State of the Union: Perspectives on English Imperialism in the Late Middle Ages

Crooks, Peter

doi:10.1093/pastj/gtq054

Cited by 33 publications

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“…This is illustrated, for example, by the transnational bureaucracy developed by the English to rule over a conglomerate of distant territories. 4 Throughout late-medieval Europe, this process of bureaucratization led to a constant growth in the production of records for different administrative purposes (financial, judicial, diplomatic, military and so on), increasing the rulers' attention to the preservation of documents. In addition to the medieval treasury-archives -which preserved the most important charters, usually those attesting their rights -authorities established dedicated documentary repositories for the storage of all administrative records that were useful for government, developing at the same time new strategies for facilitating the organization and consultation of the records themselves.…”

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Archives of the Mediterranean: Governance and Record-Keeping in the Crown of Aragon in the Long Fifteenth Century

Silvestri

2016

European History Quarterly

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From the late medieval period the Crown of Aragon was at the forefront of archival innovation. Culminating in the establishment of the Royal Archive of Barcelona in 1318, this development was not, as is traditionally stated, a mere imitation of external models but the result of an innovative historical process that had its roots in local history and reflected the structure of the Aragonese monarchy. As a result of the later enlargement and decentralization of the Crown, and especially after the advent of the House of Trastámara in 1414, the Aragonese developed an extensive system for record-keeping across the Mediterranean. By focusing on what I describe as a complex archival network, this article analyses a series of administrative developments, which are generally studied in isolation, as interrelated responses to similar needs across disparate and far-flung territories. The results differed within the Iberian dominions (Aragon, Majorca and Valencia) and in the Italian kingdoms of Sicily and Naples, with Sardinia somewhere in between. For all these differences, however, the establishment of a number of financial archives shows that this network had an especially crucial role in defending the royal patrimony in all the territories under the rule of the Crown of Aragon. The authorities also tried to use archives as tools for exercising pressure upon local political elites, as demonstrated, for instance, by the systematic inquiry into feudal possessions and pecuniary rights instigated by King Ferdinand II in early sixteenthcentury Sicily. The outcome, however, was totally unexpected.

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confidence: 99%