ABSTRACT
This chapter explains about making records of judicial disputes, throughout ninth- and tenth-century northern Iberia, excluding Cataluña; Cataluña is excluded because of its different socio-political contexts and strong Frankish background. Records of disputes that were handled in judicial assemblies survive in many forms, as is clear from the ‘Processos Judiciales en los reinos del norte peninsular’ database, and have different kinds of content. Dispute records are much less formulaic than gift and sale charters, but there are nevertheless recurrent formulas in most categories. Some records include lengthy, detailed free-flow narrative of events leading up to judicial proceedings, then detail of the hearings themselves and then the outcome. The difference between close-to-court and post-court construction has a bearing on the veracity of the record. Deliberate falsification is a different matter and is much more difficult to spot in dispute records of pre-1000. Most of the content of early medieval Iberian dispute records is beyond proof of any kind.
