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The Peoples of Europe
The Basques
This edition of Collin's history of the Basques includes a substantial new chapter on the recent history of the Basques. He places their struggle for indentity and self-determination within the context of the past 2000 years, and aims to show that to a large extent this has finally been achieved within the democratic Spain which has proceeded the death of Franco. Among all former pre-Indo-European peoples, the Basques alone have been able to resist cultural assimilation by their larger and more powerful neighbours and to retain a distinct language. Yet, the Basques have failed to develop any sense of political unity. Drawing upon a wide range of archaeological and historical evidence, this study, examines the origins of these people. The author focuses on the crucial period extending from the Roman Conquest of the Iberian peninisula to the late 12th century.
320 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1990
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About the author
Roger Collins
55 books15 followersRoger J. H. Collins (born 1949) is an English medievalist, currently an honorary fellow in history at the University of Edinburgh.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
December 10, 2016
The Basques is by an author who has impressed me in the past, and was also a chance to look at The Peoples of Europe series. The book (and presumably others in the series) is a little under 300 pages in an oversized paperback format, with good sized type and a good number of photographs and maps. As such, it's not a very long or detailed book, but it's obviously written as a friendly introductory text. The maps were not always the best (simple line maps that didn't always have enough context), but were frequent and addressed in the text.
The book gets off to a rough start,mostly, I think, as Collins overthinks sentences to avoid nationalistic pitfalls. It gets better, but never settles down into really good prose. The earliest section deals with language and pre-history in the Pyrenees, and largely states that there is just very little that can be known. Some of that is from the fact that there hasn't been a lot of good archaeology in the region, but mostly, what there is shows that there's just no way to tell 'who' lived there at the time. Are the Basques survivors of a pre-Indo-European culture that stretched across Western Europe? Did they migrate to their current home in the face of a Indo-European invasion? Something else entirely? There's no appreciable difference in material culture, so the only way to even define 'Basque' in these questions is by language, and there's no way to tell who was speaking what before the Romans start writing about the region.
And the Romans didn't say a lot. There are a couple units in the records that came from the region. There's no signs that the 'Vascones' caused any real trouble. That starts in post-Roman period, when the Basques are effectively on the frontier between the Frankish and Visigothic kingdoms. The big surprise (for me) shows up here: Gascony (the part of France south and west of the Garrone) derives from 'Vasconia'. It would seem that for a short time the Basques controlled much of this region, and lent it their name.
The bulk of the book is about the Middle Ages, when the Basques effectively controlled a decent chunk of land, but never gained any sort of 'national identity'. Although Basques effectively dominated Navarre, it never presented itself as a 'Basque kingdom', and there were no efforts to 'unify' with other Basque-speakers in Gascony and Castile.
The book wraps up fairly quickly with post-Medieval history, including an analysis of the emergence of Basque nationalism in the Nineteenth Century, and how that led into their involvement in Spanish politics.
So the book is pretty much what you'd expect: A short history of one of the more unique peoples of Europe, and while the writing is not stellar, it covers the subject very well, and shines a light on a few things that often don't get enough attention. I certainly hope to get more of the series in the future.
The book gets off to a rough start,mostly, I think, as Collins overthinks sentences to avoid nationalistic pitfalls. It gets better, but never settles down into really good prose. The earliest section deals with language and pre-history in the Pyrenees, and largely states that there is just very little that can be known. Some of that is from the fact that there hasn't been a lot of good archaeology in the region, but mostly, what there is shows that there's just no way to tell 'who' lived there at the time. Are the Basques survivors of a pre-Indo-European culture that stretched across Western Europe? Did they migrate to their current home in the face of a Indo-European invasion? Something else entirely? There's no appreciable difference in material culture, so the only way to even define 'Basque' in these questions is by language, and there's no way to tell who was speaking what before the Romans start writing about the region.
And the Romans didn't say a lot. There are a couple units in the records that came from the region. There's no signs that the 'Vascones' caused any real trouble. That starts in post-Roman period, when the Basques are effectively on the frontier between the Frankish and Visigothic kingdoms. The big surprise (for me) shows up here: Gascony (the part of France south and west of the Garrone) derives from 'Vasconia'. It would seem that for a short time the Basques controlled much of this region, and lent it their name.
The bulk of the book is about the Middle Ages, when the Basques effectively controlled a decent chunk of land, but never gained any sort of 'national identity'. Although Basques effectively dominated Navarre, it never presented itself as a 'Basque kingdom', and there were no efforts to 'unify' with other Basque-speakers in Gascony and Castile.
The book wraps up fairly quickly with post-Medieval history, including an analysis of the emergence of Basque nationalism in the Nineteenth Century, and how that led into their involvement in Spanish politics.
