Talk:Fuero

I'm not clear on the current claims of the Basque Country (autonomous community) with respect to fueros, nor that of any other region except Navarre. Do any of the other Spanish regions count their present day autonomy as a fuero? -- Jmabel | Talk 00:48, Oct 21, 2004 (UTC)

There is nothing at Basque Country (autonomous community) on fueros. I don't know if Castilian liberties were ever general Castilian fueros. Anyway, they would disappear after the Castilian War of the Communities. The Catalonian charters were suppressed after the Spanish War of Succession. As I wrote in the article, the four Diputaciones Forales were restored by the autonomy process. The Navarrese one is not subjected to the Basque government if that is not clear in my redaction. -- Error 01:05, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Fueros de Castilla seems a law compilation. -- Error 01:51, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Bias

The pre-Medioeval history seems biased to me. -- Error 01:05, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

What part exactly do you believe is biased?

The origin of Basque fueros as bait to take territories from Navarre doesn't seem to me as the general consensus. The same about Bagaudae, are they related to the article? I may be wrong. -- Error 01:24, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Whom "general consensus"? The general consensus of those that try to deny them? Other thing is if they are related or not to the article, but I'm not going to erase other person work and opinion if I haven't a clear idea of substitution.

What about the paragraphs above? They stated that even in Roman rule times the Cantabrians (then the Bizkainos were included in the Cantabrians references) and Astures ruled themselves by their own fueros. In such a context the bagaude were but the locals everthrowing the remainings of Roman rule.

Also, there are schoolars who sustain with enough acreditation that it was but the Pyreneecal "rule of law" system, subsequentily extended to Castile and Aragon in the first stages of the Reconquest. I myself would say that it is close to reality.Idiazabal 13:57, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

On the other hand, there were important authors in the XVIII that considered the Cantibracan peoples (Astures, Austrigons, e.a.) had yet their own laws and fueros. It only can be understood if the philological word fuero would mean right in XVIII Castilian-Spanish language.[1] [2] [3](<--leyes y fueros-->)[4]

There are also another connotation we haven't taken into account: the Pyrenaical juridical system, which is more known in French schoolars than in Spanish cause the supression of such debate in an attempt to avoid political problems. Idiazabal 12:22, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

More fueros

I forgot to mention the Fuero de los Españoles and the Fuero de los Trabajadores. -- Error 01:05, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

If you are old enough you have to know that we were taught in school that the Fuero de los Españoles was our "Carta Magna", the equivalent to a constitution.

So, I insist saying that the second paragraph in the article is just the opposite. And I believe it proved beyond any doubt after reading the books whose pages I've pasted. Don't you believe it is clear enough?Idiazabal 14:02, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Fuero vs. rigfht. Basque Fuero or fuero itself would be equivalent to Right.

I've started to change a paragraph but better to cut here and debate with you before changing it:

''Fueros are distinct from derechos ("rights"), as in human rights. Fueros did not arise, historically or theoretically, from the tradition of natural law with its of inherent rights of particular individuals, groups, or communities. Instead, they usually arose out of feudal power politics, and were (depending on one's point of view) wrested from the monarch in exchange for the general acknowlegement of his or her authority, or granted by the monarch to reward loyal subjection.

I would say that it is just on the contrary, Fuero is just a sinonimous of Rigth or Derecho, and even in the constitutional sense.

I'll procced to correct it. But you can explain your POV if you doesn't agree with it.Idiazabal 15:12, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I believe that what is currently written in the article is simply correct. I do not believe that this is a matter of point of view. I take it that you intend to edit it to say something else. Judging by your statement that "fuero" is synonymous with "right" or "derecho", you intend to edit it to something that I believe to be false. I cannot claim to be expert in this area: I've spent less than six months of my life in Spain, and have made only a moderate study of Spanish law and history. Nonetheless, I have read enough on this topic from enough different sources to be reasonably confident of my understanding of it and to suspect that you are attempting an edit not on the basis of accuracy, but for Basque nationalist propagandistic purposes. I'm not going to singlehandedly get in an edit war with you: go ahead and make your edits, though I'd be a lot more inclined to give them some credibility if you were citing sources -- preferably from people who are not themselves Basque nationalists -- rather than making a blind assertion that, on the basis of your personal expertise, the article is wrong. Make your edits and I will not revert, at least not until I have time to do solid research and cite sources.

I would argue, strongly, that the suggestion that a applying a notion of derechos/rights to feudal times in Spain is simply anachronistic. Although the tradition of natural law does go back to Thomas Aquinas, it formed no part of Castilian or Spanish legal theory prior to the reign of Charles I. At that point, via the School of Salamanca, this line of thinking started to enter into Spanish law. The fueros defined rights and privileges within the Castilian (and later Spanish) kingdom.

