The Structure And Content Of The Notarial Deeds Of Lamberto Di Sambuceto And Giovanni Da Rocha, 1296–1310

Abstract

There are five volumes of Genoese notarial deeds concerning Cyprus to-date, containing well over one thousand five hundred documents for the period 1296 to 1310. These documents yield valuable information on the commercial activity that characterized Cyprus in these years and on the social, religious, judicial, and economic features of the Lusignan regime. The main contents of the notarial deeds merit a more detailed analysis in the context of both the short- to medium-distance local trade and the long distance international trade, and in particular the carrying trade, which were both features of the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and even beyond. The diverse national origins of the merchants trading in Cyprus are fully brought out by an examination of the deeds of Sambuceto and Rocha, and these deeds yield important information on them in another respect, their residential and legal status. Keywords: Black Sea region; Cyprus; Genoese notarial deeds; Lusignan regime; Mediterranean region; merchants trading; Rocha; Sambuceto