Nobles, Peripheral Agents of the Crown, and Local Authorities: Discursive Disharmonies and Factual Articulations (Portugal, Late Fourteenth Century)

Abstract

In this article we examine five chapters of the nobility, out of a total of thirty-five presented in the parliament of Coimbra in 1398, dealing exclusively with the grievances of the noblemen regarding the attacks committed against the usufruct of their jurisdictional rights - in the area of exercise of justice - as well as their participation in the municipal organs. Establishing a confrontation between the articulation of norms that had been promulgated at the time (Regimento dos Corregedores of 1332, 1338 and 1340, Ordenação dos Pelouros and Ordenação dos juízes de fora), with the episodes mentioned in these chapters, we present a hypothesis of temporal and causal relationship between the various documents, and the consequent reconstitution of facts referred to in them.