1 Joël Supéry, The old Gascon law, a Scandinavian law ? Academia, March 10, 2021 The old Gascon law, a Scandinavian law ? Legal and political traces of the Viking presence in Gascony Joel Supéry Bordeaux, March 9, 2021 Le Petit Lavisse, the book for schoolchildren of the Third Republic, evoked Vercingetorix, Joan of Arc and the Normans... in Normandy. French historiography on the Viking invasions has been Norman-centric since that time. This is an archaism inherited from the great era of the Roman national. The possibility of an invasion followed by a Scandinavian principality in Gascony has never been considered. By principality, we mean an organized political power with an armed force and a lasting influence on European diplomacy. This was never considered because in 1911, in the wake of the nationalist mythology forged by Jules Michelet and spread by Ernest Lavisse, Norman historians decided that they would study the founders of Normandy, the Danes to the north of the Loire, and ignore the deeds of the Norwegian pirates to the south. Lucien Musset was still on the same line in 1971: "The Norwegian raids south of the Channel, pure piracy ventures, have left no lasting traces on the Loire, the Garonne or the Bay of Biscay. " (Musset, p.132). In other words, the Vikings south of the Loire did not deserve to be studied. However, the annals of Saint Bertin are formal: they are the same leaders who are famous north and south of the Loire. Asgeir who took Rouen in 841 and Beauvais in 851, seized
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Joël Supéry, The old Gascon law, a Scandinavian law ? Academia,
March 10, 2021
The old Gascon law, a Scandinavian law ?
Legal and political traces of the Viking presence in Gascony
Joel Supéry
Bordeaux, March 9, 2021
Le Petit Lavisse, the book for schoolchildren of the Third
Republic, evoked Vercingetorix,
Joan of Arc and the Normans... in Normandy. French historiography
on the Viking invasions
has been Norman-centric since that time. This is an archaism
inherited from the great era of
the Roman national.
The possibility of an invasion followed by a Scandinavian
principality in Gascony has never
been considered. By principality, we mean an organized political
power with an armed force
and a lasting influence on European diplomacy.
This was never considered because in 1911, in the wake of the
nationalist mythology forged
by Jules Michelet and spread by Ernest Lavisse, Norman historians
decided that they would
study the founders of Normandy, the Danes to the north of the
Loire, and ignore the deeds of
the Norwegian pirates to the south. Lucien Musset was still on the
same line in 1971: "The
Norwegian raids south of the Channel, pure piracy ventures, have
left no lasting traces on the
Loire, the Garonne or the Bay of Biscay. " (Musset, p.132). In
other words, the Vikings south
of the Loire did not deserve to be studied.
However, the annals of Saint Bertin are formal: they are the same
leaders who are famous
north and south of the Loire. Asgeir who took Rouen in 841 and
Beauvais in 851, seized
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Saintes in 845 and Bordeaux in 848. According to Lucien Musset,
Asgeir was Danish when
he attacked Rouen and became Norwegian when he laid siege to the
capital of the kingdom of
Aquitaine. A ten-year-old child understands that something is
wrong.
The distinction made by the Norman school is totally artificial and
has no historical basis. It is
a cliché that has been obediently repeated without ever being
questioned. A scientific
nonsense that has lasted for more than a century. It is because I
denounce this immobile
relentlessness of historical research that I am accused of being a
conspirator, a negationist, an
impostor.
I have nothing against historians who do their work honestly. On
the other hand, when
historians who have not done their work properly refuse to admit it
in order to preserve their
reputation and their careers, I consider that these historians
behave not as researchers, but as
guardians, not of the Temple, but of their academic comfort. I
consider that history, which is
our collective memory, a common good for all, deserves better than
to become a career tool
for technocrats without courage or stature.
There are two certainties concerning the Vikings in Gascony. The
men from the North came,
no one disputes that, and historians have never studied them, no
historian says otherwise. The
only uncertainty concerns the nature of the Scandinavian presence.
Some want to see simple
settlements without a future, others, the medievalist Rénée
Mussot-Goulard and myself,
consider that a real Scandinavian principality existed in
Gascony.
In fact, no researcher, be he a linguist, archaeologist, historian
or ethnologist, has ever looked
for traces of the passage of the Scandinavians in Gascony. However,
it is enough to read the
texts, to study the traditions, to look twice at the archaeological
discoveries or to study the
toponymy to identify these traces.
