Arxiu de la Corona d'Aragó

The Arxiu de la Corona d'Aragó sits in Barcelona and ranks among the oldest archives in Europe. Its shelves carry more than seven centuries of material: royal charters, records of government and justice, and the private letters of monarchs. The same files name the musicians, poets, and entertainers who once served the medieval courts.

The collecting habit goes back to the first Counts of Barcelona and Kings of Aragon. The earliest mention of a king's archive dates to 1180. By 1194 Alfonso II had commissioned the gathering of legally valid documents for the Crown. The result, the Liber feudorum maior, assembled more than a thousand documents, some from the ninth century. A first true depot appears in 1255, at the monastery of Santa Maria de Sixena. Under James I paper spread, production rose, and the royal chancery began keeping systematic records. James the Just gave the archive its lasting form in 1318 as one repository for every Crown territory. For centuries the holdings occupied the Palau del Lloctinent, built between 1549 and 1557 as an extension of the Royal Palace. In 1994 most of it moved, together with the research work, to a modern building on Almogàvers street. The palace itself still serves exhibitions, courses, and protocol events.

Guided tours carry you through the public rooms and the work areas, and a classroom serves educational groups. The justice letters form a series running from 1291 into the mid-nineteenth century. The sigilli secreti, the monarchs' private letters, end with the Habsburg dynasty. Staff have always guarded the collection, and the fires and careless relocations that hit other archives never reached these shelves. Researchers from across Europe and the Mediterranean use its reading rooms. Since 2007 a board of trustees has overseen the work, with seats for Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia, and the Balearic Islands.