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    "source_title": "Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911)",
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    "chunk_id": "1911:basoche:7b458c289ab4",
    "title": "BASOCHE",
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    "verified_text": "basoche, or bazoche, with the analogous forms basoque, basogue and bazouges; from the lat. _basilica_, in the sense of law courts, a french gild of clerks, from among whom legal representatives (_procureurs_) were recruited. this gild was very ancient, even older than the gild of the _procureurs_, with which it was often at variance. it dated, no doubt, from the time when the profession of _procureur_ (procurator, advocate or legal representative) was still free in the sense that persons rendering that service to others when so permitted by the law were not yet public and ministerial officers. for this purpose there was established near each important juridical centre a group of clerks, that is to say, of men skilled in law (or reputed to be so), who at first would probably fill indifferently the roles of representative or advocate. such was the origin of the basoche of the parlement of paris; which naturally formed itself into a gild, like other professions and trades in the middle ages. but this organization eventually became disintegrated, dividing up into more specialized bodies: that of the advocates, whose history then begins; and that of legal representatives, whose profession was regularized in 1344, and speedily became a saleable charge. the remnant of the original clerks constituted the new basoche, which thenceforward consisted only of those who worked as clerks for the procureurs, the richer ones among them aspiring themselves to attain the position of procureur. they all, however, retained some traces of their original conditions. \"they are admitted,\" writes an 18th-century author, \"to plead before m. le lieutenant civil _sur les referes_[1] and before m. le juge auditeur; so that the procureurs of these days are but the former clerks of the basoche, admitted to officiate in important cases in preference to other clerks and to their exclusion.\" from its ancient past the basoche had also preserved certain picturesque forms and names. it was called the \"kingdom of the _basoche_,\" and for a long time its chief, elected each year in general assembly, bore the title of \"king.\" this he had to give up towards the end of the 16th century, by order, it is said, of henry iii., and was thenceforth called the \"chancellor.\" the basoche had besides its _maitres des requetes_, a grand court-crier, a referendary, an advocate-general, a _procureur-general_, a chaplain, &c. in early days, and until the first half of the 16th century, it was organized in companies in a military manner and held periodical reviews or parades (_montres_), sometimes taking up arms in the king's service in time of war. of this there survived later only an annual _cavalcade_, when the members of the basoche went to the royal forest of bondy to cut the maypole, which they afterwards set up in the court-yard of the palais. we hear also of satirical and literary entertainments given by clerks of the palais de justice, and of the moralities played by them in public, which form an important element in the history of the national theatre; but at the end of the 16th century these performances were restricted to the great hall of the palais. to the last the basoche retained two principal prerogatives. (1) in order to be recognized as a qualified procureur it was necessary to have gone through one's \"stage\" in the basoche, to have been entered by name for ten years on its register. it was not sufficient to have been merely clerk to a procureur during the period and to have been registered at his office. this rule was the occasion of frequent conflicts during the 17th and 18th centuries between the members of the basoche and the procureurs, and on the whole, despite certain decisions favouring the latter, the parlement maintained the rights of the basoche. opinion was favourable to it because the _certificats de complaisance_ issued by the procureurs were dreaded. these _certificats_ held good, moreover, in places where there was no basoche. (2) the basoche had judiciary powers recognized by the law. it had disciplinary jurisdiction over its members and decided personal actions in civil law brought by one clerk against another or by an outsider against a clerk. the judgment, at any rate if delivered by a _maitre des requetes_, was authoritative, and could only be contested by a civil petition before the ancient council of the basoche. the chatelet of paris had its special basoche, which claimed to be older even than that of the palais de justice, and there was contention between them as to certain rights. the clerks of the procureurs at the _cour des comptes_ of paris had their own basoche of great antiquity, called the \"empire de galilee.