Constructing Legitimacy and Using Authority. The Production of Cartularies in Braga during the 12 th Century 1 MARIA JOÃO BRANCO Incipit cronica eorum que, pro magna parte, spectant vel spectare debent ad ecclesiam bracha- rensem et eius diocesim, sive provinciam, et vocatur liber fidei, id est: cui fides debet adhiberi, vocatur etiam: liber testamentorum 2 Such are the opening words of the «Liber Fidei», one of the most famous car- tularies preserved in the archive of the archdiocese of Braga, if not the most famous one. It is, undoubtedly, the oldest one from that cathedral’s scriptorium, but its significance does not derive from its age alone, but rather from its con- tents and dimension, unparalleled by any of the subsequent cartularies written in that same intellectual environment. This makes it an invaluable source of information, allowing us insights into worlds normally obscured from the eyes of historians. The words in the incipit of what is commonly known as the «Liber Fidei» introduce us directly to the question of the motivation and stimulus for the production of such an instrument, i. e., to the basis of the need to create a cartulary, in the privileged form of a liber, where written proof of all important things would be noted down in authoritative form. They would hence serve as ‘unquestionable testimony’– one which could fides adhiberi – to Braga’s posses- sions, rights and interests within the boundaries of its province. This was to be done, of course, by copying ‘faithfully’ all the relevant documents, the testa- menti, into one single piece of evidence, a book, which would, in itself, certify, or, in a word, give faith to, the acts related and the correlated facts it con- tained, organized in a specific order, according to the purpose it served. It is widely known that the production of cartularies – an instrument still lacking a definition which can characterise it properly 3 – is almost always de- 1 I would like to thank André O. Marques, Hugh Denman and Peter Linehan for their suggestions, information and comments to my text, as well as the badly needed correc- tions to my English. All the mistakes are my responsibility, of course. 2 Liber Fidei Sanctae Bracarensis Ecclesiae, vols. I–III, ed. Avelino de Jesus da COSTA, Braga 1965–1990, vol. I, p. 3. 3 The definition of ‘cartulary’ adopted in 1994 by the Vocabulaire International de Dip- lomatique (cura Maria Milagros CÁRCEL ORTI), Valencia 1994, pp. 35–36 is a good