judicials, vicarials i senyorials’, 355–407, and Arcadi García i Sanz, ‘Origen de la fe pública del document notarial’, 491–501. Robert I. Burns' work on Valencia has dominated the scholarship in his series Society and Documentation in Crusader Valencia. Diplomatarium of the Crusader Kingdom of Valencia 1. 2 vols. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), and especially Jews in the Notarial Culture: Latinate Wills in Mediterranean Spain, 1250–1350 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996). The extensive written production of pre-notarial Catalonia has been explored by Adam J. Kosto, Making Agreements in Medieval Catalonia: Power, Order, and the Written Word, 1000–1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). 3 Maria Teresa Ferrer i Mallol, ‘Notariat laic contra notariat eclesiàstic’, Estudis Histories i Documents dels Arxius de Protocols 5 (1977): 19–34, and Antoni M. Aragó, ‘Concessions reials del dret de notaria a parròquies i monestirs catalans (segle XII i XIII)’, Estudios Históricos y Documentos de los Archivos de Protocoles 6 (1978): 1–14. See also Rafael Conde y Delgado de Molina, ‘El pas de l'escrivà al notari’, in Actes del I Congrés d'Història del Notariat Català, 439–62, and Rafel Ginebra Molins, ‘Les escrivanies eclesiàstiques a Catalunya’, in Actes del II Congrès d'Història del Notariat Cátala, 89–160. 4 A quick survey of the diocesan holdings indicates significant potential for future research. See Catàlegs-inventaris d'arxius eclesiàstics de Catalunya. 8 vols. (Barcelona: Departament de Cultura de la Generalitat de Catalunya, 1984–92). 5 Records survive from Santa Coloma de Queralt that give evidence of both the ecclesiastical and professional notarial scribania of the town: Hug Palou i Miquel, Els ‘libri notularum’ de Santa Coloma de Queralt. Acta notariorum Cataloniae 17–18. 2 vols. (Barcelona: Fundació Noguera, 2009–10), provides the first publically available edition since 1931 of the manuscript produced by the ecclesiastical scribania, which had been part of the collection of the Arxiu Històric Municipal i Notarial d'Arenys de Mar until it came to be MS 1285 in the Lliberia de Joan Baptista Batlle i Martínez; the extensive collection of the town's notarial protocols is held in AHT, with protocols beginning in 1276–7 and surviving annually from 1289. 6 For example, Laureà Pagarolas i Sabaté, ‘Gènesi i evolució dels registres notarials (s. XIII–XIX)’, in Actes del II Congrès d'Història del Notariat Cátala, 161–84; Kosto, Making Agreements, 272–8. 7 Joan Segura i Valls, Història de Santa Coloma de Queralt (Vic: Pere Bas i Vich Printing, 1953), 23–7; see also Gregory B. Milton, Market Power: Lordship, Society, and Economy in Medieval Catalonia (1276–1313) (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 51–70. 8 Segura i Valls, Història de Santa Coloma, 52. 9 Milton, Market Power, 35–9, 64–70. 10 Roger Aubenas, Étude sur le notariat provençal au moyen âge et sous l'ancien régime (Aix-en-Provence: Éditions du feu, 1931); Louis Stouff, Arles à la fin du moyen âge. 2 vols. (Aix-en-Provence: Université de Provence, 1986); Alain de Boüard, ‘Le fonds des notaires d'Orange à la Bibliothèque Vatican’, Mélanges d'Archéologie et d'Histoire 30 (1910): 209–56; John H. Mundy, ‘Urban Society and Culture: Toulouse and Its Region’, in Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century, eds. Robert L. Benson, Giles Constable and Carol D. Lanham (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982), 229–47; John Drendel, ‘Notarial Practice in Rural Provence in the Early Fourteenth Century’, in Urban and Rural Communities in Medieval France: Provence and Languedoc, 1000–1500, eds. Kathryn Reyerson and John Drendel (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 209–35. 11 Rainerius de Perusio, Ars notariae, ed. Ludwig Wahrmund (Aalen: Scientia Verlag, 1962). 12 Rolandinus de Passageriis, Summa totius artis notariae (Bologna: Arnaldo Forni, 1977 [facsimile reprint of the Venice, 1546 edition]). See Guido van Dievoet, Les coutumiers, les styles, les formulaires et les ‘artes notariae’. Typologie des sources du moyen âge occidental 48 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1986), 83; Drendel, ‘Notarial Practice’, 210; and Bono, Historia del derecho notarial, 1: 216–20, for the connection between Rainerius de Perugia and Rolandinus de Passageriis and the circulation of their works in Provence and Catalonia. 