It may be that within the Basque community there was already at this time a concept more akin to our modern notion of individual rights. I gather that was the case, but I really don't know much about it: my knowledge of Basque history prior to the last two centuries or so is only a very broad outline. However, that has no bearing at all on the sense in which the Basque fueros were fueros: their existence defined a relationship between the Basque community as a whole and the Castilian (later Spanish) state. If their specifics defined relationships among Basques that were more akin to a modern notion of individual rights, that's all well and good and should be discussed somewhere (perhaps even in this article), but it's beside the point as far as a definition of fueros in the second paragraph of the article. This is not an article about what the Basque laws happened to be. This is an article about fueros as such.

I would welcome the involvement of others in this matter, particularly others with a strong knowledge of Basque and Spanish history. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:50, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)

Fuero Juzgo. It was the legal system writen by king Alfonso X the Learned. If I'm right it's the first compendium of laws made by any Spanish crown.

I was speaking in that sense, that the word fuero was synonim to derecho or right.

There has been a lot of propaganda and works made by Spanish governments since Godoy at least, paid for Bourbon crowns, to try to undermine and suppress the Basque Fueros, and in the meantime the own philological word Fuero, which had a broader sense and was applied to what we now know as right, has suffered and its connotations are negative mostly for Spaniards.

But to start with, I did put a link yesterday at the bottom of the article[5] from the Constitution Society that should be more "balanced" that opinnions... mine or any other Spanish nationalist that had broad anti-basque prejudices.

There is a long history of Spanish "studies" dedicated to undermine Basque system and liberties dated back at least to Godoy. And of course there are plenty documentation. But I don't see the interest on working a lot finding such documentation if you position yourself with a anti-basque or pro-spanish prejudice. Which is understandable since it seems you're inclined to trust Error when he is clearly byased in the Basque issue.

Anyway, be patient and you'll have overwhelming documentation. Idiazabal 11:21, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

From the DCECH by Joan Corominas, the etymological dictionary of Spanish:

The original meaning in Castilian was "that conforming to justice", el derecho (En vida traxi grant avaricia / ... / por esso so agora puesto en tal tristiçia / qui tal faze tal prenda, fuero es e justicia)", Berceo, Mil., 250d). From there, it passed, concretizing, to "compilation of laws" (Fuero Juzgo), more specially "privative code to a municipality", and on the other side, conserving the abstract acception, jurisdicción, competencia a que está sometido alguien conforme a derecho [...] [My translation]

So there are several (overlapping?) meanings for fuero. One of them would be right, but I think it's not appliable to Fuero Juzgo or Fuero de Cuenca.

-- Error 01:45, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Then, although Fuero has other acceptions (exactly as "right" has) I believe it is clear enough that Fuero was just the Spanish (or classical Romance, including here the different Romances spoken in Spain in period of time between Latin and universal Castillian) equivalent concept to "Right", or "derecho".

Just this is what I was saying when I challenged the second paragraph of the article. Do I procced to changing it? Is our consensus enough?Idiazabal 14:08, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Castile, Navarre and Basques.

It is not accurate to attribute the Fuero to Castile. When Castile didn't even exist, the Navarrese had yet a long history of Fuero.

In any case we should speak of "Basque Fuero", which was the basic law. Perhapps there can be distinguished among different philological meanings of that word.I would say that it was equivalent to actual "Right".Idiazabal 19:31, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The Basques had a long history of laws of their own, but these were not fueros. The were simply the body of Basque law. The sense in which these were fueros was that they came to be accepted by the Castilian crown. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:01, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)

No, that's the idea you've taken through the debates about such sense, but the meaning of the word "fuero" has nothing to do with acceptance or not. It is certain that the Lord of the Basques, being him the Castilian king, the Navarrese, or the Bearnese, the Foix, the Valois dinasties in the Navarre case, had to be accepted by the Council, but it has nothing to do with the meaning of the word "fuero". A word that was used in Latin and Romance (proto-castilian) languages to mean "chart of rights", in the case of village as chart of village, but in the case of a Compendio de usos y buenas costumbres, in a broad sense called "fueros", as a "chart of rights" moreless in the sense we know now as constitution or carta magna.

It is moreless as the difference among "human rights", "Declaration of Rights" and "the right to work" or "equality on rights". Right means many things, same was with fuero and fueros.

There is also the long debate about "Basque fueros", with all its connotations. Look in the four images I've posted in the article and there you'll see how in 1800 Archbishop LLorente refers himself to the fueros arguing against the Basque ones, and how he himself quotes the "Fuero Juzgo" of Alfonso X (year 1200 moreless,) and even the old fuero of the Cantabrians and Astures in the time of Roman empire rule.

Is it difficult or obscure? Sorry, I can't explain it more clearly. Idiazabal 21:43, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Just in case, there is no "Basque fuero". Fueros are particular to each province and, as the article says, the Biscayne foral private law does not apply in Bilbao or Orduña as in the tierra llana. -- Error 01:53, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Pro libertate patria, gens libera state.