There is a fifth field in which to search, the legal field. The
Scandinavians applied an original
law that we know well thanks to the Icelandic Saga. Very few legal
traces exist in Normandy,
but this is logical: this region was founded 80 years after the
beginning of the invasions by
men belonging to the third generation of invaders, men whose
mothers and grandmothers
were Christians, men in the process of acculturation. (See Could
Rollo be the grandson of
Bjorn Ragnarsson Ironside?). On the other hand, those who invaded
Gascony in 840 were still
strongly impregnated with Scandinavian culture and would have left
more Nordic traditions in
Gascony than their followers in Normandy.
The Vikings remained masters of Gascony for 142 years and logically
left political and legal
vestiges of their passage. The medievalist Alban Gautier found it
interesting in May 2018 to
look for traces of Scandinavian political institutions, but a month
later, without having taken
the time to conduct his research, he concluded that they did not
exist and that therefore to
evoke a Scandinavian principality in Gascony was a sham. Obviously,
this is not the way to
conduct research. In his defense, Alban Gautier never claimed to be
a researcher. (See Supéry,
Viking Principalty in Gascony, imposture or pragmatism ?)
A quick inventory of legal and political traditions is enough, in
our eyes, to raise the question
of their possible Scandinavian origin. It is up to you to
judge!
I- Scandinavian political institutions in the heart of
Gascony.
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The traditional Gascon society remained the most alive in the
French Basque Country; in
Labourd, Basse-Navarre and Soule. This society was dominated by the
membership of a
house, the oustau, the casal or the etche according to the region.
The master was a free man,
the only one entitled to participate in the assemblies that
governed the life of the community,
an assembly called biltzar in Labourd. In other words, this
political organization was totally
foreign to the feudal system that governed human and political
relations everywhere in
France.
A- The Cap de casa, like a bondi in his skali.
In the Scandinavian world, the bondi, the head of the family,
master of a skali, is the only
actor of the political and social life. To get an idea of his
status, let us look at the description
of the Gascon cap de Casa and that of the master of the Basque
etche.
In 2001, Maïté Lafourcade, Doctor in History of Law at the
University of Bayonne, reports in
the chapter devoted to Basque assemblies: "The individual in Basque
country, faded before
the interest of the house, almost sacred" (Lafourcade, p.73). Paul
Ourliac, member of the
Institute, specialist in the History of Law, professor in Toulouse,
wrote in 1993: "Everywhere,
the house maintains the unity of the family, of which the master of
the house -the one who in
Béarn, "blesses the table"- is naturally the head [...] The "cap de
casa" is at home an absolute
monarch; he possesses domestic justice over his wife, his children
and his servants; it is to
him that one must bring complaints of the offenses they have
committed: he can take their
defense and expose himself to the vengeance of the victim".
(Ourliac, p.179).
Those who have read the Icelandic Saga will easily recognize the
status of the bondi in
Scandinavian society. The bondi is also a member of a
community.
In Gascony," Ouliac continues, "the man belongs to a community, the
Besiau (Vesis, vicinus,
neighbor): 'It is a meeting of free and equal men. Only the heads
of families, owners of a
house, belong to it. "This description fits word for word with the
Scandinavian society
contemporary with the invasions. "The neighbors participate in all
the acts of life, they are
witnesses or guarantors in the contracts, cojurers in the lawsuits,
they must lend their
assistance when they are called by the cry "Biaffore" or "via
fora". (Ourliac, p.178). This
community exploits the ground in common: "In the forests, the
inhabitants can take the wood
which are necessary to them, wood of fire, beams of the houses,
coffins, instruments of
kitchen, confection of the bridges..." (Ourliac, p.178). It is the
same of the pastures, hunting
and fishing. The mountain is the collective property of the
community.
This collective property was not specific to Scandinavian society,
but it was one of its
attributes.
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B- The Biltzar, like the althing.
These free men met in assemblies to settle their current
affairs.
"In each parish, or even in each hamlet, explains Maïté Lafourcade,
the masters of the house
met on Sundays after mass, under the porch of the church [...] In
Basse-Navarre, the general
court included in principle all the masters of the house of the
country or of the valley,
including the noble houses " (Lafourcade, p. 75).
