The Specific Features of Medieval Notaries North and South of the Pyrenees: The Example of Bearn
Résumé
The study of the record books of medieval Pyrenean notaries sets out an unusual double picture. On one hand, looking at the medieval origins of the office of notary throws new light on the early history of notaries and written law in the West as a whole. In Gascony, as in Aragon, Navarre and probably Castile, the law of Fors and Fueros (local liberties) appears to be extremely ancient Roman law, which in the 13th century led to a body of "Pyrenean" notaries who were quite different from classic Mediterranean notaries. Moreover, in this region straddling the Pyrenees, the institution of the notary public was superimposed on other structures organised around escrivans or escribanos, and it arrived late. In addition, Pyrenean notaries, whose practices and activity were quite groundbreaking, are far from having been simple public scribes or practitioners of writing. Their tasks were many and varied. They were, first and foremost, jurists and men of law, often the sources who wrote out compendiums of the fors, and even manuals or codes analysing Roman law. They moreover took on an important role in public justice and its inquisitorial procedures, assumed administrative tasks --fiscal ones, for example-- and are revealed to be at the heart of political discourse, writings and the assemblies. The study ends by evoking the figures of some of these notaries public, who were mediators in complex, dynamic societies.