The Historical Archive of Official Records of Barcelona (AHPB) is the section of the Notarial Association of Catalonia in charge of the management and preservation of the registers, official records and the rest of related documentation, over one-hundred-year-old, of the notarial district of the Catalan Capital, in accordance with the sectorial regulation in force (Decree of 2 March 1945).
Integrated in the System of Archives of Catalonia, it is the first archive in Spain among the notarial archives, as well for its antiqueness as for the continuity and transcendence of its collections, at the same time that it becomes one of the main centres of research and study of the country.
Like the rest of the archives of official records, its formation is very later than the birth of the notarial institution, in the XIIIth century. In fact, apart from the two failed tries to form an archive of official records in 1598 and in 1816, it has to be waited until the Organic Law of the Notaries of 1862, that regulated the whole of the institution and namely the Decree of 1869, the first explicit regulation that concerned this collection. Since then, the ancient official records were collected from different institutions, but above all from the houses of the notaries because they had huge amounts of them.
The Archive had several temporary locations until, early the 80’s of the XIXth century, it was installed at the ground floor of the Association, a deposit that was enlarged on 1928 with the adjoining house of the street Notariado. However, if was after the Civil War of 1936-1939 that the definitive boost was given to the Archive, upon the initiative of the different managing boards and, above all, the notary, Raimon Noguera, who physically saved it, conducted the drawing up of the inventory, he opened it to the research and strengthened the studies on its collections. And during the decade of the 90’s of the XXth century, it was endowed with modern facilities with the due measures of preservation and safety.
