A Diachronic Analysis of the Religious Role of the Woman in Euskal Herria: The Serora and her Helpers1 Roslyn M. Frank University of Iowa Email: roz-frank@uiowa.edu Part 1. The Office of the Serora In the churches of Euskal Herria there exists today a religious institution of great antiquity and one that clearly demonstrates the high status traditionally afforded to the female in Basque culture. The serora, also referred to as sorora, beata, freila, benoîte, benedicta and beata, is a woman who acts as an adjunct to the priest in the ritual activities of the Catholic Church.2 In the 20th century her continuing presence represents an anachronism and anomaly when viewed in light of repeated decisions by the Catholic hierarchy concerning the officially approved role of women in the Church.3 The morphology of this institution will be viewed from two perspectives. First, it will be analyzed synchronically as a set of functions or structures constituting the field of activity of the serora. Then, in order to understand the significance of the survival of these functions, a diachronic approach will be utilized to trace their evolution back into the indigenous religious structures and associated patterns of belief. Having established a hypothetical model for the pre-existing morphology of the institution, it will be possible to describe the way in which the earlier set of structures was modified by increasing contact with the forms and contents of Christianity.4 With the passage of time the formative elements of the indigenous substratum become overlaid and modified by their fusion with Christianity. Nonetheless, as will be demonstrated, the syncretistic processes at work allowed the earlier structures to survive under the guise of what are understood to be Christian rituals and symbols. Thus the original indigenous patterns continued to function as generative infrastructures latent even in their modern counterparts. 1 The current document is a translation of a Basque-language article published in 2001, namely: Roslyn M. Frank, “Euskal Herriko Eginkizun Erligiosoaren Inguruko Azterketa Diakronikoa: Serora eta bere aguntzaileak”. In Miguel Angel Barcenilla, Roslyn M. Frank, Anne-Marie Lagarde, Isaure Gratacos, Xabier Amuriza, Nejane Jurado, Marta Agirrezabala, Alizia Stürtze, Arantxa Erasun and Zirrilda, La mujer en Euskal Herria: Hacia un feminismo propio. Donostia: Basandere Argitaletxea, pp. 65-103. 2 Caro Baroja, 1971, pp. 286-87; Webster, 1911, 139-151, 166-168. 3 The Vatican declaration of January 1977, approved by Pope Paul VI, stated explicitly that women could not be ordained because Jesus was a man and, furthermore, following what is inherently patriarchal logic, it is argued in that document that only men can naturally represent him (New York Times, January 28, 1977). The latter is a position that the Catholic Church has not altered significantly over the past quarter of a century. 4 For additional information on the office of the serora and her assistants in Euskal Herria, cf. the excellent investigation of Azpiazu, 1995, pp. 277-349. Roslyn M. Frank Page 2 3/12/2011 From an examination of the abundant historical documents dealing with the serora in Christian times as well as from a structural analysis of the liturgical rituals that have survived, we are able to reconstruct a picture of the wide range of the serora's duties and privileges. They fall into two broad categories: care-taking of the church and acting as priestess or mistress of ceremonies for the women of the parish. The first classification included: laying out and caring for the altar ornaments, cloths, and other liturgical instruments; cleaning the sanctuary; collecting the offerings of candles, bread and other gifts and retaining some portion of them as her own; handling the financial accounts of the church or hermitage; lighting and snuffing the candles at the appointed moments in the religious rituals; ringing the church bell when needed for ritual purposes and to conjure storms.5 In addition, she was given a house and land adjoining the religious site. In the urban parishes as well as in the rural hermitages and grottos the serora often had one or more female helpers, paid by her, who also received some portion of the benefices provided by the parishioners and patrons.6 In this classification of her duties and privileges it is obvious that in the rest of Catholic Europe the activities enumerated have been traditionally assigned to members of the male sex.7 The second division of the serora's function was that of acting as priestess or mistress of ceremonies for the women or etxekoandreak of the parish. Each house or etxe was represented in the church by the andrea 8 who presided over the ritual necessities of the house at the jarleku, the sepulchral stone placed on the floor of the church under which the members of each household were buried. Thus, the yarleku stone functioned as the symbolic counterpart of each farmstead or baserri. All ritual activities attached to the jarleku, including the offering of sacrifices of bread and candles for the souls of the dead ancestors, were carried out by the etxekoandrea or her female representative, the serora. The serora acted as minister and coordinator of female ritual activities carried out at the respective sepulchral stones, led the ritual processions of women, took the offerings of bread and candles to the altar and presided over the complicated ritual acts for the dead under the guardianship of the etxekoandreak. In addition, the serora accompanied the women to the home of the deceased member where she said her Requiescat in pace in Latin or Basque.9 It is noteworthy that neither the etxekojaunak (masters of the house) nor their male relatives participated in the funeral rituals associated with the jarleku, the 5 For a chilling account of the persecution that these traditional female storm-conjurers suffered at the hands of the Inquisition in other parts of Europe, cf. Kramer and Sprenger, 1971, Chapter XV, pp. 147-149. 6 Areitio, 1959, pp. 179-180; Ducange, 1883, p. 624; Henao, 1894-95, pp. 114-115; 127-140; de Larramendi, 1950, pp. 135-139; 226-234. 7 An exception to this statement might be seen in the role played by women as deaconesses in the early centuries of Christianity (Vacant and Mangenot, 1911, pp. 685-703). In the West they had already disappeared by the 10th or 12th century when Christianity was beginning to spread into the remote regions of the Euskal Herria. The term andrea is derived from the word andere, an expression meaning “mistress, lady”, that becomes and(e)r(e)a in composition. 8 9 Barandiaran, 1972-, Vol. III, pp. 55-116; Echegaray, 1925, pp. 94-118, 184-222; Dubarat, 1901, pp. CCXVII-CCXVIII, CCCIX-CCCX, CCCXL, CCCCCXL-CCCCXLII; Rodríquez de Ondarra, 1965-66, pp. 35-51; Peña Santiago, 1967-68, pp. 179-187. Roslyn M. Frank Page 3 3/12/2011 latter being seen as the exclusive domain of the etxekoandrea, the serora and other female members of the parish. The reconstruction of the evolution of the set of functions attached to the role of the serora prior to the advent of Christianity is hindered by the paucity of detailed written documents concerning indigenous religious practices in Euskal Herria. Nevertheless, a hypothetical reconstruction can be proposed by assuming structural and, hence, functional continuity between earlier and later religious practices. The first problem arising from this approach is the fact that in historical times the role of the serora included numerous functions neither necessary nor possible in pre-Christian times. Therefore, it must be assumed that these functions came into being later because of the necessities imposed by Christian liturgical structures. This is especially true since there is no evidence the Basques constructed dwellings specifically, that is, exclusively for the purpose of the celebration of religious ritual. Indeed, the total absence of temples in Euskal Herria signifies that the role of the serora as caretaker of a church building would not have been possible. If we assume that her modern role as caretaker evolved from preexisting indigenous infrastructures, then previously she would have had to be caring for a religious site that was not a building.10 10 Urroz, 1919-20, p. 525. Prior to the imposition of Christianity there is reason to believe that in Euskal Herria each transhumant shepherd community or ohla manipulated the ritual geometry of its saroe or “stone octagon” to symbolize the social collective as a whole (cf. Frank and Patrick, 1993). It follows, therefore, that prior to the advent of the custom of building churches and, consequently, the celebration of women‟s rituals indoors next to the yarleku stone, the serora would have carried out her role of caretaker at other stones: those belonging to the stone octagon or sarobe. Furthermore, we can hypothesize that these stones as well as others with judicial-political significance were in some fashion identified with the ancestors of the social collective: the self-identity of the group(s). Similar ritual practices have been amply documented in other parts of Europe. For instance, in the Church Councils there are repeated condemnations of the practices related to women bringing candles and other offerings to upright stones, often megalithic in nature, which appear to have been associated traditionally with these communal spaces (cf. Fergusson, [1872] 1974, pp. 22-26). Naturally these practices were repeatedly chastised in Christian times. Indeed, the ecclesiastical authorities spent many centuries attempting to transfer the ritual and judicial activities indoors and, therefore, into the prescribed space of a Christian church or hermitage. As a result, women‟s traditional ritual practices, carried out in the environs of the “swearing” stones and trees, were consistently interpreted in a negative light in the writings of the Christian authorities: they are represented as acts of defiance against ecclesiastical authority. Both the customs and those performing them were stigmatized. The traditional acts of homage were redefined by the emotionally laden and politically charged catchall term of that époque: "witchcraft". As a result, the activities were no longer portrayed as totally acceptable practices carried out by members of the local community in order to ritually re-mark their communal and, hence, judicial space. Rather the discourse of the Catholic Church and its Councils has represented these traditional practices as if they were inherently subversive in character which, of course, they were, in a sense, given that they acted as a means of subverting and undermining the authority of the Church in its attempt to consolidate ecclesiastical authority over that of the local communities. In the case of Euskal Herria, a compromise appears to have reached by means of which political activities with ritual significance once performed around the stone sites were transferred directly to areas adjacent to the church or hermitage and the funerary rituals in question survived in those performed by the women at their yarleku stones (cf. Frank, 1996a, 1996b, 1999a, 1999b; Frank and Patrick, 1993; Ott, 1981; Zaldua, 1996). For an excellent discussion of the politically charged nature of the yarleku stones and women‟s rituals in relation to prestige, power and clan identity, cf. Apiazu, 1995, pp. 277-349). And for a vivid example of contemporary evidence of similar rituals related to the commemoration of ancestors at standing stones representing the community or collective whole, e.g., offerings of food sacrifices to the souls of the dead ancestors, cf. the following: http://www.nsc.ru/museum/shaman/2384_140.jpg and Roslyn M. Frank Page 4 3/12/2011 Since the Basque people were originally non-urban dwellers, the morphology of the institution of the serora must be traced back to religious structures generated in a rural context. These structures show a two-fold division of ritual activity containing the two categories of functions attributed to the serora. The two-fold division consists of the primary and secondary socioeconomic and judicial-political units of rural Basque society. The first unit was the house itself where the woman, or etxekoandrea, presided as domestic priestess, caring for the souls of the living and dead, lighting the sacred fires and watching over the health of the family and flocks. Included in this set of functions was the duty of praying, mourning and offering sacrifices for the souls of the dead ancestors of the individual family unit. As Barandiaran maintains, the role played by the serora in her capacity as priestess and mistress of ceremonies in the Christian liturgy was simply an extension of the role of the etxekoandrea as minister of this domestic cult.11 The secondary unit of relationship in the organization of rural Basque society was the auzoa, composed of a small number of households or baserriak, usually 8-20. Although the auzoak were geographically isolated from one another, the dwellings of the baserriak of an individual auzoa were usually clustered in the center of the collective land holdings of all the families. Prior to the rise of religious, political and judicial superstructures, the auzoa acted as an independent entity functioning as the locus of activity for the members of the various households. Within this primitive framework of social organization, the religious, political, and judicial spheres appear to have been coordinated by an elected member of the auzoa. This is still found in a somewhat atrophied form in areas where each year one of the domestic groups of the auzoa was chosen, often by lottery or by serial rotation, to serve as “master” or “mistress of ceremonies”, i.e., as mayordomo.12 The appointment to this office would have fallen originally only to the individual inheritors, male or female, of the auzoa although it seems to have required the intervention of both the etxekoandrea and her husband, the etxekojauna.13 In addition to serving as the political-judicial center for the various households, each auzoa also had its own hermitage or religious site. Even today one of the duties of the elected officials is caring for the local hermitage and organizing religious festivities. However, the care of the religious site is assigned exclusively to the woman.14 Since http://www.nsc.ru/museum/shaman/index.html. For the treatment of the „swearing trees‟ with political significance, e.g., as official reunion sites for local assemblies, cf. Caro Baroja, 1974, “Sobre el Árbol de Guernica y otros árboles con significado jurídico y político,” pp. 353-391. 