Jacobo Facio Lince. The extreme ambition of a notary in the Medellin’s colonial Village

Abstract

Using a methodology that connects the classical prosopography and the institutional history, based on the description of processes (processes that take place over time, but also in the everyday life of documents), in an investigative work of major importance we describe in full the Notary of the colonial Cabildo of the Village of Medellín during the period 1675-1819. Here we attach importance to two aspects: forms and bureaucratic procedures that notaries (scribes) continued to get the appointment and possession of office, and consideration as men who live in a particular social context. Of this second aspect we focus here on the figure of numerary notary Jacobo Facio Lince, who served as the notary of the cabildo of Medellín from 1772-1798. Although extreme and flashy, Facio Lince is a model to socially categorize and describe the ways of life of other notaries (scribes) who worked in the city: family relationships and patronage, annexed activities independent of their administrative function, or the inclusion in political and economic networks.