Was the learned feudal law taught in Castile and Leon in the 13th and 14th centuries? Notes on the manuscripts of the Libri Feudorum from the Spanish collections

Abstract

Libri (Consuetudines) Feudorum (Books (Customs) of Fees) is a compilation of Lombard feudal customs, which was formed (mainly at the University of Bologna) in the process of ius commune reception from the 12^th to the middle of the 13^th century. The text was incorporated into the fifth “volume” of the medieval Corpus Iuris Civilis. The article is devoted to the LF history in the Kingdom of Castile and Leon in the initial period of ius commune reception on the Iberian Peninsula (from the 13^th to the 14^th cen.). In the process of studying manuscript sources from Spanish collections (the National Library (Madrid), the Royal Library of the Monastery of St. Lawrence in Escorial, the Library of the chapter of the Cathedral of Toledo), most of them revealed characteristic marks indicating the use of manuscripts in the teaching of civil (property) law. However, despite the known facts of the similar use of codes containing the “Book of Feuds” in the Bologna and in a number of other medieval universities, there is no evidence of such practice at the universities of Castile and Leon: characteristic manuscripts are contained only in Italian manuscripts that appeared in Spain later than the 14^th century; the only manuscript of LF undoubtedly made in Castile (from the collection of the Capitular Library of Toledo) has no marginalia of the “university” type.