Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.21857/ygjwrcd4gy
Service of notarial office in Dalmatia under the Venetian rule – example of the mid-17th century Zadar notaries
Filip Novosel
orcid.org/0000-0001-5808-4647
; Croatian Institute of History Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
Notarial documents have long been recognised as suitable archival materialamong historians and are widely used in research on various topics. In this sense,however, their authors themselves have been largely neglected in foreign andespecially in Croatian historiography. With a brief overview of the research ofthe early modern age done in domestic historiography, this paper focuses onthe activities of notaries as a separate professional group in the city of Zadar inthe mid-17th century and the final product of their work - notarial documents.First, by analysing the specifics of the service of Zadar notaries, from acquiringtheir qualifications, duration and scope of their work and the circle of peoplewho needed notary services as clients, the article reconstructs certain aspectsof early modern, primarily urban, society. Ten, by focusing on the creationprocess and the format, content and meaning of notarial records, we pointout the importance of these documents. Parallel with that, we indicate theimportance of this service for the functioning of a whole urban community.At the same time, through the work of notaries, we take a hard look at theirposition in the social environment in which they operated in order to assess thecredibility of their documents for historical research. Finally, by reconstructingthis professional group’s work in the societal context and notary practice inthe entire Venetian Republic and presenting typical documents produced inZadar during the Venetian administration, we wanted to contribute to a betterunderstanding of this valuable type of archival material. We also attempted toencourage and facilitate possible future research and the work on publishing thistype of archival material.
Keywords
notaries; 17th century; social history; Venetian Republic; Dalmatia; Zadar
Hrčak ID:
268201
URI
Publication date:
23.12.2021.
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