The preparation layer behind limpieza de sangre proofs

One-sentence claim

Inferopedia infers an informal preparation layer behind limpieza de sangre proofs because the official files required records, witnesses, genealogy, and fees that had to be assembled before an institution could approve or reject a candidate.

What is being inferred

Preparatory work: finding baptismal and parish records, choosing or contacting witnesses, arranging declarations, shaping genealogical statements, and coordinating the applicant's file. This may have been done by families, scribes, notaries, patrons, or paid helpers; the entry does not claim a formal profession.

What is attested

• Archival guidance says limpieza files were required for offices and admissions across several institutions.
• A conservation report describes repeated file components: petitions, baptismal records, interrogatories, witness answers, approvals, fees, and notifications.
• A public object record for Cervantes shows witness information produced to accredit purity of blood at family request.

What is missing

The pre-official work is usually behind the file: who selected the witnesses, gathered certificates, rehearsed the lineage, paid costs, or advised the applicant.

Why infer this entity

1. A multi-document file implies pre-submission collection.
2. Witness interrogation implies selection and availability of witnesses.
3. Four-branch ancestry questions imply prior genealogical reconstruction.
4. Fees and official acts imply coordination between household and institution.

Counterarguments

This may be too ordinary to count as a separate lacuna: applicants, relatives, and clerks could have done it case by case. The article therefore names a preparation layer rather than a guild or office. It also treats this as a late medieval-to-early modern seam, not a claim limited to the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries.

Confidence scores

The warrant is moderate-high because the official documentary workflow is visible. Specificity is restrained because the preparers are mostly inferred from the file's requirements.

What would change the score

• Raise: account books, correspondence, or notarial receipts naming people paid to prepare proofs.
• Raise: repeated names appearing as preparers across unrelated files.
• Lower: evidence that institutions themselves gathered almost all supporting material after a bare petition.
• Lower: evidence that the process varied so much that no recurring preparation layer existed.

Related lacunae

Adjacent candidates include witness-reputation networks, parish-record retrieval chains, and local memory markets around ancestry.