In William Prescott's 'The Conquest of Peru' he mentions that Francisco de Carvajal, most famous for his military campaign in Peru, got the money to come to the New World from his participation in the sacking of Rome.
To whit:
The date of his birth carries us back towards the middle of the fifteenth century, before the times of Ferdinand and Isabella. He was of obscure parentage, and born, as it is said, at Arevalo. For forty years he served in the Italian wars, under the most illustrious captains of the day, Gonsalvo de Córdova,Navarro, and the Colonnas. He was an ensign at the battle of Ravenna; witnessed the capture of Francis the First at Pavia; and followed the banner of the ill-starred Bourbon at the sack of Rome. He got no gold for his share of the booty, on this occasion, but simply the papers of a notary’s office, which, Carbajal shrewdly thought, would be worth gold to him. And so it proved; for the notary was fain to redeem them at a price which enabled the adventurer to cross the seas to Mexico, and seek his fortune in the New World. On the insurrection of the Peruvians, he was sent to the support of Francis Pizarro, and was rewarded by that chief with a grant of land in Cuzco. Here he remained for several years, busily employed in increasing his substance; for the love of lucre was a ruling passion in his bosom. On the arrival of Vaca de Castro, we find him doing good service under the royal banner; and at the breaking out of the great rebellion under Gonzalo Pizarro, he converted his property into gold, and prepared to return to Castile. He seemed to have a presentiment that to remain where he was would be fatal. But,although he made every effort to leave Peru, he was unsuccessful, for the viceroy had laid an embargo on the shipping. He remained in the country, therefore, and took service, as we have seen, though reluctantly, under Pizarro. It was his destiny.
What I'm interested in knowing is why those documents would be so valuable. Could they have been promissory notes for debts? And is there more information about this story? I've been having trouble tracking down the exact provenance of the anecdote.
Thanks!
He got no gold for his share of the booty, on this occasion, but simply the papers of a notary’s office, which, Carbajal shrewdly thought, would be worth gold to him. And so it proved; for the notary was fain to redeem them at a price which enabled the adventurer to cross the seas to Mexico
This is the key to the matter, and it sounds more modern than it should: it's about ransom. Think of it as the many cases of ransomware we see today: someone is taking hold of information that is valuable to a certain person or corporation, and will give it back in exchange for the payment of a ransom.
Why a notary, then? Notaries are, and were, recordkeepers, people who had studied Law, and who were entrusted with the public faith. The records that notaries kept are public documents of legal validity, and the notary is the person who has the duty to verify that they are in accordance with the law, and also the duty to preserve and maintain those records. If a notary loses his documents, he will be held liable for that, as those records are not only his, but also pertain to the public administration. It is in his best interest, and the state's best interest that a notary does not lose any record he keeps. If he lost them, he would be out of a job, and would be facing legal repercussions for losing public records.
So, Carvajal was right in thinking those papers would be worth more than gold, or at least they would be to the notary.
The story comes from Inca Garcilaso's "Historia general del Perú", book V, chapter XL. The notary is reported to have paid one thousand ducats for his documents, or so says Garcilaso. One thousand ducats was a small fortune. In case you u/MarlonJEttinger are interested, a I leave here a traslation of the Inca's passage on the matter:
The historians say that he was from a village belonging to Arévalo called Ragama, his lineage is unknown, he was a soldier his whole life, and an ensign in Ravenna's battle. As it has been said, he was in Pavia in the capture of king Francis of France, and in the Sack of Rome, where for being a good soldier did not get anything from the sacking, as it is ordinary that when the good soldiers fight, the not-so-good enjoy pillage and the bounty. It so happened to Carvajal.
Being deprived of profit, three or four days after the sacking he entered the house of a notary of the most principal ones, where he found a vast quantity of ledgers, and imagining they might be worth something to him, he took five or six assloads of those ledgers. The fury of the sack having passed, the notary came back home and found it ransacked, something from which he thought was safe, and that nobody would covet his things, so he made dilligences on the papers. And having found them, he ransomed them for over a thousand ducats he gave to Carvajal, with which he went to Mexico