Table Of ContentDEAD VOICE
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THEMIDDLEAGESSERIES
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DE A D VOIC E
LAW, PHILOSOPHY, AND FICTION
IN THE IBERIAN MIDDLE AGES
Jesús R. Velasco
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Celivreestde´die´ a` Aure´lieVialetteeta` MiguelVelascoVialette
Notallthingsareblest,butthe
seedsofallthingsareblest.
Theblessingisintheseed.
Thismoment,thisseed,thiswaveofthesea,
Thislook,thisinstantoflove.
—MurielRukeyser
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Introduction
One.DeadVoice
Two.VernacularJurisdiction
Three.RevenantManuscripts
Four.LegislatingFriendship
Five.SensitiveSouls
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
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This book is an investigation into the methods, decisions, and theoretical
perspectives that underpin the creation and writing of an all-encompassing
legal code, the Siete Partidas (Seven Parts), although it is not an exhaustive
study of that code.1 It is, rather, an examination of some of the code’s tech-
nologies and techniques of codification. In that sense, it opens up a larger
conversation with the theories and techniques of legal codification in other
languagesandculturesduringtheMiddleAgesandbeyond.Ultimately,this
bookisastudyofthequestionofwhat itmeanttocodifylawintheMiddle
Agesandwhatproblemsthisquestiongavebirthto,alongwiththetechnical
strategiesthatlawgiversandlawscholarsofferedtoresolvethoseissues.
These techniques and theories of codification fall under the notion that
gives the title to this book, dead voice. As we will see in more depth in
Chapter , “dead voice” is an expression used by many theologians and law-
yers during the long Middle Ages and was introduced by Alfonso himself
intothetextoftheThirdPartida,Prologue.2Theexpression(voxmortua,
inLatin)mayrefertomanydifferentaspectsoflegalwriting,anditisalways
set in opposition to some sort of oral witnessing, or living voice—a kind of
oralwitnessingthatseemstohaveappearedduringthefirstorsecondcentury
of the Common Era.3 Procedural lawyers and law scholars used vox mortua
torefertowritteninstruments,andAlfonsoenhanceditinawaythatI find
particularly productive. As I will argue in this book, this enhanced concept
of dead voice as a means of regulating legal writing at both the normative
and the documentary levels will give us access to larger issues in the process
oflegalcodification.Forinstance,thislegalcodificationproductivelyutilizes
fictional devices, establishes legal temporalities, gives birth to a specific form
of legal subject, and includes a legal rationality based on philosophical cor-
pora. Dead voice is the gravitational center and the general name I give to
someofthosetechniquesandtheoriesofcodification.
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Introduction
One could think of the Siete Partidas as a constitutional code that was
intended to present a theory of power and the rules according to which all
other rules must arise. Alfonso inscribed this theory of power in and as the
legal system itself, so that legislation, codification, and power theory cannot
beseparatedfromoneanother.Thecodealsoincludesafullsetoflawsofall
the branches of ecclesiastic and secular legislations, both public and private.
In that sense, it is a code that mainly contains canon, administrative, proce-
dural, civil, and penal law and legislates across these legal divides. As part of
its legislative impulse, it also regulates its own legal science—its philosophy
and theory of law. Again, these theoretical elements are part of both the
legal text and the act of codification. Such complex codification required an
innovativearchitecture.4
The main characteristic of such architecture was a technical tour de
force—that is, in its use of the vernacular. The Siete Partidas appeared in a
world in which vernacular legal writing was chiefly reserved for local regula-
tions, whereas legal science and codification normally ran in transpolitical
(that is, crossing different polities), arguably universal, languages (Latin,
Hebrew,andArabic).5Thelegislatordecidedtocodethelawinavernacular
whose legal vocabulary and systems of expression were technically limited.
Only certain kinds of legal objects had been previously articulated by this
vernacular legal language, including private acts taking place in relatively
Latinatevernacularexpressions.AcrosstheIberianPeninsula,somefueros,or
local regulations, as well as charters regarding the foundation or population
ofatown orcity(cartaspueblas),customary lawinCastileandAragon,legal
responses, or even the proceedings of cortes (the itinerant meetings between
thekingortheregentandtheotherordersofsociety)wereindeedpublished
inthevernacularfromthelatetwelfthcenturyonward.Likewise,theimpor-
tant compilation of Visigothic law known as the Liber Iudiciorum, or Lex
Visigothorum, was translated during the first third of the thirteenth century
undertheruleofFerdinandIII(r.–)astheFueroJuzgo.Thevernac-
ularroyalchancerystartedduringthekingdomofAlfonsoVIII(r.–),
tobloomonlyduringthekingdomofAlfonsoX(r.–).6
Despite its vernacular articulation and unlike the local examples given
above,andalsocontrarytotheideathatsomescholarsofRomanlaw,includ-
ingManlioBellomo,haveentertained,theSietePartidaswasnotintendedto
beadocumentoflocallegalsignificancebutratheronethatwouldinaugurate
a new kind of universalization—and therefore a new thesis on transpolitical
empire.7 The Siete Partidas, indeed, were born in the juncture of three
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