11 Barandiaran, 1972-, Vol. III, pp. 463--64, 481-485; Vol. VI, pp. 329-330. 12 Although the term used in Spanish is mayordomo or mayordoma, in all likelihood in Euskera the office was designated by the term buruzai or buruzagi, a compound based on buru “head” and zain “to guard, watch over, keep”. Hence, the term buruzai(n), literally translated, means “keeper of the head”. And it was a concept where the referentiality of the notion buru “head” would have been identified with the auzoa collective itself. Therefore, we can appreciate that the office of buruzai(n) could be viewed as “the keeper of the commonweal”. In this instance, we also need to remember that in Euskera buru is not merely the name for a body part, but rather that it also stands for “self” and, hence, for “self-identity”, e.g., eztu bere burua zaintzen, “she isn‟t taking care of herself.” 13 Douglass, 1970, pp. 27-28, 165-171. 14 Ibid., p. 168. Roslyn M. Frank Page 5 3/12/2011 many of the grottos and other religious sites in Euskal Herria were already in existence prior to the arrival of Christianity, we can assume that they were traditionally under the guardianship of women, a community of women composed of the counterpart of the serora and her helpers.15 With the passage of time, the rural auzoak evolved into small villages or parrokiak and the local religious sites came to be incorporated into Christianity. Here the construction of parish churches and rural hermitages on or near the pre-existing sacred sites facilitated the transference of ritual belief patterns while at the same time allowing for the continuity of traditional structures. Even after the advent of Christianity the churches and rural hermitages continued to retain their private nature being the property of the local members of the auzoa or parish.16 Assuming a continuity of infrastructures, the woman head or etxekoandrea chosen by the individual inheritors of the auzoa originally performed the duties that were to later fall to the serora appointed to care for the religious site in Christian times. During the early Middle Ages evidence of overt persecution of the serora in the Basque region is quite fragmentary. The apparent tolerance of the institution during this period may be due in part to the somewhat superficial penetration of Christianity in the remoter mountainous areas. Lack of contact with more knowledgeable elements of the Christian hierarchy appears to have allowed the local religious customs and structures, including those related to the serora, to continue for a time with little or no interference. Even as Christianity came to be adopted, it was generally the more mobile upper classes, the feudal nobility and urban dwellers, who had the opportunity to learn the subtleties of Christian liturgy. In the more inaccessible outposts, the populace was left to attend to its religious necessities by means of a type of syncretism that allowed earlier ritual structures to interweave themselves into the Christian services. The institution of the serora is only one example of the retention of the pre-existing indigenous religious substratum as Christianity was adopted.17 For example, as we shall see, there is also substantial evidence concerning the nature of the functions associated with the serora‟s helpers in Euskal Herria prior to the arrival of Christianity. The Basque language also acted to retard the spread of the accepted structures of the Catholic Church and therefore was another factor contributing to the survival of the institution of the serora. In those areas where Basque was the only language understood by the parishioners, it was imperative that the cleric be a Basque speaker. Perhaps the fear of having a non-Basque speaker appointed by the Bishop led to the practice of the parishioners themselves, or the patrons of the parish, selecting the individual who was to serve in the capacity of priest. The individual selected for this position was often a member of the family group(s) owning the Church. Even into the 12th and 13th centuries, a time when there still were neither seminaries nor any other adequate ecclesiastical training available to those living in rural areas, the individual appointed had a very 15 Cf. Barandiaran, 1972-, Vol. I, pp. 276-302; Lizarralde, 1919-20, pp. 590-620, especially p. 596. 16 Larramendi, 1950, pp. 129-131; Zabala, 1971, pp. 87-93; Lacarra, 1957, pp. 61-63. 17 Ugalde, 1974, pp. 69-70. Cf. also Frank, in 2001a, b, in prep-a, in press. Roslyn M. Frank Page 6 3/12/2011 limited education and was forced to manage as best he could. His formal preparation was reduced to learning to say Mass, performing funeral rituals, and administering the Sacraments from a manual where the sacramental formulas and other liturgical acts were transcribed.18 The cleric was aided in these duties by the serora who originally was also appointed by the families of the auzoa or parrokia. Since she received no specialized training in orthodox Catholic liturgy, she would have tended to reinforce traditional indigenous patterns of behavior, particularly those connected with the sphere of religious activity assigned to her and the other women of the parish. The independent nature of the lay hermitages is underscored by an episode said to have occurred at the end of the 15th century when King Ferdinand went to meet with the Señorío of Vizcaya accompanied by the Bishop of Pamplona. When the Vizcayans met the king they refused to allow the bishop to enter their land, causing him to leave the king's retinue and return home. The Basques then carefully erased the footprints he had left in the soil of Vizcaya, a procedure understood by all as a deadly insult. 19 The reason for refusing the bishop's entrance was said to be the fact that this area was under the jurisdiction of the diocese of Calahorra y la Calzada. However, the local lay authorities of Vizcaya impeded even the arrival of the bishops of Calahorra y la Calzada until 1537 when a pact was finally approved and signed by the bishop and the Señorío de Vizcaya. Until that time neither the bishop nor his visitors were permitted to set foot inside the frontiers of Vizcaya.20 During the many years that the bishops of Calahorra y la Calzada struggled to gain admission to Vizcaya, one discovers repeated attempts to improve the level of understanding of Christian doctrine. In 1527 Charles V ordered the Bishop of Calahorra and the provincial leaders of the Dominicans and the Franciscans to send well-trained preachers into the area to teach the Christian faith, extirpate superstitious dogma, and eliminate the practice of witchcraft.21 This decree appears to have been motivated by the earlier pleas by the bishops of Calahorra for greater control over the region. Indeed, during the period from 1500 to 1540, women were repeatedly implicated in unorthodox practices, many of which were classified under the ambiguous rubric of witchcraft. In 1500 there are references to a case being brought against witches in the mountainous region of Amboto in Vizcaya.22 In 1507, some thirty women were burnt for unorthodox activity.23 In Navarre, a canon of Pamplona wrote a treatise on superstition in which he implied that witches were common in that Pyrenean kingdom24 and by 1527, according to Fray Prudencio de Sandoval, who later became bishop of Pamplona, some one hundred 18 Lacarra, 1957, 63-64. 19 Caro Baroja, 1971, p. 285. 20 De Labayru y Goicoechea, 1967-1969, Vol. IV, pp. 91-104, 106-107, 206-207. 21 Caro Baroja, 1975, pp. 52-53, citing Llorente, 1818, Vol. II, p. 47. 22 Caro Baroja, 1973, p. 143. 23 Ibid., pp. 144-145. Cf. Lorente, 1818, Vol. III, pp. 453-454; Lea, 1906-07, Vol. IV, p. 221; Menéndez y Pelayo, 1880-81, Vol. II, pp. 662-663. 24 Caro Baroja, 1973, p. 145, citing the treatise of Martín de Arles, Tractatus de superstitionibus (Frankfurt, 1581), pp. 362-365, 413-415. Cf. also Lea, 1906-07, Vol. IV, p. 210, note 2. Roslyn M. Frank Page 7 3/12/2011 and fifty sorcerers and witches were put in prison. The number of women involved was unspecified.25 In 1529 a book dedicated to Alonso de Castilla, Bishop of Calahorra, was published in Logroño by Fray Martín de Castanega. This work may be taken as a fair reflection of the views of many inquisitors on the subject of women and witchcraft: that there are more women than men amongst the Devil's ministers; women are sinks of iniquity and the old and impoverished among them more so than the young.26 In 1528 the inquisitor Avellaneda, who had carried out investigations in Navarre, was sent into Vizcaya and that same year the Inquisitor-General, Manrique, ordered the inquisitor of Calahorra to conduct a full investigation of the whole region. One finds additional evidence of the persecution of women as witches in Navarre around 1538. By 1539 the prisons of this region were said to be full of people accused of witchcraft.27 Although the statistics concerning the percentage of women implicated in witchcraft trials are still unavailable, in those instances where there was a breakdown by sex, the vast majority of those accused were female and on occasion the serora was included among their ranks. An example of this is the civil case of the "witches of Ceberio" heard between 1555 and 1558 in which twenty-one persons of one family were ordered to the prison at Bilbao. Of this number only three were men, and on August 31, 1555, while the women were being held in custody, two of the alleged witches were examined. They are referred to in the documents as María de Gorocito and "Marina, freyla de San Bartolomé," the serora of San Bartolomé.28 As can be seen, with the passage of time the central ecclesiastical authorities came to exert a much greater influence over local religious affairs. This was accomplished in part by the aforementioned practice of sending episcopal visitors and inquisitors to inspect the rural parishes. In the 16th and 17th centuries, given the prevailing climate of opinion concerning the female of the species, particularly among inquisitors and bishops, it is not surprising that records of pastoral visits to one rural Basque parish after another show rulings entered into the books against the continued existence of the serora. At first the rulings by the episcopal authorities dealt mainly with regulating the selection of women assigned to the rural sites. Later, the central authorities of the Catholic Church would attempt to completely abolish the institution both in rural areas and in the larger urban parishes. In 1540 we discover what appears to be a reaction to a series of pastoral visitations to the Spanish Basque region under the jurisdiction of the Diocese of Pamplona. This same year Bernardo de Rojas y Sandoval, Bishop of Pamplona, issued a decree curtailing the independent selection of woman functioning as seroras in rural grottos and hermitages. Whereas previously the members of the local community and/or 25 Caro Baroja, 1973, pp. 145-146, citing Prudencio de Sandoval, Historia del emperador Carlos V, Vol. V (Madrid, 1847), pp. 53-57. 