"S.VNIVERSITATIS IURATORUM :

NAVARRE PRO LIBERTATE PATRIA GENS LIBERA SIAT" File:Obanoseskuak.jpg

Nabarra aberriaren askatasunagatik jende askea izan.

Navarra en pro de la libertad de la patria sea la gente libre.

POV dispute

The section 'Fuero, philological meaning assimilable to "Right"' is nothing more than a poorly written polemical first-person essay by Idiazabal. I am not going to try to fix the bad writing, because I believe it is beyond salvaging, although there might be something within it worth keeping. Since he and I have been disputing many related matters, I am not going to attempt to engage with him on this beyond stating my objection. My own inclination would be simply to delete this material. I would welcome others' intervention. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:22, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)

Hi, jmabel, I pasted the second paragraph of the article here in the talk page and said that in my point of viow it was just the opposite, that fuero do mean right. You answered me moreless saying that "suspect that you are attempting an edit not on the basis of accuracy, but for Basque nationalist propagandistic purposes".

Well, I took texts of archinationalist Spanish Archibishop of Toledo father LLorente, from a book wroten just to try to deny the Basque rights. They are his own words to deny the validity of Basque rights. On the other hand there are the words of John Adams, founder father, about what he saw and studied in Biscay when he traveled to Europe to compare political systems for an ulterior writing of their own constitution.

I assume that was written in Spanish. Was he using the term derechos? And can you cite an apropos passage here? -- Jmabel | Talk 20:51, Nov 2, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, it was writen in old Castilian from the XVIII. But quotes some paragraphs of Alfonso X's Fuero Juzgo or recopilation of all old laws from the XIII. Those paragrphs are in a more archaic Castilian (he was the king that first adopted in Castile the new romance language instead of the Latin used until him. Although I believe the Navarrese kings had adopted yet such Romance previously) but are the most interesting of all because it tracks the fueros issue back to the year 1220.

Read them please. They are only 4 pages and are very clarifying of the old meaning of the word fuero. Moreover it distinguished among the fuero as chart of village or a compendium of laws, among other examples.

It took me a lot of work to find them. Unfortunately it wasn't possible to put a clean link as they are taken by an on-line digital biblioteca that presents the documents one by one through java search system and doesn't produce a clear url until the end.

And about the Wikipedia article, why not let the two versions for the reader to see the controversy and value so the contradictions almost impossible to agree. Perhapps after a rethinking it can be rewriten and let the controversy there. At the end, I put it at the bottom, although I sincerely believe that it is beyond doubt that the word Fuero had acceptions covering from "right" to "magna carta". Moreless as happens with the word "right" or "rights". Idiazabal 23:12, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

You tell me to read the material from the archbishop of Toledo, but I still don't understand how to find it. As for the Adams material, I don't see the relevance. Neither the word "fueros" nor "rights" appears anywhere in this text. ("Privileges" does.) He describes the internal working of the Basque system as rather democratic, on which we both agree. (He also makes some obviously wrong statements, describing the Basques as "Celts"). Perhaps this article would be a good place to discuss the Basque laws that were recognized as fueros by Castile and later by Spain (although I think that a good discussion of these would be long enough to deserve an article of its own and a digest here). Adams writing has bearing on that, but has no bearing on your claim that fueros are only to be understood as rights, not as privileges. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:45, Nov 3, 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, I thought I stated yet previously that archbishop's material are those four images of book pages I'd pasted in the article we're speaking about. I searched, seek and found them for you to contrast and build your own opinnion. They are at the bottom of the "Fueros" article. Note that in such pages, 2, 3 and 4th, archbishop cites another previous text, just such of Alfonso X's Fuero Juzgo, which is the first compendia of Spanish laws. Idiazabal 10:56, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

OK; no that was not clear. Very interesting, rather dense, and the Spanish is (inevitably) a bit archaic. I'll need some time to look it over. I do more see your point now, though. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:05, Nov 4, 2004 (UTC)

Anyway, what's the point to write an article about Fueros in an encyclopedia if it has to be for denying its significance? Today the fueros don't exist, or do them? Then what's the point in denying them anew, if they were denied yet dialectically in 1780, and were redenied anew in 1808, and in 1824, and supressed militarily anew 1839, and anew militarily in 1876. It is a joke that in 2004 in an encyclopedia they would need to be resuppressed theoretically and dialectically one more time.

Well, certainly the actual Spanish constitution of 1979 abolished the 1840 and 1876 decrees of abolition, making them virtually reinstated at least in their spirit or meaning.

