Welcome to the Municipal Archive of Toledo. We're so happy that we have the chance to visit with don Mariano, who's the director of the Municipal Archive as well as a Doctor in History. He's been investigating in his own archives for many years, but what's special today is we have the opportunity to visit with him about a couple elements of historical archives, as well as later on, we'll look at some of the research relating to Moriscos, or Muslim converts to Christianity during the 1500s. So, it's my great pleasure to introduce don Mariano. Good morning, everyone. And, I'm sorry to say that I can't communicate with all of you in English because it wasn't part of my education. Of course. For this position they required me to learn Latin. And they also required French, a modern language I previously chose. Well, they're more useful. So, I'm sorry I can't communicate with the students in that language, such a universal language. I think the interest one has in the moment of accessing the Municipal Archive's documents is very much related to a city like Toledo, a World Heritage Site, and with an exceptional documentary heritage. And it's something your students will be able to enjoy thanks to your professional activity. Great! The oldest documents that the city of Toledo has go back to the year 1136. The Christians took control of the city, until then it was under Muslim control, in the year 1085. A little before the Reconquest of the city, documents were already curated. We don't have, we don't curate, any documents from the Muslim period, nor from the Visigothic period, nor from the Roman period. They're all documents that were generated by the Christian authorities. Since the conquest. The oldest document from the city of Toledo is from the year 1086. That one is kept in the cathedral. Here, as we've said, 1136. Since that year, since 1136, there have been people, authorities, archivists, and have taken responsibility for curating that heritage. Solely, thanks to those people's work, one can come to understand that today this city has such an exceptional quantity and quality of documents. But, also, it's quite in line with other European cities. And it's very true that there are many cities in Europe that, because of the First World War or the Second World War, or other military conflicts in general, have suffered serious damage to their cultural heritage. Toledo, although it suffered a lot during the Spanish Civil War, conserves a very relevant and very important heritage. The measures for preserving that heritage in the Medieval centuries was conservation in wooden chests, large chests, trunks and generally curated by three different people. The curating responsibilities didn't fall on one person but rather it fell on three. The most normal practice was that those chests, those big strong boxes, were carried from one place to another, because there wasn't a permanent place where the city hall had its headquarters. Until the council houses in the city hall as a local institution had a permanent place, and that happened in Toledo in the 15th century, the documents didn't begin to be curated in that permanent place. In Spain, it was a matter of habit in the Middle Ages, to curate the documents in churches, in some of the authorities' houses, but only in the 15th and 16th centuries, it depends on which city, they began to be curated in the city halls. When the chest was full, they built another chest, and when that chest wasn't sufficient, they built another chest, but upon having a permanent place it wasn't necessary to curate the documents in chests anymore, because there was no reason to move them anymore. And, so, it was when they came up with the idea of building cabinets. This cabinet we see here, which is a very exceptional cabinet, is the second one the city had, that I know of. There was another one, around 1520, that was smaller. And, they had a certain criteria for organizing the documents that's very interesting. Because, they would be organized by subject, according to the words that identified the document. There were documents that began with "A", with "B", with "C", with "D", in other words, in alphabetical order. The ones related to "carne" ("meat") were under "C." The ones related to "Altezas Reales" ("Royal Highnesses") were under "A." There's already an order to Toledan documents from the 16th century. Those organizational criteria are truly remarkable. But, the most interesting thing is that in 1570 this piece of furniture was built, it's a piece of furniture that was previously in the council houses and we brought it here to the new headquarters for the Municipal Archive. It was a piece of furniture equipped with six locks, and so there were six people who had to meet up in order to be able to open it. The city hall had orders, a kind of regiment, in which it was established who had to have the keys which changed each year, and if someone was absent they would have to be substituted. This piece of furniture was built in 1570, and, it held documentation until 1980, 20 or 30 years ago, the previous archivist decided to take out the documents that were inside. Let's open it. Once the six people gathered together, each one used their own key, which were all different, and it was opened. Today we're going to open it this way because the keys don't work. We didn't want to restore them. It's protected with sheet metal. This piece of furniture was usually opened twice or three times a year, no more. And, when it was opened, it was because the city hall had agreed to let it be opened. In other words, there was a rigorous procedure to follow at the time of being able to open it. And then, furthermore, one had to pay for opening the chest, if it was an individual that requested it. Because, in this time period, in the 16th or 17th centuries, only 8 or 10% of the population knew how to read or write, and, of that percentage, a fraction of them could read old writings, written with a kind of complex lettering, and many of them in Latin. So, access was mostly limited to scribes who knew how to read old script. Those scribes would come, authorized by the city hall, and, those who ordered that task, this or that individual that wanted to see some document. Therefore, there was a catalogue, a thick book, in which the documents that were in the drawers were annotated, one by one they were described. In this way access began with the book, they looked for the document they wanted in the book, and so they came and opened it. Upon opening it up, here, for example, was drawer 8, they're numbered, they're drawers of different sizes, there are five in the first row, here there are four, and here there are six. Drawer 8 had court and summons documents. What does this mean? Toledo was a city with a vote at court. Representatives from the city of Toledo participated in the Courts of Castile. The number of participating cities continued to go down. There were only 18 or 21 cities with voting rights in the 16th, 17th centuries. One of them was Toledo. And, the documents that the Toledans received, to go to court, and the ones that they received at court to return to Toledo, were kept in this drawer. Separated, tied up or in bundles. Here, most of them were folded. Upwards of 1,980 have been preserved. But, so that the documents weren't stolen, there was this extendable tray... the scribe would sit down and copy. If they had to take the document away from here, it was annotated in a book, which is the book that was called the "checkout book." Those books began to be used in Spain at the beginning of the 16th century because of the Catholic Monarchs (Ferdinand and Isabella). Which means that the supervision of documents that were borrowed has been done for centuries in Spain. This explains why it's been possible to preserve such an exceptional heritage, because there has always been control. When the scribe finished, They closed it. They would lock it up with the six keys... and they would leave. The most formal, the most important documents were in here. And, on the exterior of this furnishing there were wooden shelves, where all the less important documents were. Access to those ones was not as complicated, not as rigorous. But, in here, that access was established. What has this entailed? Well, the documents that were in here were the best preserved ones, and the city of Toledo curates more than 80 documents with lead seals. It's the Spanish city that has the most documents of that kind, and, it has them precisely because of this special piece of furniture and its rigorous system for controlling access. The city always esteemed its documentary heritage.