26 Ibid., pp. 149-150, citing Chapter V of Castañega's work, Tratado muy / sotil y bien fundado d'las / superstitiones y hechize / rias, y varios conjuros, y / abusiones; y otras co / sas al caso tocantes y de la possibilidad y remedio dellas (Logroño: Miguel de Eguía, 1529). Caro Baroja utilized the copy R-11066 of the Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid. 27 Cf. Caro Baroja, 1933, pp. 131-145; 1973, pp. 143-155; 1975, pp. 9-70. 28 Areitio, 1927, pp. 654-664. Roslyn M. Frank Page 8 3/12/2011 the patrons of the hermitage chose the individuals charged with the care of the religious site, now the bishop demanded that all such appointments be made only with his consent or that of his vicar-general. Without being examined, approved and licensed by the appropriate central ecclesiastical powers, no woman could serve as a serora.29 The existence of the decree indicates that at least until 1540 the Diocese of Pamplona had little or no direct control over the internal affairs of local religious sites. This lack of control and lack of understanding of local tradition led the central officials to condemn as "scandalous" many socio-political and religious acts held in high esteem by the local Basque populace. Bishop Bernardo de Rojas y Sandoval's decision to regulate more closely those appointed to serve in the rural hermitages was motivated by the "discovery" of certain abuses enumerated in the Synodal Constitutions of Pamplona.30 These so-called "abuses" included dancing, singing, putting on mascaradas and other such "scandalous" activities, "scandalous" being best read as those festive and ritual activities no longer tolerated by the church authorities of Pamplona.31 The "abuses" reported to be occurring during night-time vigils were probably nothing more than traditional socio-religious festivities held at the hermitage or those associated with funeral feasts and anniversary meals held in honor of a deceased member of the auzoa. These reunions, often accompanied by generous quantities of food and drink, also irritated the central ecclesiastical authorities, causing them to attempt to limit the prodigality of such events. Since traditionally the woman, the local etxekoandrea of the auzoa acting as serora, would have been in charge of activities directly involving the hermitage and its environs, she was naturally the target for any attack on local customs, attacks that by extension impacted on the concept of group identity and autonomy. By insisting that the woman selected for the post meet certain required standards of orthodoxy, i.e., that she identified with the ideology of the central authorities, the ecclesiastical authorities hoped to guarantee that the woman would act as a mediator and spokesperson for them rather than taking up the cause of those defending local autonomy. In Labourd and Navarre the first indication of a direct attack on the seroras attached to regular urban parishes, as opposed to those attached to rural grottos and hermitages, is found in the works of the witch trial judge Pierre de Lancre, counselor of the Parlement of Bordeaux. In 1609 de Lancre was commissioned by Henry IV to go to Labourd to investigate crimes of witchcraft reportedly occurring in this region. As a result of his investigations, de Lancre compiled his Tableau de l'inconstance des mauvais anges et demons.… In this work there is a vehement attack on Basque women in general and on the institution of the serora in particular. According to de Lancre, Labourd women had a notorious reputation for loose living, unfaithfulness and immorality. He was appalled to see women taking an active part in local affairs while their menfolk were absent. 32 Since fishing was the main industry of the coastal areas, prolonged absences of the male 29 Lizarralde, 1919-20, pp. 594-595. 30 Ibid., p. 595. 31 Larramendi, 1950, pp. 235-293; Arrindu-Albisu, 1965, pp. 113-134; Gallop, 1970, pp. 178-202, especially p. 184. By 1539 the Bishop of Calahorra had prohibited religious dancing in his diocese. 32 de Lancre, 1612, pp. 41-44, 59-62; cf. Caro Baroja, 1973, pp. 156-170; 1975, pp. 149-226. Roslyn M. Frank Page 9 3/12/2011 contingent of the population was an inevitable consequence. This in turn promoted greater participation by women in the management of household and economic affairs. Given his low opinion of Basque women and, for that matter, women in general, de Lancre was shocked to see women acting as sacristans or seroras in the churches. He begins his scathing attack on the institution of the serora in Book I, Discourse II: There is also in all of the great Churches of the country a woman they call the Benedicte, who performs the function of sacristan: I find that she comes too close to the libertine priests, and (...) like (...) in Germany, where I often saw a woman follow a Priest in the village, and carry after him the chalice and the adornments with which he had just said Mass: here she decorates the altar, whitens and prepares the cloths, and airs the white friezes of the little Saints on the altar, a thing done with good intention is more indecent than wrong. This is why the Bishop of Bayonne is trying to reform all of this: just as I also find it wrong that in Saint Jean de Luz and in several other places, a string of women (I have seen as many as ten) gather all around the Church, as do our bourgeois [males] in our parishes. And as for offerings, I find it just as wrong that all the women and girls go there out of vanity, each according to her rank, and take so much time that the Mass is often said before they have finished: and the men, excepting the Magistrates, do not go at all. And when the women do go, they give a candle attached to a small cake made in the most indecent form that could be [imagined] for an honest woman. 33 In this passage de Lancre is describing nothing more than the traditional duties carried out by the etxekoandreak, the serora and her female helpers.34 These activities carried no taint of heresy in the eyes of the Basque worshippers, who were generally ignorant of external liturgical models as well as the history of the struggle of Christianity against pagan practices. From their point of view, women had always served in the church and were therefore considered an obligatory and orthodox component within the structure of Basque liturgy. Any attack on the institution of the serora was perceived from within as an attempt to alter sacrosanct Christian ritual. De Lancre, however, was accustomed to the French liturgical model in which women were totally excluded. Being a highly educated man, de Lancre was thoroughly imbued with the misogynist writings of earlier witch hunters such as Kramer, Sprenger and Bodin and consequently was well versed in the role played by women as priestesses in pagan and classical antiquity. Hence, rather than seeing the role of the serora as being totally acceptable, he found in it a reason to condemn the Labourd clergy and female participants as worshippers of Satan. De Lancre renews his attack in Discourse III dedicated entirely to discrediting the role of Basque women in the church. The first two sections of this Discourse serve as an introduction to his attack and concern the reasons "why there have always been more female than male witches." These sections are heavily laced with quotes from classical and patristic writers as well as from more modern ones such as Tasso, Ronsard, Ariosto 33 34 de Lancre, 1612, p. 44, translated by the author. Cf. Frank, 2003, 2005; Barton and Frank, 2001, for further information on oppositional ontologies, shifting identities and incommensurate cultural conceptualizations in the formation of conflicting cosmologies. Roslyn M. Frank Page 10 3/12/2011 and naturally the famous French jurist and witch hunter Jean Bodin.35 Although in Discourse III de Lancre repeats much of what was stated in Discourse II, here the facts are much more negatively charged because of the narrative strategy that de Lancre employs to frame the description for his reader: Satan, who has always counted on some harpy to deceive the world, has utilized in this country of Labourd a trick to get his foot into churches that in other times served as asylums against him and evil spirits, and wanting to stick his nose into everything, or at least to stain the saintly temples and to sow all the confusion and disorder possible, he has found a way to introduce certain women who collect offerings and other things customarily donated to the church. In one of the most famous towns I saw ten women, one after the other, carrying the offertory plates. Then I saw a certain woman they call the Benedicte acting as sacristan, approaching the altar, carrying the candles and other such things. I was amazed this duty was assigned to those ten women and not to the most notable men of the parish as is done in the good villages of France. ... and it shocked me even more that the women went from balcony to balcony (because all the great and beautiful churches are constructed with two or three balconies) and there they went along grabbing the men by their capes because they were leaning over the balcony railing with their backs turned; and sometimes the women had to climb more than a hundred stairs to demand the offering. As for the female steward or sacristan, she had much more contact with the clergy: since from dawn it was necessary for her to be the first in the church to put the white cloths and other ornaments on the altar, and there are such evil encounters [with the members of the clergy] that it is impossible that the Devil is not mixed up in them... there is no doubt that several of these women are witches or at least some member of their family is. Among the sacristans or Benedictes who were brought before us for judgment we found two witches.36 De Lancre's discussion refers to French Basque churches, such as that of St. Jean de Luz, where the construction of balconies for male parishioners, along the side and back walls, provided a unique architectural solution to the problem of adjusting increased seating demands to the necessities of indigenous religious practices. The physical separation of the sexes is seen in the seating arrangement: men occupied narrow benches in the balcony passively watching the ceremonies being carried out below them where the women were actively participating at their sepulchral stones on the floor of the sanctuary. This arrangement was a natural response to the dichotomy imposed by sex-linked ritual activities. The symbolism implicit in the seating arrangement is also reflected in the architectural structures controlling the entrance to the church, access to the sanctuary and to the altar rail. Being in charge of the multitude of ritual acts associated with the sepulchers, women entered the sanctuary through the main doorway, passing directly to their respective jarleku. Men, on the other hand, with quite limited ritual functions, gained access to the galleries by climbing a stairway located outside the main entrance to the sanctuary, either inside the portico area or attached to the exterior of the church. When the men needed to approach the altar, they descended an interior stairway at the front of the sanctuary, passed in front of the altar rail and then ascended back up to the balconies by a stairway on the opposite side. In this way, the men never entered the sanctuary area reserved for the women and their jarlekuak. 35 Ibid., pp. 48-64. 