El becerro gótico de San Millán. Reconstrucción de un cartulario perdido

Abstract

The work of Plácido Romero, archivist of the monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla at the end of the eighteenth-century, records the existence of a long since lost cartulary known as the Becerro Gótico. From Romero’s notes we have been able to reconstruct the lost cartulary, the contents of which suggest an intial phase of composition around 1115, with further additions being made during the rest of the twelfth-century. Analysis of the structure that emerges from our reconstruction allows us to better understand the workings of the San Millán scriptorium, and more specifically, to trace how the successor cartulary, the Becerro Galicano, came to be created around 1195, rearranging the contents of the Gótico, but also introducing much material absent from the earlier volume. This is of special significance with regards to the origins of the notorious forgeries that abound in this documentation.