Jmabel, excuse me cause the long and ununderstandable (besides "poorly written polemical first-person essay") history of the word "Fuero" and the history of Basque fueros, but take a minute to think in the long hours it has taken to me the search, reading of old Castilian language documents, etc. in a sincere effort to explain and show you the true meaning of such a word, appart of being them Basque or not. Have you red the documents? They are from a "Rebutal of the Basque rights" writen by a Castilian archbishop. What a joke, a rebuttal that 200 year afters it seems that can be used to rebut the rebuttal. Idiazabal 23:11, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

What's the point? The point is probably more one of historical relevance than present-day relevance. And the question of whether they are to be understood as "rights" or "privileges" does not deny their significance. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:47, Nov 3, 2004 (UTC)

Well, perhapps this would be only a question of point of viow. I.e. for a Basque its Fueros had to be understood as a compendium of his rights, while a Castilian or foraigner perhapps would see them as a privilege taken by others, not him. But anyway the meaning of the word "privilege" wasn't the same then than now. Idiazabal 10:56, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Dictionaries, other encyclopedias

I'd like to start enumerating how other reference works handle this. Anyone who has citations, please add them. I'll start with what I've got. -- Jmabel | Talk 02:05, Nov 3, 2004 (UTC)

• The Espasa Diccionario de la lengua española (1998) defines fuero as "Privilegio, derecho, exención, etc., que se conceden a una persona, ciudad o territorio. Más en pl. | En la Edad Media, ley o estatuto concedido por un soberano a un territorio. | Compilación de leyes: Fuero Juzgo. | Competencia jurisdiccional. | fuero interna: la conciencia. | FAM. foral, forero, fuerismo, fuerista."
  • For the benefit of those who don't speak Spanish, this translates as: "Privilege, right, exemption, etc., which is conceded to a person, city or territory. More common in the plural [literally: "More in pl."]. | In the Middle Ages, law or statute conceded by a soverign to a territory. | Compilation of laws: Fuero Juzgo [juzgo derives from the verb juzgar, "to judge"]. | Jurisdictional capacity. | fuero interna: the conscience. | Related words: foral, forero, fuerismo, fuerista." Only trivial definitions are given for those related words (they are referred back to fuero).
• The Diccionario del idioma español (Pocket Books, 1959 / 1967) gives: "compilación de leyes; jurisdicción; exención, privilegio; fueros: arrogancia; fuero interior: la conciencia de cada uno."
  • For the benefit of those who don't speak Spanish, this translates as: ""compilation of laws; jurisdiction; exemption, privilege; fueros: arrogance; fuero interior: the conscience of each one [i.e. of each person]."
• The Bantam New College Spanish and English Dictionary (I have the 1991 edition) translates fuero as "law, statute, code of laws; jurisdiction, exemption, privilege; fuero interior: conscience, inmost heart. fueros: pride, arrogance.

I would presume that the etymology comes from the fact that fueros are outside of (afuera de) the normal laws. The etymology is presumably the same as that of forastero ("outside, strange, foreign, outsider, foreigner") and, for that matter, of the English word "foreign". -- Jmabel | Talk 02:26, Nov 3, 2004 (UTC)

I can't say it for sure, but I don't believe it. In fact Alfonso X's Fuero Juzgo (the compendia of laws cited by the archibishop in the pages I posted in the article) derives its meaning from the Latin forum. That's why I colected the pages to make a prospective study of it.

Anyway, such compendia of Basque laws was in use and was the basic laws of the Basques until 1876. By that time the significance of laws and rights was yet enough similar to the idea we have today of them. On the other hand the Spanish literature trying to avoid them, their meaning, etc. etc. was overwhelmingly abundant by then, and even in the first decades of the XX they continued and continued producing such literature. But when the Spanish regime of Franco tried to write a constitution-like they wrote the Fuero de los españoles, which was the main Spanish law until 1979. And each chapter, as the right to work in example was the Fuero del trabajo, and so on. As I said previously, it would be very assimilable to a Carta Magna, which was just the description we were taught in school: Carta Magna. Idiazabal 10:56, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

You are certainly right about Fuero de los españoles, but I always assumed that this word was chosen precisely for its connotation of something granted from on high by God-given authority rather than based in any notion of natural law and the "rights of man" or "human rights". -- Jmabel | Talk 19:42, Nov 4, 2004 (UTC)

I would say that the Franco regime used the word Fuero because the Traditionalistes were more familiar with it as Spanish tradition-based concept of "right" and even rule of law. But if you read the 2nd image-page of the article, which is a textual cite of Alfonso X's Fuero Juzgo of 1220, it distinguish three stadiums, uses, costumbres and fuero, being the last the writen plasmation of the two previous, uses and costumbres.

Unfortunately the classical Castilian language used in such cites is the more archaic, but it is not necessary to understand it completely, you have enough reading the second one and the last paragraph of the first. I would say that with those 4 paragraphs is enough to understand the classical nature of the Fuero. Idiazabal 22:24, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)