36 Ibid., pp. 59-60, translated by the author. Roslyn M. Frank Page 11 3/12/2011 The reasons for this were the spatial taboos, which for laywomen were much less restrictive than for laymen, the former having access to three spatial dimensions, the balconies, the sanctuary and the altar railing. Only the altar area itself was perceived as a space too sacred for a mere etxekoandrea, although the space was accessible to the serora. A greater number of spatial taboos controlled the movements of the laymen who were locked into their balcony seats and totally removed from the ritual activities. Whereas laywomen could penetrate the male space of the galleries, laymen could not reciprocate and enter the female space of the floor of the sanctuary. While spatial taboos limited the laywomen's access only to the altar area, laymen were barred from the altar area and the floor of the sanctuary, the latter being perceived simultaneously as a sphere of female action and a domain of the sacred.37 In 1612, shortly after de Lancre terminated his mission in Labourd, the first edition of the Tableau was published, followed one year later by a second enlarged and corrected version. Four years later, in 1617, there is evidence of a general decree prohibiting the functioning of the serora in her capacity as sacristan in the churches of Vizcaya. This decree and others that were to follow gave rise to a long and intricate controversy lasting until 1623. Undoubtedly one of the motivating factors behind these decrees was the widespread influence of de Lancre's writings.38 This same period was characterized by a high level of misogynist publications throughout Europe, works that also must have played some role in the decision on the part of the central ecclesiastical authorities to deny Basque women the right of active participation in liturgical rites. In the conflict of 1617-1623, the two principals were D. Pedro González de Castillo, Bishop of Calahorra, and the Señorío of Vizcaya. The latter group brought its case before the civil authorities in Valladolid in an effort to avoid compliance with the Bishop's decision to abolish the serora. While the Señorío was involved in litigation aimed at blocking the implementation of the decree, the ecclesiastical authorities appealed to Pope Paul V who, in 1619, issued a papal bull ordering the total elimination of the office of the serora. The Señorío reacted, stating the bull went against "the laws of their land." Contacting the royal authorities in Madrid, the Señorío put its case before King Philip IV who momentarily halted the expedition of the bull. In addition the king required all civil authorities of the affected area to refrain from taking action until the matter had been thoroughly studied. After four years of litigation, in 1623, Philip IV, with the consent of the Real Consejo, issued a proclamation upholding the position of the Bishop of Calahorra y la Calzada and consequently the bull of Pope Paul V: the office of the serora as sacristan was to be abolished.39 Nevertheless, as innumerable documents from the 17th and 18th centuries demonstrate, in most parts of Euskal Herria local authorities chose not to enforce the proclamation and the office of the serora continued to flourish. While on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees the deeply antagonistic attitudes of the ecclesiastical hierarchy are well documented, in the French Basque area the data are much more fragmentary concerning organized and overt condemnation of the institution 37 Cf. Veyrin, 1955, pp. 240-242; Dop, 1932, pp. 347-427. 38 For additional discussions of de Lancre‟s activities, cf. Henningsen, 1980. 39 Cf. de Labayru y Goicoechea, 1967-69, Vol. V, pp. 121-132, 661-662; Lizarralde, 1919-20, pp. 594-596. Roslyn M. Frank Page 12 3/12/2011 of the serora as sacristan. De Lancre mentions in passing that the Bishop of Bayonne was going to correct the abusive practices of the women.40 The Bishop of Dax petitioned the Parlement de Navarre to replace the women sacristans with men, a petition rejected by the civil authorities of Navarre. Shortly before the Bishop's petition, the Parlement de Dax had also approached the Navarrese civil officials asking that action be brought against the serora. The Bishop's subsequent proposal was an attempt to remedy the situation by eliminating the women but obviously not their duties, since the latter alternative would have involved a major reorganization of traditional Basque liturgical rituals.41 The Bishop and Parlement of Dax wanted action taken against the serora specifically to put an end to the "déportements criminels des benoîtes, rendus si fréquents et si scandaleux qu'il y en a qui depuis peu sont en prévention en la Cour pour les débauches.42 The precise reasons causing these women to be incarcerated are veiled in the linguistically opaque terms: "déportements criminels," "scandaleux" and "débauches." Unfortunately there are no concrete facts available explaining the exact nature of the "criminal" and "scandalous" behavior attributed to these women by the Church officials. Although the serora was repeatedly attacked in a multitude of decrees, she has continued to survive into the 20th century. Rather than destroying the institution entirely, the cumulative effect of centuries of embattled opposition seems to have impacted negatively on the high status previously enjoyed by Basque women. Consequently, the same negative pressures affecting women in general also appear to have served to gradually undermine the importance of the serora and the value of the ceremonies attached to her office. Her loss of prestige was also linked to factors associated with the increased urbanization of Euskal Herria. As members of the rural populace came into more intimate contact with the ideas circulating in Spain, France and the rest of Europe, the influence of misogynist thinkers such as de Lancre became more pervasive. The assimilation of a new cognitive framework now allowed people to become aware of the anomaly, from a European point of view, of having women serve in capacities normally reserved exclusively for men. Pressure to conform to the standards accepted by the Catholic Church in the rest of Europe frequently led to the replacement of the serora by a male sacristan. When this occurred, her role was often devalued to that of little more than a cleaning lady. At times her former duties were assigned to the wife of the sacristan and a female helper called the difunteria who continued to serve quite unobtrusively as a serora.43 40 However, a document dated January 28, 1774 shows the Bishop of Bayonne involved in naming Marie Derrecart as serora (benoîte) at the Chapelle de Sainte Catherine in Ustaritz (cf. Heraiztarra, 1976, pp. 3031). 41 Moreau, 1964, p. 127. 42 Ibid. The action was aimed at ending the "criminal conduct of the benoîtes [serorak] [that] became so frequent and scandalous that a short time ago some of them were sent to prison to await trial because of their debaucheries." Cf. also "Des Registres Municipaux de Mouguerre," Gure Herria, 1954, Vol. XXVI, pp. 118-120. 43 Douglass, 1970, pp. 48-72. Roslyn M. Frank Page 13 3/12/2011 In addition to the subtle psychological devaluation of the role of the serora, the changing demographic patterns affected traditional structures in other ways. As parishes increased in size, churches were enlarged to accommodate seating demands. Each time a church was altered in this way, the reallocation of the jarlekuak frequently gave rise to bitter conflicts between the various families of the parish. Although in some areas old jarlekuak were again carefully marked out on the floor, in others renovation led to their partial or total elimination. Partial or total elimination of the traditional jarlekuak was also facilitated by changing attitudes on the part of the clergy and others. For instance, it was deemed inappropriate to have chairs cluttering the floor of the churches, and when there were no galleries, long wooden benches slowly encroached upon the floor space taken up by the chairs of the etxekoandreak. There were frequent outbursts against the presence of the chairs and the proliferation of lighted candles and bread offerings spread out across the church floor; the priests' robes were singed, candles were tipped over and it was alleged that the women disturbed the sanctity of the service by talking and moving from one jarleku to another depositing their offerings.44 This type of inveighing against traditional practices would have been tolerated only in an atmosphere where the value of the previous norms of behavior had already been undermined.45 In summary, any effort to trace the evolution of the institution of the serora by using a simple diachronic approach (traditionally understood as the mere sequence of historical events viewed in isolation) would not reveal the complexities inherent in a set of functions constantly altered by their dynamic interaction with the evolving patterns of belief found in the larger society. It was precisely the polyvalent, almost Janus-like nature of the institution that caused it to come under attack by members of the Christian superstructure, those individuals who were familiar with the role of women as priestesses, ritual caretakers, in other parts of Europe in pre-Christian and early Christian times. Yet the very fact that it was an indigenous survival, evolving naturally from the religious substratum, allowed the institution of the serora to be viewed from within as proper and orthodox. The radically different attitudes of the members of the two opposing groups, those praising and defending the serora and those condemning her, can be understood in light of the cognitive framework in which each group was living. In Euskal Herria the survival of the serora into modern times is an anachronism when viewed through the lens of contemporary Catholic belief. Yet it provides valuable evidence concerning the possible roles played by women in the indigenous religious and social practices of other parts of Europe prior to the imposition of gender restrictions brought about by the patriarchal attitudes of the Catholic Church. Over many centuries the institutional opposition to female participation in religious ritual led to less than objective discussions of the traditional roles assigned to women in the pre-Christian ritual life of their communities. De Lancre‟s writings are only one example of such texts. In the past the importance of ritual practices traditionally carried out by women often has been diminished by treating them as if they were merely elements of “folklore” while at other time the significance of these practices has ended up disguised under the psychologically 44 Ibid., Labayru y Goicoechea, 1967-1969, Vol. IV, pp. 650-651; de Lancre, 1612, p. 457. 45 Cf. Azpiazu, 1995, esp. pp. 277-291. Roslyn M. Frank Page 14 3/12/2011 charged term of "witchcraft." In contrast, in Euskal Herria perhaps because of the high esteem in which women were held and the socio-political importance of the functions that they once performed, the institution of the serora has been able to persist in a modified form into the 20th century. Part II. The Serora’s Role as Keeper of the Communal Financial Accounts For our purposes there is another aspect of the serora's duties, that is, her role as keeper of the accounts of the community, that should be emphasized for she would have been the individual in charge of keeping the financial records of the collective whole. In addition, such record keeping formed an integral part of her functions as the religious calendar keeper. Her office was linked also to overseeing the ritual of women whose task, in turn, was to preside at the jarleku, the stone in the floor of the church or hermitage, following a relatively complex calendrically coded formula of serial rotations. Consequently this aspect of serora‟s functions would have required her to have a clear understanding of the methods of data storage required to keep track of a variety of calendrically driven rituals. In addition she needed to have a clear awareness of the often rather mathematically complicated operations involved in keeping track of the system of serial rotations that governed the order of these social practices, e.g., the aldizkatzia and ützül üngürü of Labourd.46 Additionally, as we have noted, the serora had female helpers who assisted her in her functions. For example, we know that the serora was given a house and land adjoining the religious site. Furthermore, it is well documented that in the urban parishes as well as in the rural hermitages and grottos the serora often had one or more female helpers. These assistants were paid by the serora: they received some portion of the benefices provided by the parishioners and patrons.47 The helpers appear to have a narrative counterpart in the women who, according to Basque folk belief, once lived with the Basque Goddess Andra Mari and did her bidding. In our reading of these texts, the historical reality behind the tales situates the serora in the position of keeper of the communal accounts and as the intermediary between the community and the indigenous authority figure and keeper of traditional law who was conceptualized as Andra Mari. Following this interpretation the contents of these narratives could be categorized as noteworthy examples of the survival in folk memory of certain functions once assigned to the serora‟s assistants. Just as was the serora herself, her assistants, too, would have been involved in keeping the financial accounts of the social collective. Hence, it is interesting to observe that the folk narratives repeatedly state that the Basque Goddess, Andrea Gurea, i.e., "Our Lady," nourished her helpers with the mathematical mistakes of shepherds and other members of the community who deliberately or unintentionally erred in their accounts, e.g., claiming to have more or less animals or goods than they actually possessed. From other evidence, it appears that there was a public rendering of accounts and that this rendering of accounts 46 Cf. Ott, 1981, 1994a, 1994b. For a discussion of a related septarian system of measurements, coordinates and mapping devices, cf. Frank 1999a, 1999b, 2002; .Frank and Arregi, 2001; 47 Areitio, 1959, pp. 179-180; Ducange, 1883, p. 624; Henao, 1894-95, pp. 114-115; 127-140; de Larramendi, 1950, pp. 135-139; 226-234. Roslyn M. Frank Page 15 3/12/2011 took place periodically