So the book is pretty much what you'd expect: A short history of one of the more unique peoples of Europe, and while the writing is not stellar, it covers the subject very well, and shines a light on a few things that often don't get enough attention. I certainly hope to get more of the series in the future.
March 8, 2024
This book focuses on the history of the Basques up to the 12th Century! The period after that is wrapped up in a short chapter. Strange.
November 13, 2021
I didn’t find this as lucid as the other book I just finished from the series The Gypsies. The early history of course is difficult since so little is known.
November 16, 2014
The Basques of the northwest Pyrenees are an interesting culture. Their language is non-Indo-European and their blood-type profile is quite unlike either of their neighbors, the Spanish or the French. Did they migrate in from elsewhere? And, if so, where? Or are the Basques the modern remnants of the Neolithic inhabitants of those mountains? Because they’re not only pre-Roman, they’re pre-Celtic. Many theories have been advanced over the years, but no one really has any answers. The Basques have managed, somehow, to maintain their identity and their relative geographic isolation, but they lost their political independence a long time ago. It was the Basques, remember, who bushwhacked Charlemagne’s rear guard under Roland in the late 8th century; they didn’t want to be part of someone else’s country then, and they don’t want it now.
Collins is well known as an expert on Iberian history and he does a good job with the archeology of the region (which is very thin), the Basques’ relations with Rome, and then with the Franks and Visigoths, and then with the Arabs. After the reconquista, the Basques had to learn to deal with the new Spanish and French kingdoms and duchies that took the place of the Arabs, and they’ve been doing that ever since. And never have they ceased to be Basques. This is one of the best volumes in a first-rate series.
Collins is well known as an expert on Iberian history and he does a good job with the archeology of the region (which is very thin), the Basques’ relations with Rome, and then with the Franks and Visigoths, and then with the Arabs. After the reconquista, the Basques had to learn to deal with the new Spanish and French kingdoms and duchies that took the place of the Arabs, and they’ve been doing that ever since. And never have they ceased to be Basques. This is one of the best volumes in a first-rate series.
September 8, 2008
Apparently one of the very few books out there that deals with the social, political, and dialectical history of the Basque people of the Pyrenean region between France & Spain, from prehistoric times up until the modern era of post-Franco separatist movements... this is one of the best researched & documented historical treatments I've ever read, which does mean that it tends to focus on a lot of seemingly unimportant tidbits while larger issues fall by the wayside due to insufficient reference-ability. Ino ther words, the author is a terrific and discerning scholar, and a clunky, unstylish prose writer. Oh well: at least I learned a huge amount of material that's findable nowhere else in the English language, and now have some idea of the history and originality behind this non-state culture (e.g. matrilineal inheritance, and being the only language still spoken in Europe with non-Indo-European roots)... a somewhat difficult read at times due to the run-on-sentences and whatnot, but worth the investigation, if only because there aren't really any others out there that deal with the same material.
August 26, 2016
Kniha se zbytečně moc zabývá nejranějšími dějinami a moderní době a baskické teroristické organizaci ETA je ve v knize věnováno jen pár odstavců. Také rejstřík, seznam pramenů a podobné "přílohy" zde rozbujely téměř do stejného počtu stran jako kniha samotná.
April 17, 2019
I selected this book in preparation for hiking through the Pyrenees later this year, hoping to learn more about the mysterious Basque people who have lived there for millennia.
Early History & Geography
Of all the pre-Indo-European peoples of Europe, the Basques are the only ones who have been able to resist cultural assimilation and retain a distinguished language. Such linguistic isolation itself speaks to the antiquity of the people. Some claim that Basque is the last remnant of a language spoken in all parts of the Iberian peninsula before the Roman conquest. Such speculation considers the Basques descendants of the Iberians, a shadowy people of north African origin, who occupied Spain in the first millennium BC and exerted cultural influence upon the immigrating Celts.
Some Basques claim their people have inhabited the areas in which they are found today since Neolithic times (4000 BC) or even paleolithic times. Others have claimed the Basques are the descendants of Tubal, one of the sons of Japhet, the son of Noah; and that the Basque language is one of the original languages of mankind, being one of the first tongues spoken after the fall of the Tower of Babel. These postulations assert that Basque territory was one of the first areas inhabited after the flood.
Additionally, some Basques have advanced specific claims about their physical make-up: distinctive cranial formation, hair, eye coloring and distinctive blood. In fact, the blood groups B and AB are much rarer among Basques than among other Europeans. This has led some Basques to suggest the rest of Europe consists of “genetic mongrels”.