\" the basoche of the palais de justice had in its ancient days the right to create provostships in localities within the jurisdiction of the parlement of paris, and thus there sprang up a certain number of local basoches. others were independent in origin; among such being the \"regency\" of rouen and the basoche of the parlement of toulouse. [v.03 p.0485] see also _repertoire de jurisprudence des guyot; recueil des statuts du royaume de la basoche_ (paris, 1654); l. a. fabre, _etudes historiques sur les clercs de la basoche_ (paris, 1856). (j. p. e.) [1] a procedure for obtaining a provisional judgment on urgent cases. basque provinces (_provincias vascongadas_), a division of north-eastern spain, comprising the three provinces of alava, biscay or vizcaya and guipuzcoa. pop. (1900) 603,596; area 2739 sq. m., the third in density in spain. the territory occupied by the basque provinces forms a triangle bounded on the west and south by the provinces of santander, burgos and logrono, on the east by navarre, on the north by france and the bay of biscay. the french pays basque forms part of the arrondissements of bayonne and mauleon. for an account of the people, their origin, customs and language, see basques. of the provinces, guipuzcoa is the only one which is wholly basque, alava is the least so. its capital, vitoria, is said to have been founded by the gothic king leovigild (581). older than these divisions, the date of which is uncertain, the ancient limits of the dioceses of pamplona, bayonne and calahorra, probably corresponded more nearly to the boundaries of the ancient tribes, the autrigones, the caristi, the varduli and the vascones, with their still differing dialects, than do these civil provinces. leaving aside the legendary and uncertain portion of their history, we find the provinces in some districts dependent allies of navarre, in others of castile. in biscay the counts of haro were lords of biscay from 1093 to 1350. there was a short union with castile under pedro the cruel, but the definitive union did not take place till 1370. in alava the ruling power was the confederation of arriaga (so called after its meeting place), which united the province to the crown of castile in 1332. guipuzcoa, which had been dependent sometimes on navarre, sometimes on castile, was definitively united to castile in 1200. from the year 1425 the provinces were desolated by party wars among the lesser nobles (_parientes mayores_) but these came to an end in 1460-1498, when henry iv. and ferdinand the catholic strengthened the power of the towns and forbade the erection of any fortified house in the country. though the three basque provinces were thus united to the crown of spain, they still remained a land apart (_tierra apartada_). their juntas acted to some extent in common; and although no written federal pact is known to have existed, they employed, as the symbol of their unity, a seal with the word _iruracbat_, \"the three one,\" engraved upon it. they preserved their own laws, customs, _fueros_ (see basques), which the spanish kings swore to observe and maintain. unless countersigned by the juntas the decrees of cortes and spanish legislation or royal orders had no force in the provinces. in the junta of 1481 guipuzcoa alone proposed a treaty of friendship, peace and free trade for ten years with england, and this was signed in westminster, on the 9th of march 1482 (see rymer, _foedera_). the basques still made their own treaties with england and france and are mentioned apart from spain in the treaty of utrecht (1713). they still preserved in their municipal institutions the old style of _republicas_ derived from the _civitates_ and _respublicae_ of ancient rome. this kind of independence and autonomy lasted unchallenged until the death of ferdinand vii. in 1833, when, in default of male heirs, his brother don carlos claimed the throne, confirmed the basque _fueros_, and raised the standard of revolt against his niece, isabel ii. a seven years' war followed, in which an english legion under sir george de lacy evans and a naval force under lord john hay took part. it was ended by the convenio de vergara (august 31st, 1839) in which the concession and modification of the _fueros_ was demanded. the troubled period which followed the expulsion of isabel ii. in 1868 gave opportunity for a second carlist war from 1872 to 1876. this ended, unlike the former one, in the utter defeat of the carlist forces, and left the provinces at the mercy of the government, without terms or agreement. in general government and legislation the provinces were then assimilated to the rest of the nation. after 1876, the provincial parliaments (_diputaciones_) were elected like the other provincial councils of spain, deprived of many privileges and subjected to the ordinary interference of the civil governors. but their representatives, assisted by the senators and deputies of the basque provinces in the cortes, negotiated successive pacts, each lasting several years, securing for the three provinces their municipal and provincial self-government, and the assessment, distribution and collection of their principal taxes and octroi duties, on the understanding that an agreed sum should be paid annually to the state, subject to an increase whenever the national taxation of other provinces was augmented. in december 1906, after long discussion, the contribution of the basque provinces to the state, according to the law of the 21st of july 1876, was fixed for the next twenty years; for the first ten years at 8,500,000 pesetas, for the next ten an additional 500,000 pesetas, from 31st december 1916 to 31st december 1926, the province of guipuzcoa paying in addition 700,000 pesetas to the treasury. these pacts have hitherto been scrupulously observed, and as the local authorities levy the contribution after their own local customs, landed property and the industrial and commercial classes are less heavily taxed in these territories than in the rest of spain. enough is raised, however, besides the amount handed over to the government, to enable the schools, roads, harbours and public works of every kind to be maintained at a standard which compares very favourably with other parts of spain. when the three provinces sent in their first contingent of conscripts in 1877, it was found that all but about sixty knew how to read and write, and succeeding contingents have kept up this high standard. in agriculture the basque provinces and the pays basque were great cider countries, but during the 19th century this was gradually replaced by wine-growing. the chief industries of the basque provinces are the sea fisheries and iron mining. some of the mines round bilbao have been worked from prehistoric times. in 1905 the basque provinces produced 5,302,344 tons of iron, over five millions of which came from biscay, out of a total of 9,395,314 tons for the whole of spain. more than the half of this total 5,845,895 tons, was exported to england. the swords of mondragon in guipuzcoa were renowned before those of toledo. eibar in the same province has long been a small-arms factory. there in the 19th century senor zuloaga successfully revived the artistic inlaying of gold and silver in steel and iron. bibliography.--of older works, though often uncritical, r. p. henao's _averiguaciones de las antiguedades de cantabria_ (salamanca, 1688) is still valuable (new edition, 1894). for all that relates to the manners and customs of the people, _corografia de guipuzcoa_, by r. p. m. de larramendi, s.j., is indispensable. written about 1750, it was first printed in barcelona in 1882 (later edition, san sebastian, 1896). there are excellent chapters on the basque provinces in the _introduccion a la historia natural, y a la geografia fisica de espana_, by d. guillermo bowles (madrid, 1775). _el guipuzcoano instruido_ (san sebastian, 1780), in the form of a dictionary, gives full details of the life, the rights, duties and obligations of a basque citizen of that date. the _diccionario geografico-historico de espana_, tome i., ii. _el reyno de navarra senorio de vizcaya y provincias de alava y guipuzcoa_ (madrid, 1802), is full of local information, but with a strong bias in favour of the central government. the best works on the various editions of the _fueros_ are _historia de la legislacion ... civil de espana_, by a. marichalar, marques de montesa, and cayetano manrique; _fueros de navarra vizcaya, guipuzcoa y alava_ (madrid, 2nd ed., 1868); and the _noticia de las cosas memorables de guipuzcoa_, by d. pablo de gorosabel (tolosa, 1899-1901), the last volume of which by c. de echegaray, gives the legislative acts down to may 1900. _las provincias vascongadas a fines de la edad media_, by d. carmelo de echegaray (san sebastian, 1895), is excellent. there is a _historia de bizcaya_, by dr e. de labayru, and a _compendio_ of the same by fermin herran (bilbao, 1903). d. carmelo de echegaray, cronista de las provincias vascongadas, with his colleagues d. serapio mugica, f. soraluce, and other historians, has examined, catalogued and indexed the municipal archives of all the towns, without which no true history can be written. several discoveries of important missing documents and mss. were thus made. the development of the basque mining industry is fully described in _las minas de hierro de la provincia de vizcaya, progressos realizados en esta region derde 1870 hasta 1899_ (bilbao, 1900). (w. we.)",
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