13 Aubenas, Étude sur le notariat; de Boüard, ‘Le fonds des notaires’, and Stouff, Arles à la fin du moyen âge, 1: 18–19. See also Robert-Henri Bautier, ‘L'authentification des actes privés dans la France médiévale’, in Notariado público y documento privado, 701–72. 14 AHT Signum 3804, 3812, 3821, 8629 and 8631. In these protocols of Santa Coloma, the details related to the people, goods and terms of transaction were recorded, while all of the legal clauses were abbreviated (for example, ‘obli. etc.’). In the Santa Coloma protocols, the frequency of engrossing individual charters for the transactions recorded is difficult to determine. Occasional references to the creation of charters seem to be exceptional notes in the margin next to a record. For example, AHT Signum 3804, f. 20v, gives fiant duo, ‘let two be made.’ 15 Rafel Ginebra Molins, ‘Les escrivanies eclesiàstiques a Catalunya’, 89–160. 16 Bono, Historia del derecho notarial, 1: 119–22; Angel Canellas López, ‘El notariado en España hasta el siglo XIV: estado de la cuestion’, in Notariado público y documento privado, 107; and Francesch Carreras y Candi, ‘Desentrollament de la institució notarial a Catalunya en los segle XIII’, in Miscel·lànea històrica catalana 2 (Barcelona: Imprenta de la Casa Provincial de Caridad, 1906), 324–5. 17 Canellas López, ‘El notariado en España’, 110–11. 18 Manuel Dualde Serrano, ed., Fori antique Valentiae (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1950), 262–4, rub. CXXX, ‘De notariis’. See also Burns' discussion of the furs and the notariate of Valencia in Society and Documentation, 33–7, as well as Canellas López, ‘El notariado en España’, 111. 19 Bono, Historia del derecho notarial, 1: 264–8, 292–3; and Canellas López, ‘El notariado en España’, 116–17. 20 Bono, Historia del derecho notarial, 1: 209–13, 216–20. 21 S.P. Bensch, Barcelona and its Rulers 1096–1291 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 376–8, argued that the number of working notaries multiplied during the reign of Jaume I, reaching approximately 40 in Barcelona by the 1280s. 22 Bono, Historia del derecho notarial; Burns, Society and Documentation, as well as Jews in the Notarial Culture; Ignasi Baiges i Jardí, ‘El notariat català: origen i evolució’, in Actes del I Congrés d'Història del Notariat Català, 131–66; in the same collection, Maria Lluísa Cases i Loscos, ‘El col·legi notarial de Vic’, 685–97, Joan Cruz i Rodríguez, ‘Notaris i escrivans a Igualada: una aproximació a la seva història’, 549–56, and Arcadi Garcia i Sanz, ‘Precedents, origen i evolució dels col·legis notarials’, 167–87; Maria Milagros Cárcel Ortí, ‘Pere de Sant Climent, notario mayor de Pedro III el Grande’ in XI Congresso di storia della Corona D'Aragona, Palermo-Trapani-Erice 23–30 aprile 1982 sul tema la società mediterranea all'epoca del Vespro, ed. Francesco Giunta. 4 vols. (Palermo: Accademia di scienze lettere e arti, 1983), 2: 303–10; Francesc Esteve Perendreu, ‘L'escrivania de la cancelleria de l'estudi general de Lleida’, in El món urbà a la Corona d'Aragó del 1137 als decrets de nova planta: XVII Congrés d'Història de la Corona d'Aragó / Congreso de Historia de la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona, Poblet, Lleida, 7 al 12 de desembre de 2000, ed. Salvador Claramunt (Barcelona: Publicacions Universitat de Barcelona, 2003), 591–605; and Ramon Josep Puchades Bataller, ‘El notari valencià baixmedieval: exemple de la posició i percepció social de la professió notarial en l'occident mediterrani dels segles XIII, XIV i XV’, in Actes del II Congrès d'Història del Notariat Cátala, 517–49. 23 Conde and Gimeno, ‘Notarias y escribanias de concesion real’, 281–329, discuss the development of royal efforts towards the establishment and regulation of scribania in Catalonia from the 1240s, with the creation of a royal commission in 1282 to evaluate and concede scribania with standardised procedures. The commission's work in all of the Catalan vegueria served as the culmination of activity by the royal administration over the preceding half-century. 24 Conde and Gimeno, ‘Notarias y escribanias de concesion real’, 304–8. 25 ACA, Real Cancilleria, Reg. 59, ff. 34r–34v, ‘qui comsueverunt tenere scribanias ab antiquo’, published in Conde and Gimeno ‘Notarias y escribanias de concesion real’, Appendice documental, X, 322–4. 