Archaeological evidence from the Neolithic period indicates the existence of a pastoral economy in the Pyrenees, as still exists in many areas today, particularly in the more mountainous and non-industrialized regions. There existed a transhumance type of pastoralism, where flocks pastured higher up the mountainside during the summer months and were taken down to the lower slopes during the long hard winters. The arable farming areas are very limited in this area due to the poverty of mountain soils and the severity of the climate. Transhumance requires an established pattern of town-country relationships and changes in this relationship can lead to violence, such as when pastoralists are denied the grazing areas they depend upon. Such conflicts became manifest between the mountain-dwelling Basques and the towns by the end of the 6th century.
As the sole survivors of the pre-Indo-European population of Europe, the Basques somehow succeeded in surviving the migrations of the Bronze Age (2500 BC – 1000 BC), which otherwise swallowed the indigenous Iberian Stone-Age culture. Basque survival is attributed to the remote, mountainous, densely forested area of the Pyrenees. When the Romans first encountered the Basques, they reported them to be substantially different in cultural and social organization than the rest of Spain. But no one really knows where the Basques came from or when and how they established themselves in the western Pyrenees.
The basic geography of the Basque region is within France and Spain, as shown on the following map:
The Basque provinces and their capitals.
A Digression: Dolmens & Oumuamua
The Pyrenees mountains run roughly east to west from the Mediterranean to the Bay of Biscay where they meet the Cantabria mountains that extend along the northern coast of Spain.
Location of the Pyrenees
The earliest period of human occupation of these areas occurred in the last glacial period (40,000 BC to 10,000 BC), as evidenced by archaeological sites in Alava, Navarre and Aragon. However, it is somewhat of a stretch to assume continuity of the Basque people all the way back to Cro-Magnon man; but anthropological evidence is too scant to deny such an assertion. The latter Neolithic era (4000 BC to 2000 BC) is better represented in the archaeological record and of interest is the presence of dolmens in the mountainous areas of northern Navarre, Aragon, northern Alava and the southern parts of the French Pyrenees.
These dolmens have traditionally been thought of as burial sites, but it has recently been suggested they are not funerary monuments but perhaps had other purposes. Most date from the early Neolithic period. It is unclear to archaeology when, why, and by whom the earliest dolmens were made. The oldest known dolmens in Western Europe date to 7,000 years ago. Human remains and artefacts have been found in or close to dolmens, but it has been impossible to prove these remains coincide with the time the stones were first set in place. In Basque country, the dolmens have been attributed to a race of giants.
Dolmen at Sorginetxe
Dolmen of Oleiros
Incidentally, although it is a wild and apparently unrelated observation, I have noticed remarkable resemblance between the dolmens and the strange asteroid Oumuamua, which appeared in our solar system in the fall of 2017. Actually, astronomers couldn’t decide whether or not Oumuamua was an asteroid or a comet and so they finally just called it an “interstellar object”. Astronomers were mystified that Oumuamua appeared to speed up after it swung around our Sun and headed back out into space. Oumuamua is the first known object to enter our solar system from deep space. It had an odd trajectory and an even odder shape. Some speculated Oumuamua was some kind of extraterrestrial ship or space probe equipped with some sort of propulsion technology. Others suggest that Oumuamua’s acceleration was simply due to the effect of the sun’s rays on its exposed side, suggesting this may have caused it to spew vapor, but no vapor was ever observed. Scientists expect that it will take more than 10,000 years for Oumuamua to exit the solar system entirely.
Strange asteroid Oumuamua
But to get back on point, the later iron age cultures (900-200 BC) are situated well away from the mountains and virtually no iron-age traces have been uncovered in the dolmen region or along the spine of the Pyrenees. That the Basques have descended from the indigenous Neolithic/Bronze Age inhabitants of the mountainous zones looks to be a reasonable hypothesis as far as the archaeological evidence is concerned. There seems to have been a continuity of population in these areas from the period of stone into the period of bronze.
Romans, Franks & Visigoths
Roman military contact with the Basque tribes seems to date back to at least the 1st century BC. The Cantabrian Wars (29-19 BC) were the final stage of the Roman conquest of Hispania (the Roman term for the Iberian Peninsula) in northwestern Spain. In this war, under the reign of Augustus, Rome waged a bloody conflict with the last independent nations of Celtic Hispania. These warlike peoples presented fierce resistance to Roman domination and it took ten years of war and more than eight legions to subdue them.
Setting of Cantabrian Wars in Northern Spain
Pompey established Pamplona in 77 BC, for the maintenance of trans-Pyrenean communications. The Romans maintained a major imperial highway through the region. Temples are found in the principal towns devoted to some of the deities of the Roman pantheon. The first literary reference to the Basques may be found in Strabo’s Geography.
In 259, migrating Franks established short-lived Gallic hegemony in the Western Pyrenees that dissolved in 273. Christian bishoprics were established in most of the principal towns by the 4th century and the Roman emperor Theodosius I decreed a prohibition of paganism in 393. The first overrunning of the peninsula by the Germanic tribes began in 409 when the Vandals made their way through the Pyrenees passes. Subsequently, the Germanic Visigoths (referred to collectively as Goths), became masters of the Iberian peninsula, from the 5th to 8th centuries.
