ОДРЕДБЕ СПЛИТСКОГ СТАТУТА О ЗАШТИТИ АРХИВСКЕ ГРАЂЕ И НЕКА РАЗМИШЉАЊА О ВАЖНОСТИ АРХИВСКОГ ИСТРАЖИВАЊА ЗА ПРАВНОПОВИЈЕСНУ ЗНАНОСТ
PROVISIONS OF THE STATUTE OF SPLIT ON PROTECTION OF ARCHIVAL RECORDS

Summary/Abstract: The author considers the issue of introduction of the office of notary public in Dalmatian towns and that of the role of that office in the sphere of creation of not only private law documents but also of public law ones. Namely, some notaries as particular town clerks have made judicial records, kept files regarding communal affairs, books of various kinds etc. This is how, due to their work, as well as to the ativity of communal authorities, in the town of Split too a fund of documents has been created. These records had to be housed somewhere, classified, protected and made available to the public according to regulations. It seems probable that already in course of thirteenth century something has been done in that respect in Split. The earliest data thereof which can be relied upon we have, however, only in the communal Statute of 1312. The author supplies the translation from Latin origin of these provisions. By means of these provisions a strict protection régime has been introducted regarding the archivals, which included the use of various keys for opening the premises with archival records, processing of the inventory of material, conditions for using them, as well as the role of the highest executive agencies of the commune related to that. Owing to these very provisions, the archives of the medieval Split commune has been preserved to quite a degree until today. In the second part of the article the author points at the need for the science of the history of law to use more than formerly the archival materials (namely, to have insight into the contents of documents of notary publics, of contracts, verdicts, etc.), which only expresses the day-to-day life and activity of our medieval communes. There exists, namely, a habit to be satisfied only with the general norms contained in the statutory provisions and statutes in general, in order to make conclusions concerning social relations which, more often than not, do not correspond to that what has been formally prescribed.

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