The subject of this study is the judicial oath as a legal, ritual, and communicative phenomenon within the system of proof of twelfth- and thirteenth-century Catalan customary law. The article analyzes its procedural status and evolution in the context of the transition from a predominantly oral legal culture to a written one. The research is based on a comparison of two key legal corpora—the Customs of Barcelona and the Customs of Tortosa—and makes it possible to trace changes in the law of evidence in medieval Catalonia. Particular attention is paid to the terminological differentiation of the concepts sacramentum, iuramentum, fer sagrament, and jurar, which reflect the distinction between the sacred essence of the oath and the process of its performance, as well as to their transformations in the legal language of the sources. The scope of the study also includes confessional differences in the procedures of oath-taking by Christians, Jews, and Muslims.The author analyzes the provisions of the Customs of Barcelona and the Customs of Tortosa, comparing formulations, terminology, and procedural contexts of references to the judicial oath in order to identify its functions and transformations in Catalan customary law. Normative descriptions of the judicial oath are also examined, making it possible to trace the evolution of conceptions of the oath as an instrument of proof in the legal culture of medieval Catalonia. The article presents a comprehensive analysis of the judicial oath in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Catalan customary law as a dynamic legal institution examined simultaneously in normative, procedural, linguistic, and confessional dimensions. For the first time in Russian medieval studies, a systematic comparison of the Customs of Barcelona and the Customs of Tortosa is carried out from the perspective of the evidentiary status of the oath and its evolution in the context of the reception of Roman law and the rationalization of judicial practice. It is shown that in the Customs of Barcelona the oath retained a close connection with archaic modes of establishing truth (ordeals, judicial combat, and good repute), whereas in the Customs of Tortosa it functioned as a procedural element embedded in a system of witness testimony and written record of proceedings. Therefore, the judicial oath is interpreted as an indicator of the transitional state of Catalan law from an oral-ritual model of proof to a text-oriented legal culture.
Anna Dmitrievna Korneeva (Sun,) studied this question.