and at ritually significant locations. The tales suggest that previously: 1) the accounts were reviewed by an elder woman whose functions, like those of the serora in historical times, would have put her in charge of keeping track of the financial records of the social unit in question and 2) that the woman in charge had several female helpers. Although in the folk texts it is the supernatural figure of Andra Mari who is portrayed as exercising financial oversight and, in turn, dispatching her female assistants to collect the fines, in reality this role would have been assigned to the serora, the elder woman who was in charge of the hermitage or ritual site. Consequently, it would have been her female helpers who went about collecting the fines levied for the mathematical mistakes, deliberate or unintentional, of the members of the social collective, i.e., the animals or objects that were understated or overstated. Hence, we can see that according to traditional belief these mathematical mistakes helped support a class of female assistants who are portrayed as having judicial capacities: they appear as officials in charge of collecting the fines for these breaches of communal law. Furthermore, the narratives suggest that in such cases, the punishment consisted in the confiscation of the “understated” or “overstated” animals or goods. In this interpretation of the texts the confiscated goods would have been viewed as belonging to the community as a whole, although it is possible that they were used, too, for the upkeep of the female officials in charge of collecting the fines. This situation would have made people very meticulous about their record keeping as well as circumspect about any tendency that they might have had toward bragging and/or exaggeration. Based on evidence provided by the folktales, we can see that the authority figure standing behind the serora was Andra Mari whose supernatural powers also insured a high standard of moral conduct among the members of her flock. For example, we find her condemning lying, robbery, pride and bragging, the breaking of a promise, lack of proper respect to people, house and property, and failure to give mutual aid.48 In short, in such narratives Mari acts as a guardian of traditional Basque law codes, investing established custom with inviolable sacredness. Concretely, the stories speak of the Goddess filling her pantry with that which others deny exists and with that which others affirm does not exist: ezagaz eta baiagaz, "with the negation and with the affirmation."49 The punishment consists in the permanent loss of that which has been the object of the lie, the robbery or the prideful statement.50 In addition there is the following proverb, Ezai eman, ezak eaman (Ezari eman, ezak eraman), "what is given to negation, negation takes," in which the expression ezari eman "to give to negation" is understood to mean failure to tell the truth or failure to comply with the obligations imposed by the customary rules governing mutual aid. More specifically, the narrative focus is on lying with respect to the calculation of material goods: the financial records of the auzoa. Such miscalculations, whether unintentional or deliberate, met with a strict form of 48 49. 50 Barandiaran, 1974, II Eusko Folklore, pp. 88, 429. Ibid., p. 429. For additional commentary on the concept of ezagaz eta baiagaz, cf. Zulaika, 1988. Roslyn M. Frank Page 16 3/12/2011 punishment.51 If a man said, for instance, that he had harvested 100 fanegas of wheat from the commons, when in reality he gathered 120, Mari would take possession of the 20 fanegas that had not been declared, leaving him with only 100 fanegas (ezari emanak, "those given to no). If he declared that he had filled 15 casks with cider from the communal orchard, not having filled more than 10, from these 10 would be subtracted 5, that is to say, as many as had been declared in excess (baiari emanak, "those given to yes"). Hence, foodstuffs mysteriously disappear and then reappear in the abodes of the Goddess. For this reason they say the Goddess ezagaz eta baiagaz bizi emenda (ezaz eta baiaz bizi omen da): she "lives from the yes [overstatement] and no [understatement]" nourishing herself and her female helpers with that which people hide or augment by lying.52 Among the collection of narratives concerned with the notion of ezari and baiari eman and hence the role of the female assistants, we find the following one told by Felipe de Aguirre of Mendiurkulla of Ataun (May 30, 1971) which is quite typical. In it the Goddess Andra Mari appears as a frightening, indeed rather fierce entity while her antipathy toward Christianity is also quite apparent: A shepherd entered the cave of Aketegui looking for a [lost] sheep. There was the Goddess who, upon seeing the shepherd, went towards him furiously to seize him. But the shepherd put a rosary around her neck. "Take it off me, take it off me," she shouted. "I will if you get me out of here," the shepherd replied. She took him on her shoulders and brought him out. And there in the entrance the shepherd removed the rosary. "You have had the luck of coming here well-advised and with my companions [female] absent," the Goddess said. "Where do you have your companions?" asked the shepherd. "Out there going about collecting the tithes of No-Yes [Ezbaien]," the Goddess responded.53 The persistence of this mathematically coded folk belief is quite remarkable and is further demonstrated by the following anecdote. As late as the 1970‟s when a Basque shepherd was asked how many sheep were in his flock, he would often respond by saying that he didn‟t know, while in fact he knew perfectly well not only the number of sheep but also the name of each of them. Why did the shepherd refuse to answer the question? According to Andolin Eguzkitza, it is possible that the shepherd‟s response was the result of the lingering influence of this same pattern of belief: the shepherd was afraid that if he replied to the question giving the right number, at that specific moment one or two of his sheep might have wandered off from the flock. As a consequence, the figure he gave in his original response could have ended up being technically inaccurate. And that error 51. Barandiaran, op. cit., pp. 88, 429. 52. Ibid., p. 88. 53. Ibid., p. 88. Roslyn M. Frank Page 17 3/12/2011 could have resulted in the permanent loss of the stray sheep: the sheep would have disappeared forever, having been confiscated by the female assistants who collected the tithes of yes-no.54 In summary, there is reason to believe that the mathematically coded folk belief is grounded in real social practice where the punishment for carelessness or lying was swift, yet equitable. In this sense these folk narratives can be understood as encapsulations of the roles played much earlier in Euskal Herria by the serora and her female officials in the public rendering of the auzoa accounts and in the exercise of local justice.55 Part III. The Female Helpers: Another Pre-Christian Function While the various terms utilized to refer to the serora have been scrutinized by Basque scholars with considerable care, far less attention has been paid to documenting the terms used to refer to her assistants who appear with the title of braguine, brayine or braine in the church archives.56 The etymology of the terms used in Euskera to refer to these female helpers will provide us with additional valuable information concerning the central role played by them in pre-Christian times along with indications of the types of knowledge that they must have possessed. As we shall see, based on the linguistic evidence available we can determine that the serora‟s helpers were once understood by members of the community to fulfill important functions as „healers‟. At the same time, based on the archival evidence found in Labourd dating from the late 17th and 18th centuries and concerning specifically the Cathedral of Bayonne, we encounter the female assistants not as outcasts or ostracized, but rather as fully integrated into the organizational structures of the Catholic Church where they continued to exercise many of their traditional functions. When examining the extant variants of the terms utilized in the archival records to refer to the serora‟s assistants, namely, brayine, braine and braguine, we need to remember that the expressions appear in texts written in French and therefore may reflect attempts on the part of their French-speaking compilers to capture, as best they could, in written form, the phonology of the Basque expression. In doing so, the authors wrote what they thought they heard without concerning themselves with the etymology of the expression: the terms appear in the texts as if they were nothing more than the title applied to the serora‟s assistants. Nevertheless, a closer examination of the expressions will reveal functions assigned to these helpers that otherwise would remain hidden from 54 Eguzkitza, 1979, Personal Communication. Azpiazu comments on the role of these women in the „seguridad pública‟, underlining the fact that “estas personas se movían en un terreno ciertamente muy poco definido entre el ámbito eclesial y el civil, hecho que no puede sorprender en un mundo en el que los conceptos religiosos y mundanos se confundían en exceso. Pero no deja de sorprender en un primer momento la abundante documentación relativa a freilas o seroras existente en los registros notariales. … Este hecho nos inclina a sostener la idea de la dualidad de campos en que se movían habitualmente las seroras…” (Azpiazu, 1995, pp. 306-307). 55 56 Cf. Dubarat, CCXVIII. Dubarat's source is, in part, Chanoine René Veillet, Recherches sur la Ville et sur o l'Eglise de Bayonne (Bayonne: Imp. L. Lasserre, 1910-1926), 3 vols. V p., ch. 1, part 3, sec. 10. In reference to his discussion of the serora's helper(s), Dubarat utilizes the Arch. B. -P., G. 62, 122, 236 and 417. Roslyn M. Frank Page 18 3/12/2011 our view. In order to appreciate the value of the semantic data in question, we need to turn to the dictionary compiled by Jose María Iribarren where he analyzes the historical roots of a large number of semantic items in Euskera documenting them in law codes, archival records, toponyms, and inscriptions.57 The two expressions that Iribarren lists which concern us are belharguin and belharguile, compounds based on the root belhar „plant, herb‟ in composition with – eguin and –egu(n)-le which, in turn, utilize the verb eguin "to do, to make."58 It should be noted also that the root stem belhar regularly appears in compounds with the phonological variant of bedar. Thus, the meaning of the compound expressions belharguin and belharguile can be glossed as „herb-worker‟, i.e., someone or something that makes things out of plants, herbs. Yet Iribarren states that the term bedaguina, clearly a phonologically reduced form of bedar-eguin from belhar-eguin, was "the name that used to refer to a Basque 'witch' or sorguina."59 In the case of the lexical compound bedaguin, we discover it again in toponyms such the mountain peak on the road from Roncal to Isaba called Bedaguinpicoa. Moreover, according to Azkue, a "witch" is called belaguin in Uztarroz and beraguin in Vidangoz.60 Luis Michelena discovered the use of the form bedeguin in Isaba.61 Thus, we are confronted with several variants. These are phonologically reduced examples of belharguin, in belaguin, beraguin, bedaguin and bedeguin, expressions that, with little difficulty, could have ended up being rendered phonologically as beguine in the Romance languages of the zone, e.g., in Gascon or Occitan. Moreover, in Zuberoa, the male “witch” or healer is also referred to as belhaguile, i.e., “herb-worker."62 In the same zone the concept "witchcraft" is translated by the expression belhaguilego which simply means: "that which has to do with the one who works with herbs," composed of belhar-egui(n)-le-go in which the final suffixing elements refer to the "profession" described by the previous lexical chain of signifiers.63 In summary, the linguistic evidence suggests that the terms applied to the serora‟s assistants in the church archives, namely, braguine, brayine and brainee, are nothing more than other phonologically reduced dialectal variants of the compound expression 57 Cf. Iribarren, 1984. 58 In this article the terms belharguin and belharguile are spelled not as they would be written today, following the modern rules of Euskera, namely, as belhargin and belhargile, but rather as they would hve been rendered if they were written following the spelling conventions of French or Spanish. This choice has been made to simplify the task of the reader in comparing the variants under analysis. 59 Iribarren, 1984, p. 83. 60 Azkue, 1932, p. 346. 