Guardians of Municipal Property and Social Memory: Zadar's Procurators and Late Medieval Documentary Practices

Abstract

Based on newly discovered Capitulare procuratorum communis Iadre from 1373, together with other documents arising from contemporary practice, this article examines the institutional role and functional scope of Zadar’s procurators as one of the key magistracies in late medieval Zadar. By analyzing the provisions of the capitulary in conjunction with relevant notarial, judicial, and other administrative records, the study investigates the procedures for their election, their jurisdiction over the communal treasury, property, and revenues, as well as their responsibilities in the preserving communal documentation. The procurators thus emerge as multifunctional municipal officials, drawn from the urban patriciate, who primarily served as administrators of communal property, supervisors of income and expenditures, custodians of the municipal treasury and archives, legal representatives in various proceedings, and overseers of property belonging to minors and other legally incapacitated individuals. Their activities were strictly regulated and structured – encompassing the procedures for election, the length of their term of office, the requirement for daily presence in the treasury, the maintenance of detailed records, and the obligation to submit regular reports. Particularly noteworthy was their role in the systems of archival and fiscal control, as well as in safeguarding communal memory through the storage of charters, wills, and inventories in the municipal treasury. These practices attest to the existence of well-developed norms of documentary culture in late medieval Zadar.