Cirat County, a town in the interior of Castellón that today has just over 200 inhabitants, was granted in 1626 for the favor of Don Bernardo de Vilarig y Carroz. The members of this family of the Valencian nobility had already held important positions for the monarchy. The float exercised, for example, as Bayles (mayorin Valencian), imparting the justice of the time in populations such as Navajas OO appointing officials in the old crown of Aragon. And since the beginning of the 17th century, they also occupied the real office of the general seer of the coast of the Kingdom of Valencia, which was responsible for the control of the towers of watchtower that monitored the territory in the face of the attacks and landings of Berber pirates of North Africa.
It was a family with a lot of history and its Alfonso Merchante and Martínez de Pisón, Count of Cir, donated his to the Provincial Archive of Castellón in 2013, seven years before death. But another branch related to the family sold part of its legacy to the family that, in turn, was acquired lawfully by individuals.
The documents, 30 manuscripts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, among others, With its participation for sale, a file loses much of its value together and is one of the most frequent problems that experts face.
The police attached to the Generalitat learned that a website offered those documents protected by the national and autonomic laws of assets, and proceeded to recover them. They were sold for 30 euros, 300 or 3,000 euros, according to police sources that insist that their value is mostly patrimonial. This Monday, they have been presented in the archive of the Kingdom of Valencia, where they have been deposited to be inventoried and undergo conservation measures to guarantee their integrity.
They are written in Valencian, Latin and Spanish. The Valencian was the predominant language in the legal and administrative texts until the 18th century throughout the ancient kingdom of Valencia, even in populations of Spanish predominance such as Orihuela, sources of the Kingdom Archive point out.
Among the manuscripts you can read the sentence by hanging a thief in Segorbe in 1583; The trial for attempted violation of two women in Cirat in 1622; the criminal accusation of a 1628 knife murder (in Valencian); The relationship of troops in the coastal defense of San Joan de Alicante or the list of people who served in the Vila-Joiosa or Xàbia towers.
Juan Carlos Valderrama, an emergency and interior advisor, explained that these documents are mostly related to the position of ‘general seer of the coastal defense of the Kingdom of Valencia’. In addition, there are also manuscripts related to judicial procedures of the Judicial Party of Segorbe and, to a lesser extent, with appointments of municipal positions in different locations in the province of Alicante.
Return to owners
Once the procedures were fulfilled, and given that the sale was legal and did not have any type of criminal illicit, they will be returned to their owners with the obligation to comply with the specific conservation measures that these assets require, protected by the State Law of Historical Heritage and the Autonomous Law of Cultural Heritage, points sources of the Ministry. In case of not being able to comply with these measures, the documents will be guarded by the Generalitat in the archive that is determined, complying with the regulatory law of the Valencian archival system.
These 30 documents were mostly intervened in the Valencian Community, although some were also located in Barcelona, Toledo and Cantabria, and the existence of two other documents is also known, which have not yet been located, because they were relieved.
The position of ‘general seer of the coastal defense of the Kingdom of Valencia’, with the rank of real officer, was exercised by the people who were in possession of the Count of Crat title. They are related to this activity 13 documents intervened to individuals and the five of the University of Valencia, which acquired them to conserve them. And they refer specific to the actions of the Royal Officer in Alicante, Sant Joan d’Alacant, Jávea, Villajoyosa, Calp, València, Oliva, Sagunto, Canet d’en Berenguer, Castellón de la Plana, Moncofa and Peñíscola.
Justice
The Count of Cirrat also had under its jurisdiction the delivery of justice under the figure of a position for this purpose, and precisely focused on this task, 12 manuscripts have been located, which are linked to Segorbe, Cirat, Navajas and Jérica. Finally, five minutes of positions of charges in the municipal corporations of Agge, Sella, Benimeli and Villafranqueza have been recovered, currently belonging to the city of Alicante.
The Generalitat Police have had the collaboration of the Provincial Archive of Castellón, as well as the Archive of the Kingdom of Valencia. The investigation has been directed by the Alicante Heritage Group, with the participation of members of the headquarters of Castellón and the Valencia Heritage Group, the Historical Heritage Brigade of the General Police Station of the Judicial Police of the National Police, the Advocacy of the Generalitat, the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage of the Department of Culture and the Chief of Archival Coordination of the Ministry of Culture.
