NOTARIES
. Notaries existed in medieval France primarily in the south in the high and late Middle
Ages, as a result of the written law tradition inherited from the Romans. Au thorized by a
variety of political authorities—royal, municipal, episcopal, papal—notaries operated as
registrars of public and private law transactions given legal validity by their office.
Notaries recorded minutes or drafts of instruments in registers, some of which have
survived by the dozens, even hundreds, in such towns as Perpignan, Manosque,
Marseille, Toulouse, and Montpellier for the late Middle Ages; other towns, like
Narbonne, are not favored with the survival of notarial registers from the medieval era.
When called upon, the notary would draw up an extended form of a transaction, filling
out formulaic abbreviations, which abounded in the minutes of the registers.
Notaries, strategically positioned on busy squares and streets, attracted as clientele a
cross-section of the urban population, who sought written records of last wills and
testaments, sales and rentals, emancipation, acquittal, apprenticeship, litigation, and other
business and legal engagements. Age and residency requirements protected access to the
profession. Paralegal instruction or apprenticeship in the notariate was governed by
statute in such towns as Marseille and Tarascon. Thoroughly professional and essential to
the process of business and law, notaries gar-nered a certain social standing in medieval
southern France.
Kathryn L.Reyerson
[See also: LAW AND JUSTICE; LEGAL TREATISES; TABELLIONS]
Giraud Amalric. Business Contracts of Medieval Provence: Selected Notulae from the Cartulary of
Giraud Amalric of Marseilles, 1248, ed. and trans. John H.Pryor. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of
Mediaeval Studies, 1981.
Aubenas, Roger. Étude sur le notariat provençal au moyen âge et sous l’ancien régime. Aix-en-
Provence: Aux Éditions du Feu, 1931.
Emery, Richard W. The Jews of Perpignan in the Thirteenth Century: An Economic Study Based on
Notarial Records. New York: Columbia University Press, 1959.
Gouron, André. “Les archives notariales des anciens pays de droit écrit au moyen âge.” In Recueil
de mémoires et travaux publié par la société de l’histoire du droit écrit et des institutions des
anciens pays de droit écrit. Montpellier: Faculté du Droit et des Sciences Économiques, 1966,
Fasc. 5, pp. 47–60.
NOTRE-DAME SCHOOL
. When Maurice de Sully became bishop of Paris in 1160, he launched the construction of
the cathedral of Notre-Dame, which was largely completed by 1250. An abundance of
polyphonic music for the Masses and Offices of major feasts of the liturgical year was
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