0 an official who has the legal authority to say that documents are correctly signed or true or to make an oath (= promise) official: --
You can only become a doctor, a dispensing chemist, an architect, a structural engineer, an attorney, or a notary public after formal admission, which is preceded by formal training.
Already in the eleventh century, public notaries were active in this field, mainly operating in the cities but also extending their activities to the countryside.
The author may well have been a notary.
Often, the deals they struck, like other legal contracts, were witnessed by notaries and recorded for posterity in the beautiful hand of notarial scribes.
Also, it would be dominant in sectors headed by organisations (ministries) in which mainly people with a legal degree work (lawyers, notaries).
On the other hand, both employment contracts and purchases on credit were formally stipulated before a notary at the beginning of the sixteenth century.
Often, notaries were even explicitly prohibited from engaging in the registration of land transfers.
The inventory listed very few material possessions that, according to the notary ' did not exist anymore since his sister had already taken care of them'.