26 See Burns' discussion of the notariate in Valencia in Society and documentation, 33–7, as well as Angel Canellas Lopez, ‘El notariado en España hasta el siglo XIV’, in Notariado público y documento privado, 111, and Maria Teresa Ferrer i Mallol, ‘Notariat laic contra notariat eclesiàstic’, Estudios Históricos i Documentos de los Archivos de Protocolos 5 (1977): 19–34. The prohibition against clerical notaries in Valencia was established by Jaume I (r. 1213–76) in the fuero issued in 1239 after the conquest of the city: Dualde Serrano, ed., Fori antique Valentiae, 262–4, rub. CXXX, ‘De notariis’. 27 ACA Real Cancellaria, Reg. 59, ff. 34–34v; Conde and Gimeno, ‘Notarias y escribanias de concesion real’, Appendice documental, X, 322–4. 28 Marc Torras Serra, ‘Escrivanies judicials, vicarials i senyorials’, in Actes del II Congrès d'Història del Notariat Cátala, 355–407, and Conde and Gimeno, ‘Notarias y escribanias de concesion real’, 309–10. The count-king's administration and the communal government of Barcelona addressed the processes of the curial notaries in the 1280s: for example, AHCB, Pergamins 125 (1286), 139 (1287), 160 (1289) and 201 (1289). 29 Palou i Miquel, Els ‘libri notularum’ de Santa Coloma de Queralt, 1: 112–13, refers to charters produced by the chaplain of Queralt in 1232, the chaplain of Santa Coloma in 1233 and, by 1236, in the scribania of Santa Coloma. 30 Palou i Miquel, Els ‘libri notularum’ de Santa Coloma de Queralt, 1–2: 183–776. 31 Palou i Miquel, Els ‘libri notularum’ de Santa Coloma de Queralt, 1–2: 183–776. The amount of business in the scribania between 1240 and 1262 was much less than the 1233 transactions recorded over 10 months in the protocol of Santa Coloma for 1293–4, AHT Signum 3804. Even the least active of the later protocols, AHT Signum 8629, for 1276–7, documents 117 transactions over just four months. See the discussion and Tables 1 and 2. 32 Palou i Miquel, Els ‘libri notularum’ de Santa Coloma de Queralt, 2: 777–9. 33 Palou i Miquel, Els ‘libri notularum’ de Santa Coloma de Queralt, 1: 110–25. See Ginebra Molins, ‘Les escrivanies eclesiàstiques a Catalunya’, in Actes del II Congrès d'Història del Notariat Cátala, 99–111, as well as Conde and Gimeno, ‘Notarias y escribanias de concesion real’, 303–8. 34 AHT Fondo Santa Coloma de Queralt, Pergamins de la Comunitat de Preveres, 3. The exact function of the Cervera notariates during the thirteenth century is difficult to identify, as no Cervera notarial registers survive before 1325. Notaries, including Jaume de Bianya, were active in Cervera at least as far back as the 1270s, and most likely earlier. A royal concession of 1281 for the Cervera notariate is recorded in the Book of Privileges of the town, AHCC Fons Municipal, Llibre de Privilegis, 17 August 1281. See Monteserrat Canela i Garayoa, Cataleg dels protocols de Cervera (Barcelona: Fundació Noguera, 1985), 7–8. Before the notariate became fixed in Santa Coloma, it seems most likely that the Cervera scribes travelled from that town to Santa Coloma as part of a regional circuit. 35 AHT Signum 8629 does not record nearly as many transactions through its four month period as would appear in the later protocols, but the transactions do appear more or less weekly in this early register. The transactions of 1276–7 in this brief protocol demonstrate the slow change in the type of transactions occurring in Santa Coloma. Approximately half of the records were commercial – and the records indicate the purpose and reason for these transactions like those from the end of the century – a small but significant growth in recorded commercial activity compared to the activity recorded by the ecclesiastical scribania. 36 AHT, Fondo Santa Coloma de Queralt, Pergamins del Senyors, 617. The notarial inscription reads ‘Petro Botet notario publico de Santa Columba pro Jacobo de Bianya’. 37 The notarial register of 1292 does not survive, but Segura i Valls, Història de Santa Coloma, 67, cites an otherwise unidentified document of 1292, which names ‘Jaume de Bianya, rector of Santa Coloma and canon of Urgell’. 38 Segura i Valls, Història de Santa Coloma, 311. 39 Milton, Market Power, 67–70, 97–103. 40 Segura i Valls, Història de Santa Coloma, 272–4, argues that Pere de Muntayola came to Santa Coloma in 1273 or 1275 to serve as notary under Jaume de Bianya. Pere stayed in town and fathered four children with Guiamona, the ‘widow’ of Arnau of Meihans. Pere remained active as a scribe at least until 1305. 