This gathering of heads of families was the tradition throughout
Gascony, the Pyrenees and
the Basque Country, lands long dominated by men from the North. In
the Scandinavian
world, these gatherings were called things. The toponyms in Tin,
Din, Sin, and even Tilh in
Gascony (but also Ten, Den, Sen and Teil) could be the remains of
these things.
"The provincial assembly of Labourd or biltzar met at least once a
year in Ustaritz... Each
parish had a vote whatever the number of its inhabitants. This
legal system, animated by a
powerful community spirit, resulted in a type of unitary society
where all men were free and
all houses were legally equal, and where the interest of each
person merged with the general
interest. "
There is no better definition of Scandinavian organization and
community spirit. The
provincial assembly was called the althing among the Northmen, the
assembly of all. This
name could have given rise to several toponyms which could be
declined according to the
following forms: Hal/ty, Har/ty, Han/ty, Hau/ty, but also variants
in -dy and -sy. These
toponyms could designate ancient althing. Ausseing (Hau/sy), Artix
(Har/ty), Audenge
(Hau/dy), Hardy etc... Linguists howl when I take this methodical
approach to a discipline
they want to be literary. I do not claim that all of them
correspond to Scandinavian words
(there are necessarily false friends), but some of them correspond
in their geography to places
chosen by the men of the North, which reinforces the Scandinavian
presumption.
When the althing is located on a hill, one can find derivatives of
althin(g)haug, the hill of the
althing: Altillac, Autignac, Antignac etc... If the site is
picturesque and without strategic
interest, that is to say that it is beautiful and neutral, chances
are that it is indeed a
Scandinavian meeting place. These sites have often remained
deserted. Sometimes, they
became villages. The hamlet, always off the main roads, devoid of
commercial interest, often
remained tiny. The war memorials of 14-18 rarely have more than 10
names. In general, the
hamlet is crowned by a very old church built on the pagan meeting
place: Altillac (Corrèze)
and Antignac (Charente) are typical. Normally, devoid of strategic
interest, the site has never
been fortified. An exception is Lautignac (Haute-Garonne) where a
moat indicates the
presence of a small castle. This small half-timbered castle was
destroyed before the
Revolution. In fact, it was more the lordly residence of the owner
of the surrounding forest
than a fortress with a strategic vocation. If the toponyms
correspond to a site of this type, then
the probability of a Scandinavian origin increases. For those who
doubt that Lautignac comes
from althinhaug, a villager told me that the Lautignacois could
also be called Altignacois
"because of the Roman Altiniacum". Obviously, no Roman remains have
ever been found in
this isolated place.
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I know that some people will reproach me with this toponymic
approach. However, as
Chruchill used to say : « Only those who never try never fail ». A
researcher has to try and
accept to fail.
"With regulatory power, the biltzar issued regulations with
sanctions for the maintenance of
order, economic development [...] He distributed the total sum due
to the royal tax authorities
[...] He could also create local taxes to cover the expenses of the
country [...] He distributed
among the parishes the contingent of the local militia, made up of
a thousand men, which
ensured the police force of the country and ensured its defense
against the enemies of the
outside. He made treaties of good correspondence with the Basques
of Guipuzcoa of Biscay,
regulating in times of war as in times of peace the use of the
sea.... He organized the
distribution of corn to the poor". (Lafourcade, p. 76).
The functions of the biltzar are almost the same as those of the
althing, the assembly of all.
The local militia is in perfect conformity with the Scandinavian
tradition. By chance, there is
a place called Halty in France, phonetically very close to althing.
This place is in the Basque
Country, in Ustaritz where the biltzar was located. The academics
of Caen will claim that this
is a coincidence and that Halty does not come from althing; they
are surely right since they
hold diplomas that prove their competence.
The biltzar of Labourd had equivalents in the other 6 Basque
provinces. These assemblies
also existed in Gascony. As in the Basque Country, the nobles and
the religious were not
allowed to sit in them. Belonging to a noble or religious
hierarchy, they were no longer free
men. This exclusion of nobles might explain why the most powerful
families in Gascony were
so attached to their title of "Sire", Sieur. Thus, the Albrets
refused any title of nobility for 5
centuries, preferring their title of Sire, a title which is not a
title, but which allowed them to sit
in these assemblies, real places of power in Gascony. Obviously,
the Great of Gascony (Sire
de Caupenne, Sire de Budos, Sire de Lesparre) preferred their
participation in local political
life to a title of nobility, even if granted by the king.
