Liber feudorum formae minoris

The Liber feudorum maior (or LFM, medieval Latin for "great book of fiefs"), originally called the Liber domini regis ("book of the lord king"), is a late twelfth-century illuminated cartulary of the Crown of Aragon. It was compiled by the royal archivist Ramon de Caldes with the help of Guillem de Bassa for Alfonso II, beginning in 1192. It contained 902 documents dating as far back as the tenth century. It is profusely illustrated in a Romanesque style, a rarity for utilitarian documents. The LFM is an indispensable source for the institutional history of the emerging Principality of Catalonia. It is preserved as a file in the Arxiu de la Corona d'Aragó (ACA), Cancelleria reial, Registres no. 1, in Barcelona.

Only 114 of the original 888 folios of the LFM remain, but only ninety-three of the original 902 documents have been completely lost, and thus a near-complete reconstruction of its contents remains possible. The prologue to the document, written by Ramon de Caldes, describes the work as being in duo volumina (two volumes), but its present division dates only from its re-binding in the nineteenth century. Whether the planned second volume was ever bound or even begun cannot be known. The original volumes sustained damage during the French Revolution and the French invasion of Spain, but their indices (one dating back to 1306) survived, as well as most of the parchment charters that were copied in the Liber. Its modern editor, Francisco Miquel Rosell, has reconstructed the order and rubrics of the documents. The folios were trimmed, however, eliminating any evidence of their earlier physical states.

Two smaller books of fiefs related to the LFM project are also preserved. The Liber feudorum Ceritaniae concentrates on Cerdany and Roussillon and may represent a failed initiative to create regional cartularies modelled on the LFM. The Liber feudorum formae minoris is a continuation of the LFM including documents from the early thirteenth century. Only two other secular cartularies survive from the same period: the Liber instrumentorum memorialium of the Lords of Montpellier and the Liber instrumentorum vicecomitalium of the Trencavels.

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