The Visigoths preserved many of the features of Roman urban life. During their governance of Spain, the Visigoths built churches that still survive and they left many artifacts. The Visigoths founded the only new cities in western Europe from the fall of the Roman Empire until the rise of the Carolingian dynasty (the Frankish noble family founded by Charles Martel, followed by his son Pepin the Short and his grandson Charlemagne) in the 8th century.
Pre-Basques are Vascones
In this book the term “Vascone” is largely synonymous with Basque. The Vascones were a pre-Roman tribe who are ancestors of the present-day Basques. References to the Vascones in the Visigothic period allude to a dangerous rural population emerging from the mountains to threaten the settled inhabitants of the valleys. The towns of this time sought protection from outsiders by constructing walls and towers. They also sought superstitious protection by housing relics (primarily the bones of martyrs) within their cities. Outsiders (mountain-dwelling Basques/Vascones) were considered a heretical threat. Orthodoxy seems to have been the cohesive element for the towns and those contentious with orthodoxy were expelled. Enemies of the cites were immediately labelled heretics. Much military activity occurred against the Basques by Visigothic and Frankish rulers.
Before the 6th century, two loosely interrelated forms of Vascone society (town and country) coexisted. However, in the course of the 6th century, these community relationships broke down. The town dwellers began to abandon their identity as Vascones and cooperate more fully with the Visigothic kingdom in order to preserve ways of life which the mountain dwellers didn’t fully understand. Thus, the mountain dwellers came to be the sole bearers of the Vascone ethnic name and defense against the mountain-dwellers became the cohesion that solidified the towns. After this split between town and country, the Vascones re-emerge into the light of history as Basque raiders not traders.
Frontier Zone Slave Traders
War and animosity between the Franks and the Visigoths affected the Basques because Frankish assaults were launched through the Pyrenees. The Basques were largely caught between the hostilities that existed between these two kingdoms. Finding themselves inhabitants of a frontier zone between rival powers, the Basques began raiding depredations upon the cities in the 6th century, destroying crops, burning houses, and carrying off captives. Conflicts in the valleys occurred between pastoralists and farmers and the Basques sought to expand their areas of occupation. Frankish and Visigothic captives lacked legal standing or protection in the alternative territory so the Basques were uniquely positioned to conduct a slave trade between the two territories. Attempts to impose order on the Basques was difficult and Basque raids made travel hazardous.
The survival of the Basque people, despite the concentrated military efforts directed against them from both the Frankish and Visigothic kingdoms, is illustrative of their persistent ability to flourish amidst adversity. The strongly observed Basque tradition of passing all of the family holdings solely to the elder son worked to accelerate Basque expansion into new areas, as younger sons were often obliged to set out and make their way elsewhere in the world. This custom predominated due to the paucity of usable land which, if divided, would create holdings too small for subsistence.
Gascony, Pamplona, Navarre & French Influence
The Basques proved impossible to dislodge from the territories they settled. The military effectiveness against the Basques proved largely unsuccessful. Basque raids upon population centers occurred throughout the 7th century. However, efforts to subdue the Basques had to be discontinued in 711 in order to meet the Arab invasion of Spain; and it is at this time that the Basques start to spread themselves down into the valleys. By the early 8th century the Basques had formed a new region known as Gascony (seemingly derived from Vascony). In this way, the Basque region again served as a frontier zone between Christian and Muslim powers.
The emergence of Gascony is shrouded in much mystery and little is known of its origins. The surplus of younger sons and their readiness to export themselves to create their own fortunes elsewhere was certainly behind the creation of Gascony. (And, incidentally, it would continue to be future impetus much later in time, in the 16-19th centuries, as evidenced by Basque expansion overseas to North and South America.)
In 766, Pippin the Short launched a major invasion and defeated the Gascons who eventually swore allegiance to the Franks. It was also around this time that the Basques abandoned their paganism and became Christians. During this era of history, a charge of paganism could be a very damning accusation. As a result of this French influence, there ensued a diminishment of the Basque language from much of greater Gascony between the 7th and 12th centuries. Gascony would eventually evolve an identity quite detached from that of the older Basque heartlands of the western Pyrenees.
As mentioned, the Visigothic kings ceased campaigning against the Vascones in 711 because they needed to face the Arab invasion. The Visigoths were fully overthrown by the Arabs, but the Arabs didn’t reach northern Spain until 714-16, when principal urban centers like Catalonia and Pamplona submitted to them. But northern Spain is where the end of Arab expansion occurred and by the end of the 8th century the Basques were again threatening the towns and could defeat Arab forces via guerrilla activity. The Basques also skirmished with Charlemagne’s Franks. However, in 806, a Frankish expedition crossed the Pyrenees and captured Pamplona from the Umayyad Arab rulers and by 814-40, the Carolingians has assumed the practice of appointing Franks to hold the office of duke of Gascony.