As a result of this communal system, feudalism arrived only very
late in Gascony and
serfdom was virtually absent. The Lords of Albret had no vassals,
but made contracts with the
local assemblies. This contractual dimension of power relations is
typically Scandinavian.
Such institutions never existed in Normandy, because Normandy was
founded 70 years after
Gascony by third generation Vikings in the process of
acculturation. The conquerors of
Normandy were much less Scandinavian than the conquerors of Gascony
in 840, which
explains why the Norman political system is much less original than
the Gascon. The fact that
Norman scholars consider Normandy as the standard for Scandinavian
settlements in France
explains why they never recognised the Scandinavian elements that
were so visible in
Gascony. They did not have the same ones at home, so those in
Gascony could not be
Scandinavian!
C - The fors or fueros, a social contract between the chief and his
'constituents'.
The fors in Gascony and fueros in Spain were political contracts
that united a community of
free men to the king or a powerful lord : "This freedom of the
heads of families is evident in
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the oaths they swear to their counts, oaths similar to those
exchanged by the Great. (Ourliac,
p.178).
Thus, we find in political law the contractual dimension, typical
of Scandinavian culture. A
chief would propose a felag, a contract, to his men and they would
adhere to it or not.
« Valleys such as Aran, Aspe and Andorra administered themselves,"
adds Ourliac, "and dealt
with their lord almost on an equal footing [...] In Aragon, Bigorre
and Bearn, the right of
rebellion of the subjects was openly recognised ». The fors of
Sobrarbe and the oath of the
Aragonese stipulated: "We are as good as you; we make you our king
on condition that you
preserve our laws and our liberties; and if not, not [...] The
preamble to the fors of Béarn
repeats, not without some insolence, the same idea: the viscount
must be the first to swear an
oath to be a "good lord" to his subjects, and we are reminded that
the Béarnese had murdered
two viscounts who had broken their word" (Ourliac, p.184).
All these provisions resonate perfectly with Scandinavian law.
Regis Boyer recalls the
warning given by the bondi to their newly elected king: "But if you
do not want it to be as we
say, we will attack you, kill you and will not tolerate hostilities
or injustices from you. This is
how our ancestors did it. They threw five kings into a quagmire at
the thing of Muli, who had
shown themselves to be arrogant, like you towards us. Say quickly
which side you want to
take ». (Boyer, p.70).
Again, nothing resembles Gascon political law more than
Scandinavian law. This kinship also
appears in civil law.
D – Sureties and hostages.
"The fors are a kind of social contract [...] This one, as Gregory
VII rightly indicated, has a
double function: it must render justice and maintain peace, and
this duality appears very
clearly in the opposition that the fors always make between
sureties and hostages: hostages
guarantee the peace of the country, sureties the good
administration of justice'. (Ourliac,
p.208).
"Before entering Aspe, the viscount, in order to guarantee his
safety, must receive eighteen
hostages whom he chooses and give two men from his retinue as a
guarantee of their return.
The hostages are held and fed; they are responsible for any
aggression whose perpetrator
could not be caught". (Ourliac, p.208).
According to Ourliac, these hostages are typical of the
Scandinavian world.
The counterpart of hostages in the diplomatic world is constituted
by sureties in the civil
world. Paul Ourliac makes a clear distinction between the two
statuses: 'Sureties intervene in
a trial either to ensure the appearance of the parties or to
guarantee the payment of fines or
sentences; hostages must be given as soon as a state of war
exists'. (Ourliac, p.198).
At the beginning of a trial the plaintiff must give a suretie. The
surety is a free man who
stands by his friend.
"All sureties appear to be subject to the same obligations: they
must be solvent, possess a
house or sufficient property. " (Ourliac, p.212).
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This is a way of guaranteeing procedural excesses. A friend must be
convinced of his right to
sue.
Brunner saw these bonds and hostages as similar to Scandinavian
practices. If hostages are
part of the political tradition, sureties bring us into private
law.
II- Inheritance law, maritime law and criminal law, a Scandinavian
taste.
