engleski

Transactions mortis causa in the documents of Thomasinus de Savere, notarius iuratus and scriba communis in Dubrovnik (Ragusa) 1277-1286

Thomasinus de Savere was the first educated lay notary in medieval Dubrovnik, performing the duties of notarius iuratus (a sworn-in notary for private matters) and of scriba communis (chancellor for the local affairs of the city government) 1277-1286. Coming from northern Italy and apparently having a thorough legal and notarial education, he brought into legal practice of Dubrovnik many developed legal concepts and institutes from ius commune and Roman law as taught at the universities of the time. Among those were also various transactions mortis causa, or transactions associated with the death of a person disponing of his or hers rights. This paper is the analysis of those transactions, in an attempt to highlight the role of the notarial profession and the method of a particular notary within a specific setting. First, a quantitative analysis of the sources is done, detailing the type of the documents and their comparison to other various documents and transactions. Then, the form of the testament in the documents is compared with the most important notaries’ formularies of the time (the various summae, formularia and artes notariae of the 13th century). Finally, the testaments in the documents are analysed substantively regarding their legal contents, and put into the context of ius commune and the applied Roman law of the time. This is hopefully a contribution to a more thorough understanding of the various ways and means of dissemination of the elements of ius commune and medieval Roman law on the Eastern Adriatic, specifically in the city of Dubrovnik in its late medieval period.

transactions mortis causa, testaments, notary, Middle Ages, Dubrovnik, Roman Law, ius commune

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