Transformations to Iberian medieval justice in the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries

Abstract

The concept of justice came to be transformed in the medieval era in the Latin West, particularly between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, due to ongoing shifts in the political and institutional fields. Monarchies became institutionalized due to the influence of debates proposed by the University of Bologna generating the construction of a legal culture systematizing the concepts and criteria for the exercise of justice without abandoning the relationship between these theories and the social context to which it was destined. Municipal representatives came to play an increasingly important role in events such as the rise of the Joanine Dynasty in Portugal (1383-5) and their aspirations and worldview would be sought out as one of the currencies of exchange for the granting of support, reflected in the legislation and in the legal collections developed by descendants of John I of Avis, such as the Alfonsine Ordinations. This constituted a space in which private rights overlapped with the Common Law emanating from the royal court and which crystallized a tendency towards Portuguese legal singularity promoting the hierarchization of the sources of law available in Latin. This work is developed from historical criticism applied to documentary content, Las Siete Partidas del muy noble Rey Don Alfonso el Sabio, Livro das Leis e Posturas, and the Ordenações Afonsinas.