The institutional elements and the structure of power lead us back
to the Scandinavian world,
but this Scandinavian influence is also to be found in private law,
as the existence of sureties
suggests.
A - A criminal law, resolutely Scandinavian.
Earlier, Paul Ourliac mentioned the cry of Biaffore or Via Fora.
When an assault was
committed, the victim would shout this cry and all those around him
would immediately come
to his aid. It was a delegation of justice, an essential element of
collective justice.
What Ourliac calls Biaffore, Montaigne calls Bihore. (In Gascony,
the « f » is equivalent to an
aspirated « h »). This rallying cry is comparable in its functions
to the Norman rallying cry,
the haro. According to some, haro was a call for justice from the
founder of Normandy, Rollo
(whose name would not have been Rolf, but Harold) (See Saga des
Vikings, une autre histoire
des invasions, Autrement, 2018). Could bihore be a call to justice
for the founder of
Scandinavian Gascony? This would make sense in a Scandinavian
context. Yet the founder
was named Bjorn. This reference to the founder as well as the
existence of Scandinavian
practices are further arguments in favour of a principality, i.e. a
sovereign enclave.
Those who claim that the cry derives from the Latin via fora cannot
rely on any tradition or
text. Not only will they find no via fora cry elsewhere in Europe,
but nowhere in the Roman
Empire is there any trace of such a tradition. The only basis for
this Latin origin is purely
paronymic.
In reality, this tradition is typically Scandinavian, as attested
by the Norman haro and
comparable cries found on the Isle of Man and the Channel
Islands.
Paul Ourliac is going to take an interest in Gascon criminal law
and he tells us: "One of the
most serious crimes, sanctioned by all the fors of the major fine,
is the assault on a house. "
(Ourliac, p.179).
This is not a simple "burglary". "An article in the Jugés de
Morlaas relates the assault on a
house by two hundred armed men ». Paul Ourliac does not mention the
fate of the assailants,
but in the Scandinavian world, the assault on a house was almost
ritualised: the house was set
on fire and the occupants were waited for to come out to massacre
them, men, women and
children without distinction. It would be interesting to know if
the assault was as definitive in
Gascony.
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The storming of houses was a very common crime in medieval Iceland.
It was the way to end
a quarrel by eliminating all members of a clan. Successful house
raiding was the ambition of
every man seeking revenge. Surprisingly, this crime was also a
'habitual crime' in Basque
society.
The ultimate punishment in the old Gascon law was banishment.
Pierre de Marca mentions it
in his Histoire de Bearn in 1640. Banishment is certainly a
Germanic tradition that is not
typically Scandinavian, but it is also Scandinavian. Pierre de
Marca also mentions the
Vueregilt, a compensation ending a cycle of revenge. The wergeld,
the price of blood, was
known to the Franks, but also to the Scandinavians. However, unlike
the Franks, who were
content to lead expeditions against the Gascons and the Basques,
the Scandinavians occupied
the country.
There is another area in which Germanic law is present in Gascony,
maritime law. This too
can hardly be attributed to the Franks or Visigoths.
B- A Nordic maritime law.
In Scandinavia, kings had the right to claim ownership of wrecks
that washed up on their
shores; these things brought by the waves were called vagreki,
varech in Gascony.
The right of kelp or wreck is typically Scandinavian. It exists in
Normandy and Brittany
which is natural. But there is also in Gascony what is abnormal
according to the Norman
school. The right of Wreck was very important there, not so much
because of shipwrecks, but
because of whaling. It was estimated that nearly two whales out of
three harpooned managed
to escape their pursuers, but succumbed to their injuries at sea.
Their corpses were then
brought back to the coast by sea currents. Gascon law provided that
the lord who found a
whale stranded on his beach was entitled to one third of the catch.
A second third was due to
the crew that harpooned the whale, and a third to the owner of the
whaleboat.
Whale oil was the « white gold » of the time and a guarantee of
substantial income. The
Gascon kelp right was therefore closely linked to whaling. Whaling
was practised in Biarritz
and Capbreton by the Agots, i.e. descendants of the Goths. These
Goths hunting whales with
Scandinavian techniques were logically Scandinavians, so would be
the right of kelp. (See
Supéry, The Aquitain miracle and the navy of Eleanor). As for the
Roles d’Oléron written
down by Eleanor, they are mainly rules concerning armament and
shipwreck, of which
Aquitaine, for a reason that still escapes many archaeologists and
historians, had become a
specialist.