In 824 the Franks were defeated and Frankish rule in Pamplona ended, with Pamplona becoming an independent kingdom. Viking raiding in France caused a decline in the authority of the Carolingians, particularly after the death of Charles the Bald in 877. This affected the Basques of Gascony by preventing further social and cultural absorption into the French orbit. At this time the duchy of Gascony appeared, which was the first recognizable political institution to take shape among the Basques. Gascony became more urbanized as it had town sites of considerable antiquity, such as Bordeaux. A Navarrese monarchy also eventually emerged, which maintained an independent existence until the 16th century.
So, we see that the kings ruling in Pamplona didn’t exercise authority over all the Basques. The dukes of Gascony were independent and likely aligned with the Frankish kings. A Navarrese monarch arose as did the kingdom of Leon, which founded the city of Burgos in 884. Contention and periodic conflict over the control of territory occurred between the rulers of Pamplona and competing kingdoms.
Camino de Santiago
In the 9-11th- centuries, the growth of the pilgrimage route to Santiago developed. Many monasteries and churches were erected due to the needs of pilgrims on the route to Santiago. The pilgrimage to Santiago has never ceased from the time of the discovery of St. James remains in 812 AD to the present. Known as the Camino de Santiago, this network of pilgrimage trails leads to the shrine of the Apostle St. James, in the cathedral of Santiago, where tradition has it that the remains of the saint are interred. This pilgrimage is considered one of the three most important for Christians, along with Rome and Jerusalem.
Camino Routes
As a result of the Camino pilgrimages, French ideas and institutions infiltrated the area during the 11th century. French pilgrims often described the Basque inhabitants as uncouth and barbarous. With increased patronage, the church was expanding its institutional hold on society.
The cult of the pilgrim route exercised a considerable effect upon the areas through which the pilgrims passed, manifesting itself particularly in architecture: bridges, monasteries and churches. Abbots and monks were drawn to the area, largely from France. A substantial element of the population became French, particularly in Estella and Pamplona. French artistic and cultural influences tended to overlay the Basque cultural imprint; and in many areas the overt Basque population dissipated.
As a result of French penetration, the 11-13th centuries witnessed the most significant urban development of northern Spain since Roman times. This was accompanied by an influx of new ideas, institutions and elements of population, which further accentuated the division between Basque rural society and that of the towns
Feudalism, Monarchy, War & Discovery
The procedures of vassalage made their appearance in 8th-11th centuries. In general, the would-be vassal made himself his intended lord’s man by kneeling before him and swearing an oath of fidelity. Generally, this was done for a grant by the lord of an estate (fief) in return for various services, usually of a military nature. Vassalage was promoted by the upper echelons of society and ushered in the use of titles like those previously used by the palatine nobility.
Basque ships played an important role in maritime trade. The growth of trade, particularly in wine, provided great opportunities in shipping. As a result, a rising wealthy commercial class developed which would eventually garner enough power to challenge the authority of the lords and bishops.
Once again, the region became a frontier zone during the Hundred Years War, which occurred from 1337 to 1453, between England and France. The conflict arose because English monarchs had historically held titles to lands within the areas of French hegemony, which in effect made them vassals to the kings of France. The status of the English king’s fiefs was therefore a major source of conflict, particularly when French monarchs sought to strip away the lands. By 1337, English holdings had been reduced to only Gascony. The English prevailed initially but Joan of Arc revived French spirit when the English laid siege to Orleans in 1428. Joan of Arc was later captured in 1430 and burned at the stake by the English in 1431, but after her death the war turned dramatically against the English. Bordeaux, Gascony’s capital was besieged and surrendered to the French in 1451. Following their defeat, the English landowners suffered severe financial setbacks due to losing their continental holdings.
CONTINUED IN COMMENTS SECTION BELOW
Early History & Geography
Of all the pre-Indo-European peoples of Europe, the Basques are the only ones who have been able to resist cultural assimilation and retain a distinguished language. Such linguistic isolation itself speaks to the antiquity of the people. Some claim that Basque is the last remnant of a language spoken in all parts of the Iberian peninsula before the Roman conquest. Such speculation considers the Basques descendants of the Iberians, a shadowy people of north African origin, who occupied Spain in the first millennium BC and exerted cultural influence upon the immigrating Celts.
Some Basques claim their people have inhabited the areas in which they are found today since Neolithic times (4000 BC) or even paleolithic times. Others have claimed the Basques are the descendants of Tubal, one of the sons of Japhet, the son of Noah; and that the Basque language is one of the original languages of mankind, being one of the first tongues spoken after the fall of the Tower of Babel. These postulations assert that Basque territory was one of the first areas inhabited after the flood.