61 Michelena, 1990, IV, p. 350, cf. also 559-660. The source cited by Michelena for the Isaba item, bedeguin, is Izaguirre, 1959, p. 303. Iribarren, op. cit., translates belhaguile as „fabricante de hierbas‟ which he then glosses as „filtros mágicos‟ rather than, say, „medicamentos herbales‟. He then adds the following commentary: “En el documento de 1610, sobre lo averiguado en el proceso contra las brujas de Zugarramurdi, que publiqué en mi libro Historias y Costumbres [1956], aparecen las hechiceras empleando una yerbas llamadas berarbeláca y berar andia. Se trata de la yervera de que hablan el Arcipreste de Hita y otros autores medievales." 62 63 Iribarren, 1984, p.83. Roslyn M. Frank Page 19 3/12/2011 belharguin. Consequently they should be listed simply as variations of, say, beraguin, e.g., as b(e)raguin, given that there is no significant difference between these three terms and, say, beraguin (Vidangoz). Given these facts concerning the history of the terms, the gapping of the original meaning of the expressions braguine, brayine and braine that occurs in the documents, that is, the persistent absence of any etymological commentary in the archival records, makes one wonder whether those in charge were aware of the meaning of the term in Euskera. And, on the other hand, we might ask ourselves the following question: when de Lancre was raving about “witchcraft” being rampant in Euskal Herria and railing against the office of the serora and her helpers, were the Basque speakers of that time more fully aware of the implications of the term that they were using to refer to the serora‟s helpers? In short, the evidence is strongly in favor of the thesis that the Basque terms used to refer to the serora‟s helpers and the term used to refer to a “witch” are all derived from the same compound, one with a quite different and relatively benign prototypical meaning, that of “herb-worker”. Their survival in Euskera allows us to see two representations of the women healers: in one case they were integrated into the very structures of Christianity and in the other they remained on the margins, chastised as outsiders. Thus, the terms permit us to see syncretism at work: the way in which the preexisting indigenous structures were absorbed and reinterpreted as Christian. At the same time it is obvious that one of the major functions of these women has been obscured by the Church: the fact that traditionally the populace viewed the women as “healers” and, thus, endowed with specialized talents and knowledge concerning the preparation of herbal remedies and potions. Part IV. Euskal Herria and Beyond There is yet another window onto the past that opens before us because of the nature of the Basque etymology of the terms applied to the serora‟s helpers. Keeping in mind the other attributes and functions assigned to the serora and her helpers, a non-Basque speaker might conclude that the expressions we have been discussing derive from the Spanish term beguina, which was synonymous with beata, or from the word beguine found in French. However, given the linguistic evidence, it would more logical to view the Romance terms as examples of even more phonologically reduced variant of be(ra)guin and/or be(d)eguin which, as we have seen, are derived, in turn, directly from the compound in belharguin. On the other hand, if we were to attempt to argue the opposite thesis and seek to derive the terms used to refer to the serora‟s helpers, braguine, brayine and braine, from the Romance expressions beguiña (Sp.) or beguine (Fr.), we would need to be able explain the reason for the presence of the /r/ in the Basque terms, braguine, brayine and braine.64 64 To further clarify the argument being made here concerning the three expressions found in the Bayonne archives, braguine, brayine and braine, I would make the following observations. First we can see that the three terms are merely variant spellings of the same expression in which the intervocalic /g/ is sometimes represented and other times not. Then we also know that in the same zone the variant spelling (and pronunciation) of the Basque compound expression belharguin was rendered as beraguine, bedaguine or bedeguine. In this case, the first element of the compount, belhar „herb‟, has been reduced phonologically. Roslyn M. Frank Page 20 3/12/2011 Stated differently, there is strong reason to assume that the title used to refer to the serora‟s helpers has its origin in Euskera. This assumption, based on solid linguistic data, brings into focus an intriguing set of problems because of the following fact: during the Middle Ages and early Renaissance, the word beguine was a title used by women across much of Europe in order to identify themselves as members of a wide-spread and influential women's movement. Eventually the same term came to be used by their detractors and overt opponents, with the highly charged negative meaning of "heretic." 65 In the 13th century when the Beguines first come into clear focus against the background of late medieval culture, the movement had already spread across much of Europe and was found in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Sicily. Yet the etymology of the term beguine has never been satisfactorily explained. 66 Nor have researchers been successful in establishing the ultimate origins of the movement itself, that is, the terminus ante quem non or the starting point. The latter term refers to the earliest possible date in a range of dates (of a manuscript's production, for instance, or of the appearance of a given meaning of a word).67 The latter concept refers to evidence The resulting consonant-vowel cluster /lhar/ ends up being transcribed, i.e., rendered in written form, as either /ra/ or /da/, a common phonological reduction in Euskera. Hence, from a phonological point of view, there is every reason to believe that the terms braguine, brayine, and braine are nothing more than reduced forms of beraguine; and that, from an etymological point of view, the latter term, in turn, is nothing more than a phonological variant of the compound belhar-(e)guin in which the second element eguin is the common Basque verb eguin „to do, to make‟. 65 A much earlier version of this aspect of the research project was presented as a conference paper entitled "The Bequines: A Historical Perspective" at the Central Renaissance Conference, Iowa City, Iowa, March 26, 1976. An updated and reoriented version with the title of "Herb-Workers and Heretics: The Beguines and the Basques" was given at the Congreso Internacional de Investigación, Docencia y Feminismo, San Sebastian, Spain, March 26, 1993. Cf. McDonnell, 1954, pp. 430-38, for a critique of previous attempts to establish the word‟s etymology. According to Knuth, 1992, 1998, as to the derivation of this name, several explanations have been proposed, none of which is conclusive. Perhaps the most persistent idea is that they are named after Lambert le Begue (Bowie, 1990, p. 12; Cox, 1985, p. 86; Hart, 1980, p. 3; McDonnell, 1954, p. 435; Menzies, 1953, p. xviii; O‟Brien, 1970, p. 81). However, that theory is rejected today by most scholars. Indeed, Lea argues that its plausibility is negated by the fact that there are references to the term beguine (and its variant spellings in Latin, et al.) which antedate the birth of this individual. Others have suggested that beguine: 1) should be identified as a derivative of the expression „Albigensian‟ (Bowie, 1990, p. 12; McDonnell, 1954, p. 435; Southern, 1970, p. 321); 2) that it was a reference to mendicancy, i.e., „begging‟ (Morris, 1975, p. 119); 3) that it is derived from the characteristic gray color of the Beguine habit (Hart, 1980, p. 3; Bowie, 1990, p. 10); 4) that it was based on the name of the figure of St. Begga (Bowie, 1990, p. 13; Hart, 1980, p. 3, McDonnell, 1954, p. 431), Again, in the latter case, the existence of earlier references to the term beguine and hence to the existence of the movement, operates against such a hypothesis. Cf. Frank, in prep.-a for a more detailed account of the explanations proposed for the etymology of the term. 66 67 In the case of the Beguine movement, investigators, such as Lea, argue that The Netherlands was the geographical origin of the movement since the oldest recorded reference to the Beguines goes back to a document dated 1065. Speaking of the founding of Beguinages in the Netherlands, Lea (1888 [1956, Vol. 2, p. 351) states: “The Netherlands were the native seat of this fruitful idea, and as early as 1065 [a hundred years before Lambert le Bègue comes on the scene] there is a charter extant given by a convent of Beguines at Vilvorde, near Brussels.” In 1630, Puteanus (van Putte), a Louvain professor, produced three documents dating from 1065, 1129, and 1151, respectively. According to van Putte, these documents related to the aforementioined convent of Beguines at Vilvorde, near Brussels. The full reference to this work is found in Roslyn M. Frank Page 21 3/12/2011 that determines the earliest point in time in which a given event took place or a given manuscript was produced. Consequently, at this juncture there are two terminological concepts that need to be clarified and distinguished from each other: that of the terminus post quem non which has been discussed, and that of the terminus ante quem non or the date before which something took place. These terms are regularly applied in the case of the methodology employed in the field of cladistics, i.e., they are commonly used by evolutionary biologists to determine the „family tree‟ of animals, that is, the evolutionary history of the species, and in the related field of stemmatics, the study of the family tree of manuscripts, as well as in archaeology.68 From the point of view of determining the ultimate origins of the Beguine movement, as is the case in archaeology and the other fields of study mentioned above, it is important to recall that we are dealing with questions related to way evidence has been preserved: the preservation and transmission of archival materials relating to a movement, often judged heretical, that is, whose writings, as has been amply documented, were often summarily burned by the Inquisition. At the same time, the general paucity of documents dating from the 11th century and/or earlier should be kept in mind. More concretely, when these two temporally limiting concepts are applied, a document that dates from, say, 1065, and includes a reference to the Beguines, does not, in and of itself, represent a terminus ante quem non, but rather merely a terminus post quem non. In other words, the document does not point us to the earliest date in which the movement could have originated, but rather only to the date before which it was already in existence. Here we need to emphasize the paucity of direct documentation for the movement‟s existence in the early Middle Ages, that is, documentation that would take us back in time beyond the 11th century. For this reason the transparently Basque etymology of the terms braine and braguine alongside their Romance counterparts, could serve to shed new light on the pre-Christian origins of this a wide-spread and highly controversial women‟s movement whose members self-identified using the expression beguine as a title, one that set them apart from other women.69 The movement whose origins some scholars have traced back to Aquitaine, was firmly entrenched throughout much of Medieval Europe by the 13th century. Over time it eventually became the object of prolonged persecution by the Inquisition and other ecclesiastical authorities, much as the serora and her helpers did in Euskal Herria. Based on the evidence presently available, particularly the remarkable similarities holding between the functions and duties carried out by the beguines in other parts of Europe and by the Basque bedeguines (braguines, beraguines, et al.) in Euskal Herria, there is reason to believe that the two social phenomena are closely linked. Consequently, it is highly likely that a detailed comparative analysis of the morphology of the two institutions could bring to light additional information concerning the McDonnell 1969, p. 431): Puteanus, De Begginarum apud Belgas instituto ac nomine suffragium,quo controversia recens excilata sopitur (Louvain, 1630). 