Legal document: ENA NS 21.1

Description

Legal document. Partnership agreement. Dated: 1248-1249. Location: Fustat. This document describes a partnership in a sugar-factory. It's likely the document is a draft because it lacks the signatures of witnesses, and because it uses “So-and-So” ("Pl[oni] ben Pl[oni]") in place of the partners’ names throughout. However, the level of detail which is included suggests that this was not simply the page out of a formulary work. The partnership may have been an apprenticeship since only one of the partners is described as bringing assets to the partnership, the distribution of profits is not even between the partners but rather grants one partner two-thirds of the profit despite the fact that both partners are active in trading, and the partnership itself is to last “a number of years”. Lines 14-15 read “And if So-and-So requests [this] of us, we will affix our signature”, suggesting that perhaps sometimes partnership agreements were formed without witnesse. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture", 85)