Additionally, some Basques have advanced specific claims about their physical make-up: distinctive cranial formation, hair, eye coloring and distinctive blood. In fact, the blood groups B and AB are much rarer among Basques than among other Europeans. This has led some Basques to suggest the rest of Europe consists of “genetic mongrels”.
Archaeological evidence from the Neolithic period indicates the existence of a pastoral economy in the Pyrenees, as still exists in many areas today, particularly in the more mountainous and non-industrialized regions. There existed a transhumance type of pastoralism, where flocks pastured higher up the mountainside during the summer months and were taken down to the lower slopes during the long hard winters. The arable farming areas are very limited in this area due to the poverty of mountain soils and the severity of the climate. Transhumance requires an established pattern of town-country relationships and changes in this relationship can lead to violence, such as when pastoralists are denied the grazing areas they depend upon. Such conflicts became manifest between the mountain-dwelling Basques and the towns by the end of the 6th century.
As the sole survivors of the pre-Indo-European population of Europe, the Basques somehow succeeded in surviving the migrations of the Bronze Age (2500 BC – 1000 BC), which otherwise swallowed the indigenous Iberian Stone-Age culture. Basque survival is attributed to the remote, mountainous, densely forested area of the Pyrenees. When the Romans first encountered the Basques, they reported them to be substantially different in cultural and social organization than the rest of Spain. But no one really knows where the Basques came from or when and how they established themselves in the western Pyrenees.
The basic geography of the Basque region is within France and Spain, as shown on the following map:
The Basque provinces and their capitals.
A Digression: Dolmens & Oumuamua
The Pyrenees mountains run roughly east to west from the Mediterranean to the Bay of Biscay where they meet the Cantabria mountains that extend along the northern coast of Spain.
Location of the Pyrenees
The earliest period of human occupation of these areas occurred in the last glacial period (40,000 BC to 10,000 BC), as evidenced by archaeological sites in Alava, Navarre and Aragon. However, it is somewhat of a stretch to assume continuity of the Basque people all the way back to Cro-Magnon man; but anthropological evidence is too scant to deny such an assertion. The latter Neolithic era (4000 BC to 2000 BC) is better represented in the archaeological record and of interest is the presence of dolmens in the mountainous areas of northern Navarre, Aragon, northern Alava and the southern parts of the French Pyrenees.
These dolmens have traditionally been thought of as burial sites, but it has recently been suggested they are not funerary monuments but perhaps had other purposes. Most date from the early Neolithic period. It is unclear to archaeology when, why, and by whom the earliest dolmens were made. The oldest known dolmens in Western Europe date to 7,000 years ago. Human remains and artefacts have been found in or close to dolmens, but it has been impossible to prove these remains coincide with the time the stones were first set in place. In Basque country, the dolmens have been attributed to a race of giants.
Dolmen at Sorginetxe
Dolmen of Oleiros
Incidentally, although it is a wild and apparently unrelated observation, I have noticed remarkable resemblance between the dolmens and the strange asteroid Oumuamua, which appeared in our solar system in the fall of 2017. Actually, astronomers couldn’t decide whether or not Oumuamua was an asteroid or a comet and so they finally just called it an “interstellar object”. Astronomers were mystified that Oumuamua appeared to speed up after it swung around our Sun and headed back out into space. Oumuamua is the first known object to enter our solar system from deep space. It had an odd trajectory and an even odder shape. Some speculated Oumuamua was some kind of extraterrestrial ship or space probe equipped with some sort of propulsion technology. Others suggest that Oumuamua’s acceleration was simply due to the effect of the sun’s rays on its exposed side, suggesting this may have caused it to spew vapor, but no vapor was ever observed. Scientists expect that it will take more than 10,000 years for Oumuamua to exit the solar system entirely.
Strange asteroid Oumuamua
But to get back on point, the later iron age cultures (900-200 BC) are situated well away from the mountains and virtually no iron-age traces have been uncovered in the dolmen region or along the spine of the Pyrenees. That the Basques have descended from the indigenous Neolithic/Bronze Age inhabitants of the mountainous zones looks to be a reasonable hypothesis as far as the archaeological evidence is concerned. There seems to have been a continuity of population in these areas from the period of stone into the period of bronze.
Romans, Franks & Visigoths
Roman military contact with the Basque tribes seems to date back to at least the 1st century BC. The Cantabrian Wars (29-19 BC) were the final stage of the Roman conquest of Hispania (the Roman term for the Iberian Peninsula) in northwestern Spain. In this war, under the reign of Augustus, Rome waged a bloody conflict with the last independent nations of Celtic Hispania. These warlike peoples presented fierce resistance to Roman domination and it took ten years of war and more than eight legions to subdue them.
