Metadata: Institutional Section
Collection
- Country:
- Spain
- Holding institution:
- Cathedral Archive of Cuenca
- Holding institution (official language):
- Archivo Catedralicio de Cuenca
- Postal address:
- Plaza Mayor de Pio XII. 16001 - Cuenca
- Phone number:
- +34 969 222 505
- Reference number:
- ES.16078.AC/1.1
- Title:
- Institutional Section
- Title (official language):
- Seccion Institucional
- Creator/accumulator:
- Cathedral chapter of Cuenca
- Date note:
- 1182/20th century
- Language:
- Spanish; Castilian
- Extent:
- More than 2,500 documents
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- Good
- Scope and content:
-
The “Seccion Institucional” of the Cathedral Archive of Cuenca contains documentation from the twelfth to the twentieth centuries. The Bull of the founding of the Diocese of Cuenca (1182) is its oldest document. The documentation is kept under the designation "Institutional," since the cathedral chapter has historically considered it the most important collection of the archive. In other cathedral archives, this section is called the more general "Parchments" or "Historical Archive." These documents legitimized the properties and privileges granted to the cathedral chapter, and in the Middle Ages they were kept as part of the cathedral treasure.
The “Seccion Institucional” gathers the parchments that are the material as well as the spiritual basis for the foundation of the cathedral and the cathedral chapter of Cuenca. Royal, pontifical, and ecclesiastical privileges, particular deeds and other documents that witness the configuration of the cathedral chapter's patrimony (donations, exchanges, purchases, and sales, etc.), compose this collection.
Concerning Jews, sales made by them to the cathedral chapter of Cuenca are preserved, such as the one made by Yehuda, son of Abraham de Cuenca, of a plot in the town of Villalba del Campo (1265). There are also sales between Christians and Jews. For example, some Christians made sales of plots in the town of Noheda to Salomon Abulafia (1361, 1375, 1376 and 1377). Some sales are transactions related to loan contracts.
Documentation regarding litigations, such as documentary proofs and judgments, is preserved, such as the judgment issued by the Supreme Court (Royal Audience) of Castile on the litigation between the cathedral chapter of Cuenca and Abraham Buhardo, tax farmer of the Fuentelmanzano and Monteagudo royal salt flats (1384).
There are royal provisions dealing with various matters. In one of them, Pedro I gave instructions to carry out the judgment issued on the lawsuit that the cathedral chapter had initiated against the Jewish Aljama of Cuenca related to the damage of some cathedral chapter houses located in the Jewish quarter (1363). In another provision, the cathedral chapter of Cuenca was compelled to acknowledge a debt for the purchase of salt owed to Simuel Aventuriel, from Ucles (1362).
Regarding tax farming, the cathedral chapter kept a document compelling itself to deliver to Samuel Levi, the Royal Chief Treasurer, the amount owed for a tax division (1358).
- Archival history:
- The documents indicate the “archival” work that the cathedral chapter of Cuenca has been carrying out intermittently since the thirteenth century. The first inventory was made in the 1480s, of which only a few parchment leaves have survived. In the inventory, some previous “catalogue cards” were collected, which had been created in the mid-fifteenth century by a team of canons. In the second quarter of the sixteenth century, the cathedral chapter reassembled a set of documents that, because of different circumstances, had been left outside the cathedral, and the chapter members agreed to produce a new inventory. In the seventeenth century and up to the eighteenth century, there is not much information related to the organization of the fonds. The room where the archive was located became too small to keep all the documents, and it was necessary to add another room. The documents were transferred to the new offices that had been built in the northern part of the Cloister. The “Plan para el arreglo del Archivo de la Santa Iglesia de Cuenca” (1789) has been preserved, and it was very useful for the reorganization of the cathedral chapter collection. Since the end of the 1980s, cathedral archivists have been working on the organization of the archive.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- The Cathedral Archive of Cuenca appears with the establishment of the Diocese by Pope Lucius III and the consequent organization of the cathedral chapter by the bishop-elect at the end of the twelfth century. Cuenca and its diocese were an important location in both Castilian expansive and defensive policies against Muslim powers and against Aragon's expansionist strategies.
- Access points: locations:
- Castile
- Cuenca
- Monteagudo de las Salinas
- Spain
- Uclés
- Access, restrictions:
- The access to the archive is free upon the presentation of an identification document. The consultation of the documents will be subject to the legal regulations in force regarding access and may be restricted depending on the documents’ state of preservation.
- 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; July 2020
