Processi documentari e istituzioni comunali in area ligure e provenzale

Abstract

Within the historical process that brought to the formation of the communal documentation, some typologies allow to catch lines of long-term development: in particular, the so called consular lodi (judgments and decrees) and the treaties or, for using a broader term, the contractual documents. Important elements of evaluation also come out from the practices that are linked both to the production of original documents (especially in the Provence area), both to authentication procedures of the copies: in both cases, intervention of municipal authorities is crucial for giving the written testimony a legal value. Special attention should be also paid to the ideological and practical reasons underlying the choice of collecting the communal charters in a volume: the prologues of the Libri iurium are rich of informations in this sense. The paper offers some remarks about homogeneous groups of documents, and it intends to highlight the distinguished outcomes of their writing process in relation to the variable interactions between the communal institutions and the notaries.