The Social Context of the Charter: Times and Places of Documentation in Early Medieval Iberia (711–1031)

When and where was a charter written? Whether the scribe prepared it before, during, or after a transaction, on the spot or elsewhere, conditions its standing as historical evidence. They are basic questions for understanding how the written record relates to the communities whose actions it reveals. This article seeks answers in the corpus from the kingdoms of Asturias-León and Navarra down to 1031. Attention to the writing and content of the documents points to a variety of scenarios, the most common being: for the scribe to attend the transaction with a prepared template to be integrated into the execution of the transaction, or for the scribe to take notes at the transaction on the essential details to form the basis for later drafting its record. Both scenarios presume the real presence of the scribe as well as the reading aloud of the final text to participants, which together functioned as controls on the written word to ensure its integration into society.