Una anotación en euskera en las cuentas del reino de Navarra a finales del siglo XIII

Abstract

The present article analyses a brief phrase written in Basque which appears in the account books of the bailiff in Saint Jean Pie de Port (“Ultrapuertos”) for the years 1293 and 1294. The note is incomplete, complicating both translation and comprehension. Possible interpretations are, however, discussed within the context of the tax system in force in the late 13th-early 14th century. The complex process involved in drafting the accounts, checking them and writing up the last version, together with final inclusion in inventories, may well at some stage have led to this mention of an unfinished procedure. Nonetheless, we are presented with an exceptional, early example of Basque written by a civil servant magistrate in the employment of the Navarresse administration.