The Business Records of an Early Genoese Notary, 1190-1192

Extract

Those of us today who associate the title of “notary public” only with the man or woman who affixes a seal to our income-tax declaration, after we have sworn to its accuracy and signed it, are surprised to learn what an important role the public notary played in the early days of business. For a view of that other notary let us turn back to Italy in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Then practically every kind of business contract, except buying and selling for cash, was drawn up by a public notary in the presence of witnesses, thus becoming a matter of public record. Partnership agreements, investments in business by non-partners, loans of goods and money, credit sales, banking operations, bills of exchange, leases for shops and houses, contracts of labor and apprenticeship— all were recorded in the register of an official notary. Each city collected the cartularies of its notaries at their death and preserved them carefully.