68 69 For further illustration of these concepts, cf. http://www.skypoint.com/~waltzmn/Stemma.html. Cf. Appendix I which begins on pg. 33 of this document; Frank in prep-a, in prep-b. Roslyn M. Frank Page 22 3/12/2011 organizational structure as well as social and economic significance of these women in times past.70 For example, as Azpiazu has pointed out, the Basque seroras and their helpers were involved in a number of income producing activities, including providing health care to the populace.71 Similarly, in the Middle Ages and beyond we find members of the Beguine Movement acting as health care providers, healers, both individually and collectively, e.g., in the many hospitals that the Beguines established and ran on their on own lands. In this respect, we should keep in mind the following comment by Saint Martin concerning the fact that in rural zones the serora was known not only as an ermitaña and emparedada de dios, but also as a santera, and curandera.72 However, given the evidence presently available the following assertion by the same author will need to be revised, most particularly her allegation concerning the exclusively Basque nature of the institution of the serora and her helpers, will need to be revised: "Pues, hay noticias de esta institución, exclusivamente vasca, en el año 1302."73 Similarly, outside of Euskal Herria researchers who have studied the role of beguines and their activities in the rest of Europe have not been cognizant of the roles assigned to the Basque serora and her helpers in Euskal Herria. Nor have they taken into account the etymology of the term bedeguine in Euskara. Hence, each group of researchers has been ignorant of the findings of the other. As a result, neither those working inside Euskal Herria nor those working outside of it, have had the opportunity to appreciate the structural similarities between two phenomena. Stated differently, for those working in Euskal Herria, there has been a tendency to see the serora and her helpers as an exclusively Basque phenomenon rather than recognizing that the etymology of the word „beguine‟ proposed in this document leads us in quite a different direction, namely, that the ultimate origins of the movement itself should be traced back to pre-Christian ritual practices and socio-economic structures that were found in Euskal Herria, that is, in the Basque-speaking zones of Western Europe during the early Middle Ages and earlier. In conclusion we can argue that with respect to the serora and her helpers, Basques received Christianity on their own terms, syncretically fusing older practices with newer ones and in the process managing to preserve many pre-Christian rituals and beliefs, 70 Cf. Frank, in prep.-a, in prep.-b; Greven, 1912; McDonnell, 1954, Neumann, 1960; Phillips, 1941. 71 Azpiazu, 1995, p. 321. Saint Martin, 1976, p. 8. The meaning of these terms are: ermitaña „hermitess, anchorite, a female dwelling in a hermitage‟, emparedada de dios „recluse of God‟; santera „a female who takes care of the images of saints‟ although it also has connotations of a „female healer‟; curandera „female healer, herbworker‟. 72 Op. cit. p. 9. “Indeed, there is information concerning this exclusively Basque institution in the year 1302.” It should be noted that here has been a certain tendency on the part of Basque researchers to find signs of Basque identity in the survival of this unique institution. At the same time, as a corollary of the commonplace investigative model which posits the Basque language and culture as isolates, researchers have not been inclined to seek out evidence for the existence of parallel institutions in other parts of Europe, much less those, such as the Beguine Movement, whose own structural origins might well be rooted in ritual practices characteristic of Euskal Herria in times past. 73 Roslyn M. Frank Page 23 3/12/2011 despite centuries of orthodox missionary activity and sporadic Inquisitorial persecution.74 For example, the investigations of Veillet and Dubarat, based on 17th and 18th century archival materials relating to the Cathedral of Bayonne, demonstrate that these women were still officially connected to the ritual life of the populace. This fact is revealed in Dubarat's commentary where he remarks that the serora's "helper" received a salary of twelve libras per year from the serora as well as other emoluments. At the end of the 17th century explicitly listed among the services performed by the helper we find the following: she was in charge of carrying blessed water to the baptismal founts; she carried the large basket of ritual breads, etc. in the funerary procession; and cleaned the cloisters of the church or hermitage. The texts indicate that the helpers had other duties not explicitly mentioned. This office continued to be filled at least into the 18th century for we find that a woman by the name of Marie Forgues, wife of Pierre Lacaze, was named brayine on December 1, 1724, and upon her death, Marie de Launay was named braguine to replace her on June 19, 1748.75 Other documents dating from both earlier periods and later ones indicate that the serora, as well as her helpers, were named by the local populace and that they lived in or near the hermitage belonging to the same community. Yet the survival of the serora and her helpers as a relatively independent institution in Euskal Herria was not achieved without considerable struggle and confrontation with the Church hierarchy. Indeed, there is evidence of frequent and often violent conflicts arising between the local populace and the Church officials over the role, functions and privileges of these women. For example, in 1792, in the Municipal Register of the village of Moguer near Bayonne, there is archival evidence concerning women who were accused of assaulting the local priest, Martin D'Aguerresar. The documents pertaining to the case show that the motives governing the action of the women who were some sixty in number, were directly related to defending the role of the serora whose traditional duties were about to be usurped, in their opinion, by the priest.76 The highly charged environment surrounding these events and the confrontational nature of the conflict itself suggests that the institution of the serora as well as that of her helpers were considered of fundamental importance to Basque cultural identity even at the end of the 18th century. Nonetheless, far less information is available concerning much earlier conflicts that must have arisen from other contestations of ritual agency. Based on the latter archival record, we may assume, that each time the duties of the serora and her female assistants came under attack, there was an outcry on the part of the 74 For additional pertinent documentation on other syncretistic strategies related to negotiating contested ritual agency, i.e., related to determining who controls the ritual symbols of identity of the collective, cf. Balzer, 1999, especially her chapter entitled “Christianization: Processes of Incomplete Conversion,” pp. 54-74, which concerns the mechanisms utilized by an indigenous people, the Khanty, to appropriate the forms of Christianity and use them to reinforce notions of collective self-identity, e.g., the syncretistic equation of Jesus Christ and the bear. Also, Frank, 1996c, 1998, 2001, 2005, in press. 75 76 Cf. Dubarat, ibid. This particular document sheds light on the mechanisms of protest utilized by both women and men and the nature of the decisions that set in motion what must be considered to be well thought out collective acts of civil and ecclesiastical disobedience. Cf. "Des Registres municipaux de Mouguerre," Gure Herria XXVI (1954), pp. 118-121. Roslyn M. Frank Page 24 3/12/2011 local populace and that the resistance could have been translated into organized actions intended to counter the efforts of the ecclesiastical authorities to abolish the institution. Undoubtedly further research into the ways that the Basques adapted and sometimes rejected Christian influences would provide further insights into the strategies employed, often quite successfully, to preserve and foster cultural identity. Part V. Concluding Thoughts Research on the role of the serora and her helpers calls for a reassessment of data relating to the Beguine movement in Europe and the master narrative associated with it. Such a reassessment serves to bring into focus both the weaknesses and strengths of the current model(s). Also, the reevaluation of the current model(s) in light of this new data on the Basque serora and her assistants has heuristic value: it allows for comparisons to be made between what is known about the Beguine movement in the rest of Europe and the role of women in Euskal Herria. The new narrative moves the time frame of the model backwards in time, situating it initially in pre-Christian social practices. This reorientation of time-frame of the narrative allows some aspects of the data to appear as modern accretions, e.g., the warm relationship between the Beguinages movement and the Catholic Church, while others are sketched more boldly, e.g. the conflicts between members of the Beguine movement and the Papal authorities, for instance, in the early 14th century, as well as the many examples of the movement and heretical actitivities associated with the „free Beguines‟ and those who refused to abide by the Church‟s admonitions. At the same time, the revised narrative allows other structures and questions to come into view that were not present previously i.e., when viewed through the lens of a model not informed by the Basque data. This refocusing of the field of inquiry fulfills a heuristic function: it aids in the construction of new directions and the (re-)formulation of the pertinent research questions. For example, when the Basque data is compared to the European datasets, we see that the Basque etymology of belharguin grounds its original meaning in the notion of an „herb-worker‟, a healer whose knowledge of plants (and one would assume of other ritual means of healing, e.g., oral formula, etc.) would have made her a valuable member of the community. The fact that in Euskal Herria we find these women assigned to hermitages, often remote locations, and practicing as healers further solidifies the assumption that originally there was a linkage between the profession of serora and her helpers, as individuals with special knowledge, and their role in the socio-economic and ritual life of the community. The bifurcated path laid down by the dialectal variants of belharguin allows us to see the term having what appears to be opposed meanings: „holy woman‟ and „witch‟. The apparently opposed meanings assigned to the term can be explained easily keeping in mind that the meaning of belharguin as „witch‟ reflects what we might call the post-inquisitorial perspective of women healers. However, in the case of the Basque variants of the term, since its etymology continues to be perceived by Euskaldunok, Basque-speakers (even though the belharguin could be viewed negatively by some), the individual is also understood to be a „herb-worker‟. Examined from a slightly different angle, we can argue that the Basque prototypical meaning of belharguin „herb-worker‟ moved along two paths. On the one hand, there was Roslyn M. Frank Page 25 3/12/2011 the secular path or lineage along which the expression acquired increasingly negative connotations, i.e., as a „pagan‟ survival‟. The other fork in the path produced a sacred lineage. In our model of events, that lineage would have arisen in pre-Christian ritual practices that as time passed were incorporated directly into the ritual fabric of ritual practices which were viewed as Christian. This modeling of our data produces a scenario in which the women healers and their helpers lived near sacred sites that were also sociopolitical assembly points. The women would have been in charge of taking care of these sites, just as the serora and her helpers did in the case of similar sites in Christian times. The evolution of these sites into places of veneration of Christian saints allowed for the belharguin, her duties and functions, to be incorporated directly into the Christian matrix. This explains why in the case of the Cathedral of Bayonne, the names of the serora‟s helpers derive from a term meaning „herb-worker‟. In summary, the Basque etymology of the word supports the allegation that the duties and functions of these women followed a bifurcated path with one lineage producing negatively charged understanding of the term and yet another lineage that was assimilated fully by Christianity. Thus, the bifurcated lineage of belharguin requires us to set the terminus post quem non in a period prior to the adoption of Christianity by the Basque populace: the etymology leads us back to earlier stages in the ritual and socio-political life of the Basque people. In contrast, research on the Beguine movement in the rest of Europe has tended to assume that the movement‟s terminus post quem non was after the Christianity was well established, that is, that the Beguine life-style evolved out of Christianity, as an adjunct of Christianity, and/or, as is often alleged, as a response to specific needs of women in the early 1200s. Nonetheless, scholars have repeatedly puzzled over the fact that these women were portrayed alternately as holy women and heretics, depending on the time frames and the geographical locations discussed. The ambivalence of the Church toward these women suggests that the life-style of the Beguines and their associated beliefs eventually set them on a collision path with the Papal authorities and the Inquisition. And that over time the authorities demanded that they submit to increased control by the Church and/or its Terciary Orders. If, on the other hand, one applies the Basque model to the European datasets, alleging that the Beguine movement had its origins in preChristian practices and the roles played by women in this earlier stage of European civilization, there might be a way to resolve this apparent contradiction. For instance, in the case of the Basque data we see women acting has keepers of sacred sites and at the same time fulfilling functions related to herbal and ritual healing as well as playing central roles in rituals related to the death and spiritual life of the living and the dead, e.g., the role of the serora in conducting masses for the dead and leading funeral procession.77 The fact that de Lancre complains that he has seem similar outrageous acts performed by women in Germany indicates that there are other lines of investigation that might be pursued in this respect: the specific tasks fulfilled by Beguines with respect to organizing masses for the deceased in urban centers, i.e., on behalf of the relatives of the deceased, keeping the candles lit, etc.. Stated differently, when de Lancre saw what the serora and her helpers were doing in Bayonne, he recalled a similar situation that has also offended him, namely, the case of a woman who followed the priest in Germany. In what 77 Cf. Frank in prep.