The Public Notaries of Merano in the Second Half of the Fifteenth Century. About the Research Project Political Societies in Medieval Alps: Mountain Towns and Surrounding Localities (Fostering Joint International Research)

Abstract

The research project aims at analysing the complexity of the late medieval dynamics of coexistence, complementarity and reciprocal contamination of the two Germanic and Romance legal and documentary cultures, within the alpine area of the present South Tyrol. Particular attention is paid to the use of notarial documents in the town of Merano, the former capital of the Tyrol county, in the second half of the fifteenth century, a phenomenon of urban literacy that until now has remained little investigated. It is the local notary Leonhard Vent whose rich production of deeds and acts offers new insights into the modes of legal transaction between Bavarian customers and the inneralpine regions especially regarding the selling and acquiring of porks whose meat was one of the staple foods of the local population in pre-modern times.