Andres Urrutia, Diego Granados, Iñaki Subijana, Bakartxo Tejeria, Jose Angel Martinez and Placido Barrios. /
The exhibition ‘The notarial document’, which is being held until Friday at the Miramar Palace, includes thirty records, wills and bills of exchange from the 12th century to the present
After the death of Captain General Loaísa on July 30, 1526, Juan Sebastián Elcano was appointed general of the expedition that, aboard the Santa María de la Victoria, intended to reach the Moluccas for the second time after circumnavigation. The sailor from Getaria, already very ill but clear-headed, made his will knowing that death was stalking him. It was Andrés de Urdaneta who signed that document that is on display today in one of the rooms of the Miramar Palace until next Friday. The exhibition ‘The notarial document: From the 12th century to Artificial Intelligence’ includes more than thirty historical archives, from the notarial acts of Christopher Columbus, to a complete copy of the minutes of the bombing of Gernika.
“It has always been said that authentic history must be sought in notaries,” argues Plácido Barrios, notary and coordinator of the exhibition. “Notaries have always been behind the citizens.” Some converted today into historical figures and others of whom that reflection of life and customs during more than eight centuries of history remains.
Among the documents on display, for example, are bills of exchange from the last century that exemplify the relevance that this financing method had for mass contracting or for access to housing in the 1960s. An instrument of medieval origin with the that it is guaranteed in writing that the debtor will pay his creditor and that it continued to be essential in mercantile life throughout the centuries. As were the popular notarial protests, by which it was attested that the payment of that letter had not been made.
The facsimile of the will of Juan Sebastián Elcano. /
The notary, witness of intimacy
It does not matter if it is a citizen or flashy characters, when someone goes to a notary’s office “their moments of intimacy are opened and the notary becomes that bridge to their private life,” adds Diego Granados, dean of the Notarial Association of the Basque Country. Thus, it is possible that documents of an intimate nature are preserved today, such as a marriage agreement dated June 3, 1487 in Zaragoza, in which Gracián de Soria states that he wants to marry Elvira de Eniego «but if Elvira were not a virgin, she would not it would be considered to take her for a wife. And even nuptial contracts in which the husband demands that his future wife reach the position of maiden before marriage.
The exhibition also includes a birth certificate from the end of the 15th century in which the widow from Zaragoza, Isabel de Caballería, requires the presence of a notary at the birth of her son, in order to avoid impersonation of the newborn. Uses of the time that, for the president of the TSJPV, Iñaki Subijana, today are brushstrokes of life “in a holistic vision of the past, the present and the future.”
in last wishes
Historical characters such as Isabella the Catholic are exposed through the written witnesses left by her scribes, in her case with the facsimile of her testament of October 1504, as well as that of the playwright Lope de Vega, that of the conqueror Hernán Cortés and the of Amerigo Vespucci. The solemnity of death is written in pen in other notarial acts such as that of the deposit of the body of Christopher Columbus in the Monastery of Santa María de las Cuevas, in Seville.
The exhibition is until Friday in one of the rooms of the Miramar Palace. /
Interestingly, death is recorded in very different ways. Pandemics occupied the old 19th century scribes when it came to certifying, among other matters, that the city of Malaga had been freed from the plague in February 1800, as well as the payments of the town hall’s cleaning expenses to fight against the illness. Likewise, a notarial certificate from 1833 stated that the quechemarín Nuestra Señora del Carmen, who had sailed from Seville in the direction of Galicia, “was without government and adrift after both her employer, as well as the sailors and passengers had died from the anger,” explains Barrios. “Like history to the novel, notarial reality often exceeds fiction.”
Francis Drake’s siege against the island of La Palma in 1585, the plans for Park Güell in Barcelona, signed by Antonio Gaudí in 1902, a power of attorney from Miguel de Cervantes to protect his copyright and proceed against those who want to print ‘Don Quixote ‘, or the apprenticeship contract signed by Velázquez in which he “undertakes to provide food, drink, a house, a bed, clean clothes and take care of any illnesses” his apprentice painter.
Gernika’s responsibilities
Andrés Urrutia, president of the Basque Law Academy and of Euskaltzaindia, highlights one document above all: The notarial act in French of the bombing of Gernika, on April 26, 1937, published in the newspaper ‘Euzko Deya’. “Many will wonder if there really was a notary taking notes during the bombings, but the reality is that, after the fact-finding commissions, they came to instrument the testimonies of those who had witnessed the events” and, in this way, show the reality of the bombing and ask for responsibilities.