Setting of Cantabrian Wars in Northern Spain
Pompey established Pamplona in 77 BC, for the maintenance of trans-Pyrenean communications. The Romans maintained a major imperial highway through the region. Temples are found in the principal towns devoted to some of the deities of the Roman pantheon. The first literary reference to the Basques may be found in Strabo’s Geography.
In 259, migrating Franks established short-lived Gallic hegemony in the Western Pyrenees that dissolved in 273. Christian bishoprics were established in most of the principal towns by the 4th century and the Roman emperor Theodosius I decreed a prohibition of paganism in 393. The first overrunning of the peninsula by the Germanic tribes began in 409 when the Vandals made their way through the Pyrenees passes. Subsequently, the Germanic Visigoths (referred to collectively as Goths), became masters of the Iberian peninsula, from the 5th to 8th centuries.
The Visigoths preserved many of the features of Roman urban life. During their governance of Spain, the Visigoths built churches that still survive and they left many artifacts. The Visigoths founded the only new cities in western Europe from the fall of the Roman Empire until the rise of the Carolingian dynasty (the Frankish noble family founded by Charles Martel, followed by his son Pepin the Short and his grandson Charlemagne) in the 8th century.
Pre-Basques are Vascones
In this book the term “Vascone” is largely synonymous with Basque. The Vascones were a pre-Roman tribe who are ancestors of the present-day Basques. References to the Vascones in the Visigothic period allude to a dangerous rural population emerging from the mountains to threaten the settled inhabitants of the valleys. The towns of this time sought protection from outsiders by constructing walls and towers. They also sought superstitious protection by housing relics (primarily the bones of martyrs) within their cities. Outsiders (mountain-dwelling Basques/Vascones) were considered a heretical threat. Orthodoxy seems to have been the cohesive element for the towns and those contentious with orthodoxy were expelled. Enemies of the cites were immediately labelled heretics. Much military activity occurred against the Basques by Visigothic and Frankish rulers.
Before the 6th century, two loosely interrelated forms of Vascone society (town and country) coexisted. However, in the course of the 6th century, these community relationships broke down. The town dwellers began to abandon their identity as Vascones and cooperate more fully with the Visigothic kingdom in order to preserve ways of life which the mountain dwellers didn’t fully understand. Thus, the mountain dwellers came to be the sole bearers of the Vascone ethnic name and defense against the mountain-dwellers became the cohesion that solidified the towns. After this split between town and country, the Vascones re-emerge into the light of history as Basque raiders not traders.
Frontier Zone Slave Traders
War and animosity between the Franks and the Visigoths affected the Basques because Frankish assaults were launched through the Pyrenees. The Basques were largely caught between the hostilities that existed between these two kingdoms. Finding themselves inhabitants of a frontier zone between rival powers, the Basques began raiding depredations upon the cities in the 6th century, destroying crops, burning houses, and carrying off captives. Conflicts in the valleys occurred between pastoralists and farmers and the Basques sought to expand their areas of occupation. Frankish and Visigothic captives lacked legal standing or protection in the alternative territory so the Basques were uniquely positioned to conduct a slave trade between the two territories. Attempts to impose order on the Basques was difficult and Basque raids made travel hazardous.
The survival of the Basque people, despite the concentrated military efforts directed against them from both the Frankish and Visigothic kingdoms, is illustrative of their persistent ability to flourish amidst adversity. The strongly observed Basque tradition of passing all of the family holdings solely to the elder son worked to accelerate Basque expansion into new areas, as younger sons were often obliged to set out and make their way elsewhere in the world. This custom predominated due to the paucity of usable land which, if divided, would create holdings too small for subsistence.
Gascony, Pamplona, Navarre & French Influence
The Basques proved impossible to dislodge from the territories they settled. The military effectiveness against the Basques proved largely unsuccessful. Basque raids upon population centers occurred throughout the 7th century. However, efforts to subdue the Basques had to be discontinued in 711 in order to meet the Arab invasion of Spain; and it is at this time that the Basques start to spread themselves down into the valleys. By the early 8th century the Basques had formed a new region known as Gascony (seemingly derived from Vascony). In this way, the Basque region again served as a frontier zone between Christian and Muslim powers.
The emergence of Gascony is shrouded in much mystery and little is known of its origins. The surplus of younger sons and their readiness to export themselves to create their own fortunes elsewhere was certainly behind the creation of Gascony. (And, incidentally, it would continue to be future impetus much later in time, in the 16-19th centuries, as evidenced by Basque expansion overseas to North and South America.)
