DOCUMENTS ON THE USE OF THE BASQUE LANGUAGE IN LAWSUITS OF THE ROYAL CHANCERY OF VALLADOLID

Abstract

The Archive in the Royal Chancery of Valladolid holds extremely comprehensive documentation of lawsuits and other matters related to the administration of justice in the Lordship of Biscay. This documentation is a crucial element for the history of Biscay. In some cases, the lawsuits contain interesting information about how the Spanish and Basque languages were used in legal proceedings. This article includes a letter for mercy and a petition, and notice is given of three lawsuits. The letter and the petition make it obvious that the recipients need to know the Basque language. The lawsuits reveal the sociolinguistic situation in the Lordship: a bilingual community with diglossia and a Basque monolingual community.