Title

Cortes in Valladolid held by King Pedro

Anonimous

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Object history

In 1351 the Cortes of Castile were held in Valladolid. These were convened by Pedro I (1334-1369), who was the son of Alfonso XI of Castile and Maria of Portugal. During the sessions, many issues were discussed, such as measures to protect trade with Flanders, wages and price control. Being under a system of estates, the assemblies had to be attended by the nobility, the clergy and the common people, which led to the creation of different volumes. This manuscript corresponds to one of them.

When a small compendium of these sessions was made in 1842, it was pointed out that three manuscripts had been consulted: the first belonged to the Count of Campomanes and had illuminated and gilded initials. In addition, "it has a golden cross at the top of each leaf, similar to the one used by the military orders of Alcántara and Calatrava". Regarding the second, it is a copy that P. Burriel took from the archive of the Toledo City Hall (drawer 8, leg. 1. n.º 6) and which he describes as "an original notebook written on thirty-three and a half sheets of thick paper [...]. The handwriting is square, notaresque and very well cut". Finally, the third of these is in the archive of Navarrete (La Rioja) and was written "on paper with characters of the 14th century, very appreciable for its correctness, but already very old and spoiled and with some words erased on the first leaves".

However, the manuscript preserved in the Bibliothèque de l'Ecole nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts (Paris) does not correspond to any of these descriptions: it has no illuminations or gilded letters, nor does it have thirty-three folios or erased letters on the first leaves. Thus, it is another volume produced during the Cortes of 1351 that would also form part of a single body of legislation along with the previous ones.

The French collector Jean Masson must have acquired the manuscript at the beginning of the 20th century, since in those years he treasured a large collection of rare books, manuscripts and incunabula. Although he sold part of his collection in 1920, this file remained in his possession until 1925, when he made an important donation to the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts (Paris), among which was this volume.

Description

This manuscript dated 1351 has twenty folios. Pedro I convened, under the influence of Juan Alfonso de Alburquerque, Cortes in Valladolid. They dealt with a subject of great interest to the nobility: the places of behetría, which increasingly resembled lordships and which the great lords claimed to distribute. Among the most important decisions of the assembly were the regulation of prices and salaries, as well as measures to contain the power of the municipalities, and the ratification of the elimination of the brotherhoods.

Locations

• ca. 1351

  municipality

  Valladolid, Valladolid (Spain)

• 1925

  private collection

  Jean Masson, Amiens (France) *

• 1925 - present

  study center

  École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris (France)