This Gascon maritime law is Scandinavian, as is the use of clinker
in shipbuilding and
whaling. Hérubel and Yturbide had suggested that whaling, practised
with Scandinavian
techniques, would have been imported into Gascony by whalers from
Cotentin in the 11th
century. But this hypothesis is not based on any text. As for the
clinker, the archaeologist Eric
Rieth thinks that it arrived in Gascony from England after the
coronation of Henry II
Plantagenet in 1154. However, after the conquest of 1066, William
the Conqueror had
forbidden the English to build ships. When Henry II became King of
England, his kingdom
had stopped building ships for 88 years. The Aquitanian clink did
not come from England,
nor did the whale hunting from Normandy.
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C- An inheritance law protecting the community.
Gascony owes part of its reputation to Alexandre Dumas and his
cadets who went to the
capital to become the Musketeers. These cadets were victims of an
unequal inheritance law
that allowed the father to give the family estate to his eldest
son. The cadets had to leave to
make a life for themselves elsewhere. This inheritance law is
totally atypical in the south of
France, which is supposed to be a country of Roman law advocating
equal sharing between
heirs.
This inheritance law allows the father to transmit the family
patrimony to a single heir. The
aim is to preserve the integrity of the house and the land around
it.
Gascony had a full birthright (Droit d’aînesse absolu): 'M.
Poumarède has clearly indicated,'
says Ourliac, 'that the privilege of masculinity only appeared in
the 13th century under the
influence of feudal law. The old Pyrenean law of the west knew only
the full birthright, which
at the time, is without other example, by recognising not only the
equality of women, but their
right to become head of the family. " (Ourliac, p.181).
This status of the woman is totally exorbitant from Roman law,
which has always considered
the wife as a minor, the daughter of her father, then of her
husband, who speaks and decides
for her. In Gascon society, as in Scandinavian society, women had a
real place in the home
and enjoyed a certain independence. As in Scandinavia, women could
recover their dowry
when the marriage was dissolved. The Scandinavian woman could
divorce. In Gascony, it
seems that only the death of the husband could put an end to the
marriage and give the right to
recover the dowry. A concession to the Roman patriarchy.
It is therefore the eldest, boy or girl, who inherits. This was the
law in force in Labourd. But
in other places, the choice was even freer. Thus, 'In Andorra, a
girl may be designated as
pubilla, but she is not necessarily the eldest'. (Ourliac, p.180).
In other words, the father was
free to choose among his children his heir. This is typical of the
Scandinavian tradition which
allowed the father to bequeath his fortune to the child he deemed
most suitable, and this could
even be a natural child. William the Bastard is the embodiment of
this Scandinavian
flexibility.
This law of succession made the fortune of certain families,
notably the Albrets, who gave
France her most popular king, Henri IV, family who succeeded in
accumulating an enormous
fortune thanks to this Scandinavian rule of succession. This
Scandinavian law was applied in
the jurisdiction of the Coutume de Dax, the coastal area where the
Scandinavian presence was
most durable, but not in the Garonne valley where Roman law
applied. To escape the
egalitarian division, the Albrets invented a custom made to
measure, the coutume de
Casteljaloux, which allowed them to derogate from Roman law for the
allocation of their
lands in the Garonne valley. The fact that the Albrets remained
fiercely attached to their title
of "Sire" for nearly five centuries in order to be able to sit in
the assemblies, that they were
treated as shipwreckers by the nobility because they prospered with
the right of kelp, that they
financed maritime expeditions and chose their heirs may suggest
that this Gascon family was
of Scandinavian origin.
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The purpose of this unequal inheritance law was to protect the
house. Preventing the
disappearance of the house kept the balance in the community. The
number of voters had to
remain stable for the system of government to continue.
This inheritance law was complemented in this task by the
matrimonial law. If two heads of
household married, one of them had to give up his house and leave
it to his younger sibling. If
the man chose his wife's house, he gave up his house and took the
name of his wife's house.
Inheritance law prevents disappearance, matrimonial law prevents
accumulation. The aim of
these two laws was to maintain the balance in the community and the
number of Cap de Casa
in the Besiau. This balance is fundamental in Scandinavian society.