41 AHT, Fondo Santa Coloma de Queralt, Pergamins del Senyors, 617. 42 The protocols of Bernat de Bianya are AHT Signum 8630, a fragment for 1281; Signum 3927, a partial year, but complete manual for 1288–9; Signum 3928, a manual for 1289–90; and, finally, a series of protocols from 1298–9, Signum 3810, overlapping with a complete manual of Bernat Botini, Signum 3808 and Signum 3809, a manual of 1299 of shared authorship with Botini. 43 AHT Signum 3804, ff. 22v, 70, 85, 155; Signum 3812, ff. 114 and 115, ‘per manum R. de Alteto publici notarii Sancte Columbe’. 44 AHT Signum 8631, f. 5. 45 From the earliest Santa Coloma register of the Bianya brothers in 1276, there survives no more than one book per year, each by one notary. Only fragments of the earliest notarial books remain, but by 1288–9 a continuous sequence of registers exists through to the end of the fourteenth century. The transactions, well over 1000 each year, were generally placed in chronological order, presenting the business of the town as it occurred. The notarial scribes documented all types of transactions together until 1299, from when there is a gap in the general registers until 1303. Beginning in 1299, separate books of testaments covering multiple years were produced, in most cases by the same notary as the yearly manuals, but with some exceptions. Between 1288 and 1350, there are 62 manuals (protocols of full records of all types), seven books of testaments and two notae (belonging to one notary from 1337 and 1343 respectively). The manuals for the years between 1290 and 1292, between 1300 and 1303, and for 1328–9 are missing; otherwise all other annual volumes through to 1348 seem to have survived. See Milton, Market Power, 33–49. 46 The sisa was a tax on commerce to be collected in local markets, which the royal administration attempted to introduce to Catalonia during the latter half of the thirteenth century from other of their territories. Successive Catalan Corts resisted the practice and obtained promises from the count-king not to attempt to collect this tax. 47 For 14 September 1293, AHT Signum 3804, ff. 29v–30, ‘requiserunt et dixerunt Bernardo Botini notario Sancte Columbe pro Jacobo de Bianya quod daret eis copiam instrumentorum omnium cantractum factorum in villa Sancte Columbe infra spacium tercium mensium.’ Similarly for 21 January 1294, AHT Signum 3804, f. 137v. 48 The wording is basically the same in both examples: ‘non abebat mandatum a domino Jacobo de Bianya nec a Bernat de Bianya fratre suo et procuratore suo pro quo tenet dictam scribaniam’, followed by ‘si … aportavitur sibi leteram domini Jacobi’: AHT Signum 3804, ff. 30, 137v. AHT Signum 3804 has unique entries added in the bottom margin at the end of each quire which appear to be totals of charges for the transactions recorded, although these amounts are not easily reconciled with the full list of transactions in each quire. It seems possible that these figures might indicate the interest of the agents of the royal veguer of Cervera in the contracts recorded by Bernat Botini for 1293–4. The totals were added after the contracts were written in each quire (based on ink and differences in hands). It is possible that they were made by the veguer's agents, rather than the notary or his scribes. The amounts are: AHT Signum 3804 f. 20v, ‘xL et viii sol. et ii den.’; f. 40v, ‘xL et viii sol. et vi den.’; f. 56v, ‘xxx et ix et viii den.’; f. 78v, ‘L et vi sol.’; f. 98v, ‘Lx sol. et ii den.’; f. 120v, ‘L et iii sol. et v den.’; f. 136v, ‘xL sol.’; f. 160v, ‘L et v sol.’; f. 184v, ‘Lx et i sol.’ 49 In 1293, Jaume de Bianya confirmed, as rector and landlord, a sale of property on 3 September: AHT Signum 3804, f. 23. Bernat de Bianya acted as witness for a loan contracted on 7 September: f. 27. 50 In the 1304–5 protocol, Bernat de Bianya is listed three times: twice as a debtor who had paid off the price of goods he had bought – in one case a gold ring, in the other a mule – and once as an arbiter in a dispute. These three instances stretch over the period 9 September to 18 October 1304: AHT Signum 3812, ff. 57v, 65, 71. 