Rural courts, notaries and credit in the county of Empúries, 1290–1348

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article studies the role performed by local jurisdictional courts in private credit relations in medieval Catalonia. These courts and their officers were subject to the control of local feudal lords. The courts acted as a guarantor of credit contracts agreed before them in the form of ‘court obligations’, and also carried out procedures related to the enforcement of outstanding debts: prorogations; seizures and auction of goods; and imprisonment. The study focuses on the plain of the Lower Ter, on the northeast Catalan coast. It concludes that although the jurisdictional framework provided by the courts involved a number of different great lords, including the king himself, the juridical mechanisms and collaboration between different courts functioned well enough to sustain a dynamic, complex and widespread credit system.