Metadata: Historical Documentary Section
Collection
- Country:
- Spain
- Holding institution:
- Pilar Arostegui Municipal Archive of Vitoria-Gasteiz
- Holding institution (official language):
- Archivo Municipal Pilar Arostegui de Vitoria-Gasteiz
- Postal address:
- Paseo de la Universidad 1. 01006 – Vitoria
- Phone number:
- +34 945 161 492
- Web address:
- http://www.vitoria-g/../78_135c26f3e09__7fe3
- Reference number:
- ES. 1059. AM
- Title:
- Historical Documentary Section
- Title (official language):
- Seccion Historica
- Creator/accumulator:
- City council of Vitoria-Gasteiz
- Date(s):
- 1181/1975
- Language:
- Spanish; Castilian
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- Good
- Scope and content:
-
The Historical Documentary Section of the Pilar Arostegui Municipal Archive of Vitoria-Gasteiz contains the documents produced and received by the city council of Vitoria-Gasteiz from 1181 up to the last third of the twentieth century. The documents attest to the activity of the city council throughout its history. This fonds contains documentation from other extinct municipal councils such as Ariñez, Foronda, Mendoza and Los Huetos. It also contains historical documents from different institutions, neighborhoods, confraternities, associations, companies, and private sources, whose inclusion took place as a result of donations, purchases, and deposits.
The city council minutes (“Actas municipales”) is the most important documentary series of the archive. It is composed of 469 volumes. This series sheds light on the activities of the city council of Vitoria-Gasteiz. The city council minutes from 1428 to the present day are preserved with almost no interruption; only those for 1430-1478 are lost.
This collection is based on medieval documents. Therefore the first five books of the city council minutes are relevant for documenting the history of the Jews in the city of Vitoria (1428-29; 1428-39 (through a 1792 copy); 1479-87; 1487-92; 1492-1496). There are 89 medieval documents in parchment, among which are the privileges granted to the city by the Castilian kings.
Concerning Jews, there are documents pertaining to Alfonso XI ordering the authorities of Vitoria to ban Jews from making letters of debt to Christians (1332); Pedro I ordering punishment for those who had attacked the Miranda de Ebro Aljama (1360); an agreement between the city council of Vitoria and the Jewish surgeon don David (1428); Christian women over ten years old being prohibited from entering into the Jewish quarter of Vitoria (1428, including the ordinances of that year. Some of them touching on the Jews); Jews being commanded to wear signs, not to work on Christian holidays, not to buy fowl on Sundays and holidays before noon, and to bow before Christ and the Holy Cross (1428); Jews giving the Judizmendi cemetery to the city council of Vitoria at the time of the expulsion (1492); a royal decree addressed to the judge of Vitoria by the king ordering the payment of 1,000 mrs to the city if there were Jewish assets for sale (1495).
- Archival history:
- The Pilar Arostegui Municipal Archive of Vitoria-Gasteiz gathers, organizes, describes, and preserves the documents produced by the city council of Vitoria-Gasteiz. In addition to its own documentary collection, the archive manages documentary fonds produced by other entities: Extinct municipalities of Ariñez (1695-1929), Foronda (1504-1975), Los Huetos (1703-1976) and Mendoza (1841-1975); Old Hospice of Vitoria (1777-1984); Municipal Court; Neighborhoods; Confraternities; Associations; and local individuals.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- In 1181, Sancho VI of Navarra granted a City Charter (“Fuero”) to the city of Gasteiz. The need to keep this document and many others that were produced by the city council were behind the creation of an archive. In the beginning, usually the documents were kept in the churches, since the meetings of the city councils were held there. In the case of Vitoria, the archive was kept in San Miguel Parish, the predecessor of the current church building. When its construction began, the documents were transferred to the Santa Maria del Cabello Hospital. After a fire, the oldest documents were taken into custody in the Cathedral of Santa Mari, and the most recent to the now-disappeared San Francisco Convent. The archive was kept in the new city hall from the end of the eighteenth century until 1972, when it was transferred to provisional premises on Calle General Alava. Since 1990, the archive has been located in the old “Cuarteles de Flandes”, which in 1988 was renovated and adapted for the archive.
- Access points: locations:
- Calahorra
- Castile
- Spain
- Vitoria-Gasteiz
- Subject terms:
- Aljama (Jewish)
- Antisemitism
- Antisemitism--Antisemitic legislation
- Antisemitism--Antisemitic measures
- Cemeteries
- Clothing
- Expulsion
- Financial matters
- Financial matters--Moneylending
- Health and medical matters
- Health and medical matters--Physicians and nurses
- Jewish badge (non-Holocaust era)
- Jewish quarters
- Jewish-Christian relations
- Plunder
- 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