Metadata: Historical Archive
Collection
- Country:
- Spain
- Holding institution:
- Municipal Archive of Benavente
- Holding institution (official language):
- Archivo Municipal de Benavente
- Postal address:
- Plaza del Grano 3. 49600 - Benavente
- Phone number:
- +34 980 630 445
- Email:
- jcdelamata@benavente.es
- Reference number:
- ES. 49021. AM/1
- Title:
- Historical Archive
- Title (official language):
- Archivo Historico
- Creator/accumulator:
- Town council of Benavente
- Date(s):
- 1200/1950
- Language:
- Spanish; Castilian
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- Good
- Scope and content:
-
The “Archivo Historico” (Historical Archive) collection of the Municipal Archive of Benavente is composed of documents dated between the thirteen and mid-twentieth centuries. In 1374, Enrique II granted his son, the Duke Don Fadrique, the town of Benavente, and in 1398, it was donated to the nobleman Juan Alonso Pimentel. Benavente remained under control of the Pimentel aristocratic family until the end of the nineteenth century, and this situation ensured the preservation of the historical documents. This collection is based on the medieval documents of the archive, in which three documentary series stand out:
“Cartas pueblas y privilegios de repoblacion” (Population charters and privileges) (1200/1600). Only one file.
“Libros de acuerdos” (Town Council Minutes Notebooks) (1434/1906), 40 volumes.
“Sisas” (Indirect Taxes) (1403/1830), 18 files.
The earliest documents preserved in the archive date from the twelfth century, among them the Town Charter (“Carta Puebla” or “Fuero de Benavente”) from 1167. There are also documents that illuminate the relations between the town and the Pimentel family, as well as between the Lords of Benavente and the Castilian monarchs. The documents include land registry, which records conflicts, agreements, and the delimitation of the jurisdictional territory of Benavente. Since the sixteenth century, taxation records and other documents related to the government and administration of the town council of Benavente have been preserved. Among these documents stand out the town council ordinances and the series of town council minutes (starting in 1434). Likewise, since 1433, incomes notebooks of the town council have been preserved, as well as additional documents on the incomes received by the county and the royal local authorities.
Concerning Jews, there is information contained in the “Libros de Cuentas de Propios” (Town Communal Estate Account Books), “Libros de Acuerdos” (Town Council Minutes Notebooks) (no. 2 and 4), “Ordenanzas” (Local Ordinances), and “Cuentas de obras y puentes” (Public Works Account Books).
The “Libros de Cuentas de Propios” contain the payments made by the town council to several Jews for their intervention in a litigation with merchants from Leon, Sahagun and Zamora who attended the Benavente fairs (1471). There is also information concerning segregation of the Jews in the town (1470). The new Jewish quarter was moved next to the town’s prison. The tax farmers of the wine demanded from the town council that the sale of wine be done in the Jewish quarter. A payment to certain Jews who worked for the town council is recorded (1462) as well.
References to real estate in the Jewish quarter are recorded in the “Libros de Acuerdos” (1434, 1481, 1492, 1493). There is also information about the professional activities of the Jews (blacksmiths, shoemakers, tanners, etc.) and their relationship with the town council. The documents also contain information about the establishment of individual Jews and Jewish families in the town (1489, 1492).
The Town Ordinances (1475) contain data on real estate of the Jews in Benavente.
In the “Cuentas de obras y puentes”, there is information regarding the building of houses for Rabbi Baru in Carbajes street (1489).
- Archival history:
- Although the existence of inventories of the Municipal Archive of Benavente is documented throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it contents were only inventoried between 1989 and 1992. The works were funded by the Instituto de Estudios Zamoranos Florian de Ocampo, which in 1996 published the catalogue of the collection. Before the renovation of the Town Hall in Plaza Mayor, carried out in 2000, it was transferred to a provisional deposit. Now, the archive is kept on the top floor of the Town Hall.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- The Town Charter of Benavente was granted in the twelfth century. During the thirteenth century, the town received a series of privileges in order to attract new settlers. In 1398, the town of Benavente was granted to the Portuguese knight Juan Alfonso Pimentel as count. This was the beginning of one of the most important aristocratic families in Spain. Benavente was the capital of the county, and an important Jewish community was settled here in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and the history of this town is linked to the Counts of Benavente (Pimentel family).
- Access, restrictions:
- Free access regulated by the current legal environment on access to Spanish historical archives (law 16/1985 of Spanish Historical Patrimony).
- Finding aids:
- Data on the collection are also available at the website of the Spanish National Archives (PARES).
- Links to finding aids:
- https://pares.culturaydeporte.gob.es/inicio.html
- Yerusha Network member:
- Spanish National Research Council
- Author of the description:
- Marina Girona Berenguer; ILC, CSIC; March 2020