When conquerring a new
land, the Viking chiefs shared the land equally. Each man was given
a piece of land that was
neither too small nor too large to live on without neglecting it.
Rollo had as much land as his
men. This principle of equilibrium in equality is what animates
Pyrenean law.
A right with "obscure" origins
Banishment, wergeld, house assault and rallying cry... these are
Germanic traditions. Some of
them could be attributed to the Franks or even the Visigoths. But
the law of succession is not
Frankish, the Franks applied the Salic law; that is to say the
egalitarian division between
heirs. As for the Visigoths, they had been Romanised for a century
when they settled in
Gascony. When they composed Alaric's code, it was a codification of
Roman laws, not
Germanic laws. The Germanic law of Gascony, Scandinavian in all its
attributes, cannot be of
Frankish or Visigothic origin. As for maritime traditions, they
came neither from England nor
Normandy, although they are Nordic. It is admirable to see how the
Ligurians, the Romans,
the Visigoths, the Franks, the Normans, the English and the
primitive Pyreneans were in turn
called upon to explain the originality of Gascon law and
traditions, which in all their variants
are Scandinavian.
But this Scandinavian origin is inaudible to medievalists from
Gascony and Normandy who
are stuck in the ruts of knowledge traced by their elders. It takes
shoulders to get out of ruts
and shoulder training is not part of university training.
Paul Ourliac himself was caught in these ruts ; he raised the
question of the origin of this
right. "The recourse to private vengeance, the generalisation of
voluntary or legal
compositions and even the system of proof can hardly be explained
by Germanic influences,
which we do not know how they reached the Pyrenees. Especially with
regard to the system
of proof or the taking of hostages, they can be found in Celtic and
Scandinavian law, which
cannot be imagined to have been known in the Pyrenees". (Ourliac,
p.189)..
Paul Ourliac's lack of imagination is all the more remarkable given
that the law professor
wrote a little earlier: 'The high valleys were, by their very
location, safe from invasion (sic).
Elsewhere, the threat was constant. The battle of Taller in 981
liberated western Gascony
from the Normans. " (Ourliac, p.184). In the historiographical
tradition, Ourliac considers that
the invaders settled in the rich plains and pushed the original
populations into the desolate
mountains. This idea is an unfounded cliché: the Scandinavians were
mountain people and
they never looked at the Pyrenees as desolate mountains, but on the
contrary as sunny valleys
leading to Spanish and Mediterranean prosperity. However, the same
author wrote: 'Until
11
Joël Supéry, The old Gascon law, a Scandinavian law ? Academia,
March 10, 2021
their defeat in 982, the Normans threatened the Somport and
Roncesvalles and the road to
Spain passed through Bigorre: from Gavarnie one could easily reach
the Cinca and Ebro
valleys, from Cauterets one could reach the Tena valley. "
(Ourliac, p.219).
Thus, the Vikings 'threatened the Somport', but 'the high valleys'
remained 'safe from
invasion'. The historian is in the middle of a contradiction like
all those who try to understand
the history of Gascony by ignoring the invasion of 840.
Once again, a preconceived idea - that the Vikings were river men -
prevents a researcher
from making an obvious link.
After rejecting the Scandinavian origin, Paul Ourliac writes: "It
is better to admit that these
are practices that come from very far away, that had subsisted
obscurely in the valleys whose
Romanisation had been superficial and that resurfaced in the 6th or
7th century, at the time
when the gods of the Iberian and Ligurian pantheon reappeared in
the Pyrenees. (Ourliac,
p.189).
"Obscurely'.
Rather than considering an obvious hypothesis (he admits that the
Vikings remained in
Gascony until 982), the historian takes refuge in obscurity. His
obscurantism is that of those
who refuse to consider the Scandinavian hypothesis in Gascony, a
hypothesis that is
nevertheless attested by contemporary sources. This academic
negationism is still alive and
well today.
Some historians think that in order to discover new things in 2021,
it is necessary to discover
documents that have never been studied. They are once again victims
of academic
brainwashing. In reality, to make discoveries in history, as
elsewhere, it is enough to ask
questions that have never been asked, but to do so, one must be
able to leave the ruts traced by
one's elders.
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