-b. Roslyn M. Frank Page 26 3/12/2011 sense were the functions of the two groups of women similar? In what way could the origins of these functions be similar? At the same time, another advantage of the new research model is that merges the two datasets, the Basque and European ones. The implications of this merger require a clear understanding of the complexity of the etymological lineages of the term belharguin (i.e., belhar-eguin). This narrative of events, that is, in terms of the evolution of the Basque lexemes, would situate belhar-guin as the prototype in the series, as the etymon for the entire set of terms. As has been indicated, the intra-Basque development of the compound is fully documented. Significantly, the Basque variants include those that produced the variants recorded in the archives of the Cathedral of Bayonne, namely, those transcribed as braguine, brayine and braine. In the case of these items, on the one hand they clearly refer to women whose functions replicate those associated historically with the European Beguines. Yet, as I have stated, from a phonological point of view, the presence of /r/ in the Basque expressions makes it extremely difficult to argue that they are loan words in Basque. That is, it would be hard to make a convincing case that the terms could borrowings and derived from the word beguine. The phonological structure of the Basque items mitigates against a genealogy that would start with a non-Basque source, i.e. with the word beguine, a term lacking the /r/, and then produce a borrowing in Basque, based this particular non-Basque linguistic source, that would have the phonological shape of braguine. Furthermore, the fact that the three terms (braguine, brayine and braine): 1) are found in documents in a zone where Basque was (and is) spoken; 2) are transparent in the way that they can be derived phonologically from a Basque compound; and 3) refer to individuals whose relationship to the serora is historically documented, i.e., they are understood to be connected structurally to the serora and therefore traditional Basque religious ritual. This structural linkage would support an intra-Basque evolution of their duties and functions and does not, therefore, require one to situate them inside, say, a Beguinage. In short, the Basque expressions used to describe the serora‟s helpers cannot be derived from the term beguine and therefore cannot be viewed as loan words. This is significant for it suggests an independent path of development for the duties and functions of the office of braguine. At the same time, if one proposes a model in which belhar-guin is assigned as the genealogical prototype, i.e., the etymon for the expression beguine (Fr.), then one would need to develop the following type of argumentation: at a point in time not yet determined and in a location in Europe not yet identified, the Basque compound expression belharguin came to be rendered as beraguin, bedaguin or bedeguin, all forms being documented variants of the compound in Basque. In this case, we can trace the lineage of the prototype or ancestral form belharguin through the line which leads to bedaguin and bedeguin. First, we should note that an intervocalic /d/ can easily drop, especially when the speaker who is reproducing the word is not a native-speaker of Basque. Stated differently, native-speakers of L1, here Basque, have phonological competence in the language and can reconstruct belharguin from phonological variants that might be heard as as bedaguin or bedeguin; in constrast a speaker of L2, a nonBasque-speaker, who hears the term pronounced as bedaguin or bedeguin could easily mispronounce it, leading to a further phonological reduction of the compound as it is Roslyn M. Frank Page 27 3/12/2011 borrowed into the native-language of the second speaker. In the case of the Basque speaker another factor in play that facilitates the recuperation of the original compound, belhar-eguin. This is the fact that the term is recognized as a compound, composed to two free-standing, hence, independent lexical elements. The revised narrative of events sets forth a scenario in which prior to the advent of Christianity, we imagine an area, say, of Aquitaine, a region renowned for the high status of women, where the serora and her followers were performing their duties at hermitages and other ritual gathering points. At this point one can create two tracks for how the model evolved. One of the evolutionary pathways would assume the slow transmission of the duties and functions of the serora and her helpers to the rest of Europe, e.g., to Catalonia, Calabria, to Germany and the southern Low Countries, a process that could have taken place over many hundreds of years. Or, secondly, one could speculate that in the other regions of Europe similar social practices already existed in pre-Christian times and that women played a major role in fulfilling certain functions that were needed in the communities in question, i.e., taking on the associated duties and responsibilities, just as they did in Euskal Herria. This scenario posits that similar needs were found across Europe in pre-Christian times. Furthermore, the master narrative assigns a major role to women healers, particularly, among the lower and popular classes. At this juncture, the narrative in question does not have an explanation for how a compound derived from Basque could have ended up being the term used by women following the so-called Beguine life-style to self-identify as members of a widerorganization. Certainly one of the most enticing scenarios would be to suggest that the term had moved out of southwest France, e.g. Aquitaine, in the early Middle Ages, prior to the full implantation of Christianity and that women elsewhere adopted it as a means of communicating their shared-value system and way of life. In summary, this revised research model accomplishes several things. First, it sets up a deeper time-frame for describing the role of women in the ritual landscape of Europe, linking the Beguine movement to these earlier pre-Christian practices and societal needs. Second, by developing a narrative that argues for the wide-spread presence of a Beguinelike life style in Europe prior to 1200, the otherwise almost inexplicable spread of the life-style out of the southern Low Country to the rest of Europe in a matter of only a decade, would be rendered a moot point. At present alleging a sudden spread of the movement is the interpretation of the fact that in only a decade or so references to the Beguines crop up in widely separated geographic locations. The alternate model would argue that the movement already existed in these locations and that what multiplied were the documentary references to it, specifically, references that were not destroyed either deliberately or by chance. Another aspect of the revised narrative is the fact that one must be more concerned with questions related to the level and type of communication channels utilized by women who called themselves Beguines. And answers to that question will bring into sharper focus the issue of the relationship between the „free-Beguines‟ and/or after the Clementines, the Papal Bulls issued at the beginning of the 14th century, those Beguines, judged „heretics‟ by the authorities, who went underground and women healers in general who centuries later would persecuted under the rubric of „witches‟. Roslyn M. Frank Page 28 3/12/2011 In summary, given the sketchy nature of both the content and data recruited to justify the revision of current investigative approaches, the research model laid out here will undoubtedly engender considerable controversy, as it should, particularly where there are vested academic interests in defending a northern European origin for the movement. While the new narrative has considerable explanatory power and is robust in many senses, e.g., it offers at least a partial explanation for the shifting identities of the Beguines, their simultaneous acceptance and rejection, it certainly raises more questions and issues than it answers. For this reason, if it serves no other purpose than to open up new areas of questioning, to bring into focus emergent structures that result from the comparison of the two datasets, it will have accomplished its purpose. Also, it seems to me that there is another purpose served by these broad strokes of comparison: that more interdisciplinary research and active collaboration needs to be undertaken. At the very least, as was mentioned earlier, I believe that this avenue of investigation should serve as a heuristic for a shift in focus in the research on the Beguines to a more meta-theoretical stance, one that will permit researchers to examine the „received history‟ of the movement; the way that over time scholars go about constructing the object of their attention. As one investigator pointed out recently, we must be constantly aware of the intrinsic nature of the rules governing academic discourse and the way that it comes to define an area of research, e.g., the way in which certain aspects of the data are emphasized while others are set aside. Certain avenues are pursued more vigorously than others. And others are left virtually untouched. Indeed, we might say that “the origins of the movement itself have been obscured by the intense scholarly determinism stemming from consensus-based „historical fact‟. So many promising sources out there fall short of addressing the movement's wider implications, possible „evolution‟ over a longer span of time. Indeed, these problems are not so much intentionally embedded, but rather seeded through monolithic discourses of religious and even feminist scholarship, which are not nearly as flexible as they seem at first blush.”78 References Areitio, Darío de. 1927. “Las Brujas de Ceberio.” Revue Internationale des Études Basques XVIII: 654664. _____1959. “Las Freilas o Seroras de Begoña.” Los vascos en la historia de España. Publicaciones de la Junta de Cultura de Vizcaya. Bilbao: Arrindu Albisu, Anastasio. 1965. Religión prehistórica de las vascos. San Sebastián: Editorial Auñamendi. Azkue, Resurrección María de. 1932. Particularidades del dialecto roncalés. Bilbao: Ed. Vasca. Azpiazu, José Antonio. 1995. Mujeres vascas: sumisión y poder. Donostia-San Sebastián: Haranburu Editor. Barandiaran, José Miguel de. 1972-.Obras Completas. Vol. I-VI. Bilbao: Editorial La Gran Enciclopedia Vasca. 78 Jennifer D. Carlson in a personal communication. November 29, 2002. Roslyn M. Frank Page 29 3/12/2011 Balzer, Marjorie Mandelstam. 1999. The Tenacity of Ethnicity: A Siberian Saga in Global Perspective. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Barton, Bill and Roslyn M. Frank. 2001. “Mathematical Ideas and Indigenous Languages.” In Bill Atweh, Helen Forgasz and Ben Nebres (eds.), Socio-Cultural Research in Mathematics Education: An International Perspective. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 135-149 Bowie, Fiona. Beguine Spirituality: Mystical Writings of Mechthild of Magdeburg, Beatrice of Nazareth, and Hadewijch of Brabant. Trans. Oliver Davies. N.Y.: Crossroad. Caro Baroja, Julio. 1974. Ritos y mitos equívocos. Madrid: Ediciones Istmo. _____ 1973. The World of Witches. Trans. O.N.V. Glendinning. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 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