In 766, Pippin the Short launched a major invasion and defeated the Gascons who eventually swore allegiance to the Franks. It was also around this time that the Basques abandoned their paganism and became Christians. During this era of history, a charge of paganism could be a very damning accusation. As a result of this French influence, there ensued a diminishment of the Basque language from much of greater Gascony between the 7th and 12th centuries. Gascony would eventually evolve an identity quite detached from that of the older Basque heartlands of the western Pyrenees.
As mentioned, the Visigothic kings ceased campaigning against the Vascones in 711 because they needed to face the Arab invasion. The Visigoths were fully overthrown by the Arabs, but the Arabs didn’t reach northern Spain until 714-16, when principal urban centers like Catalonia and Pamplona submitted to them. But northern Spain is where the end of Arab expansion occurred and by the end of the 8th century the Basques were again threatening the towns and could defeat Arab forces via guerrilla activity. The Basques also skirmished with Charlemagne’s Franks. However, in 806, a Frankish expedition crossed the Pyrenees and captured Pamplona from the Umayyad Arab rulers and by 814-40, the Carolingians has assumed the practice of appointing Franks to hold the office of duke of Gascony.
In 824 the Franks were defeated and Frankish rule in Pamplona ended, with Pamplona becoming an independent kingdom. Viking raiding in France caused a decline in the authority of the Carolingians, particularly after the death of Charles the Bald in 877. This affected the Basques of Gascony by preventing further social and cultural absorption into the French orbit. At this time the duchy of Gascony appeared, which was the first recognizable political institution to take shape among the Basques. Gascony became more urbanized as it had town sites of considerable antiquity, such as Bordeaux. A Navarrese monarchy also eventually emerged, which maintained an independent existence until the 16th century.
So, we see that the kings ruling in Pamplona didn’t exercise authority over all the Basques. The dukes of Gascony were independent and likely aligned with the Frankish kings. A Navarrese monarch arose as did the kingdom of Leon, which founded the city of Burgos in 884. Contention and periodic conflict over the control of territory occurred between the rulers of Pamplona and competing kingdoms.
Camino de Santiago
In the 9-11th- centuries, the growth of the pilgrimage route to Santiago developed. Many monasteries and churches were erected due to the needs of pilgrims on the route to Santiago. The pilgrimage to Santiago has never ceased from the time of the discovery of St. James remains in 812 AD to the present. Known as the Camino de Santiago, this network of pilgrimage trails leads to the shrine of the Apostle St. James, in the cathedral of Santiago, where tradition has it that the remains of the saint are interred. This pilgrimage is considered one of the three most important for Christians, along with Rome and Jerusalem.
Camino Routes
As a result of the Camino pilgrimages, French ideas and institutions infiltrated the area during the 11th century. French pilgrims often described the Basque inhabitants as uncouth and barbarous. With increased patronage, the church was expanding its institutional hold on society.
The cult of the pilgrim route exercised a considerable effect upon the areas through which the pilgrims passed, manifesting itself particularly in architecture: bridges, monasteries and churches. Abbots and monks were drawn to the area, largely from France. A substantial element of the population became French, particularly in Estella and Pamplona. French artistic and cultural influences tended to overlay the Basque cultural imprint; and in many areas the overt Basque population dissipated.
As a result of French penetration, the 11-13th centuries witnessed the most significant urban development of northern Spain since Roman times. This was accompanied by an influx of new ideas, institutions and elements of population, which further accentuated the division between Basque rural society and that of the towns
Feudalism, Monarchy, War & Discovery
The procedures of vassalage made their appearance in 8th-11th centuries. In general, the would-be vassal made himself his intended lord’s man by kneeling before him and swearing an oath of fidelity. Generally, this was done for a grant by the lord of an estate (fief) in return for various services, usually of a military nature. Vassalage was promoted by the upper echelons of society and ushered in the use of titles like those previously used by the palatine nobility.
Basque ships played an important role in maritime trade. The growth of trade, particularly in wine, provided great opportunities in shipping. As a result, a rising wealthy commercial class developed which would eventually garner enough power to challenge the authority of the lords and bishops.
Once again, the region became a frontier zone during the Hundred Years War, which occurred from 1337 to 1453, between England and France. The conflict arose because English monarchs had historically held titles to lands within the areas of French hegemony, which in effect made them vassals to the kings of France. The status of the English king’s fiefs was therefore a major source of conflict, particularly when French monarchs sought to strip away the lands. By 1337, English holdings had been reduced to only Gascony. The English prevailed initially but Joan of Arc revived French spirit when the English laid siege to Orleans in 1428. Joan of Arc was later captured in 1430 and burned at the stake by the English in 1431, but after her death the war turned dramatically against the English. Bordeaux, Gascony’s capital was besieged and surrendered to the French in 1451. Following their defeat, the English landowners suffered severe financial setbacks due to losing their continental holdings.
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