51 The number and calibre of the records produced between 1240 and 1262 recorded in Arxiu Històric ‘Fidel Fita’ d'Arenys de Mar, MS 1285, do not provide any reflection of business over the course of a full year, unlike the later, annual books. The number of transactions in this manuscript provides a picture of a much less busy community: the average over the 15 years providing entries is 52.2 per year, much lower than production at the end of the century. For the period after the Bianyas began recording transactions in Santa Coloma analysed for this article, only AHT Signum 3821 provides records for a full year, from 25 March 1304 to 24 March 1305. The other two full registers cover partial years: AHT Signum 3804, from 29 June 1293 to 25 March 1294; and AHT Signum 3821, from 8 October 1312 to 25 March 1313. The earlier protocols appear to be fragments of larger registers. AHT Signum 8629 comes from 1276–7, with the first transaction dated 24 June 1276, but the remaining 117 records dated from 7 September 1276 to 21 January 1277. AHT Signum 8631 is a fragment that cannot be definitively dated. An analysis of the transaction clusters, and some internal evidence regarding the probate of Pere III's rights and property after his death (Pere III was lord of Queralt from 1276, and died c.1285), suggest 1287 for its transactions, stretching from 22 July to 8 September. However, any year from 1282 to as late as 1292 is possible. 52 Palou i Miquel, Els ‘libri notularum’, 2: 777–9. 53 Milton, Market Power, 97–121. 54 AHCB, Pergamins 160. This charter, dated 11 August 1289, responds to an order by the Infant Pere (brother and lieutenant of Alfons II) addressing complaints about the work and fees of the notaries at the court of the veguer of Barcelona. The city's governing council, in conjunction with the lieutenant of the veguer of Barcelona, attempted to establish working standards for the notaries, including a price list for recording contracts as determined by type. 55 Milton, Market Power, 45–9. The network that is visible through the Santa Coloma notariate in the last decades of the thirteenth century eventually became a formal universitas of the area's clergy, a comunitat de preveres, by the end of the fourteenth century. Recent studies of this type of organisation include Jordi Morelló Baget, ‘De contributionibus fiscalibus: els conflictes entre el municipi de Valls i la comunitat de preveres durant el segle xiv’, Anuario de Estudios Medievales 29 (1999): 689–729, and idem, ‘La comunitat de preveres de Reus i el seu encaix dins la fiscalitat municipal (s. xiv–xv)’, Anuario de Estudios Medievales 35 (2005): 863–906. See also Montse Martínez Hernández, ‘L'organització i producció documental de la comunitat de preveres i confraria de Sant Nicolau de Cervera’, Lligall: Revista Catalana d'Arxivística 15 (1999): 289–317, and Joan Ferrer, ‘Catàleg de la biblioteca de la comunitat de domers i preveres de l'església parroquial de Sant Pere de Ripoll: segles XV–XVI’, Annals – Centre d'Estudis Comarcals del Ripollès (2001): 215–50. 56 AHT Signum 3812. 57 AHT Signum 3812, ff. 35v–36. Pere worked throughout the year, before and after the contract recorded on the eve of the Feast of St John, 23 June 1304, in which he promised ‘quod invabo in scribania ad conficiendum instrumenta et notulis recipiendum prout potero secundum posse et ingenio meum’. Clearly Pere's annual contract simply continued his work in Santa Coloma. 58 AHT Signum 3812, f. 67. The grant of the chaplaincy on 11 October 1304 noted that Pere III de Queralt had stipulated the creation of the chapel in his will. Pere Piquer was allowed to observe all of the canonical hours in the convent of Santa Maria de Bell-lloc except for the single mass in the castle: ‘dicas omnes horas canonicas in ecclesia Sancte Maria de Pulcro Loco sec missam tenearis cotidie celebrare in capella sita in dicto castro nostro de Sancta Columba et in altari sancti Johanis evangeliste et dictum oficium faciendo in omni vita tua prout decet clericum.’ 59 AHT Signum 3804. 60 AHT Signum 3812 and 3821. The terms clericus and presbiter were used interchangeably in the notarial records, meaning an individual who was ordained as a priest. Rector indicated a priest who headed a parish and the term was used fairly consistently for those who held the office. Presbiter oriundus was a title which only appeared in the later protocols, in all cases used for priests who held one of the benefices in the Santa Coloma parish church itself. 61 AHTN Signum 3804. Arnau de Falconera witnessed 29 transactions over nine visits (three over two days) to the town throughout the year. 62 AHTN Signum 3812, ff. 1–3, 5, 7, 15 and 20. 63 AHTN Signum 3812, throughout the protocol. 64 AHTN Signum 3821, ff. 56v–57, 65, 85 and 92.