The piece of the month of July 2019
THE FAZANIA OF A MAN AND A SNAKE IN THE regional law GENERAL DE NAVARRA
Mercedes Galán Lorda
Chair of Navarrese Heritage and Art
University of Navarra
The piece to be considered is one of the chapters of the regional law General of Navarre, one of the most important legal texts in the Navarre History of Law .
The regional law General of Navarra
Developed in the 13th century, with the advent of the House of Champagne to the Navarrese throne, its content was inspired by the main local Navarrese fueros (fueros of Estella, Jaca-Pamplona, Tudela, or Viguera-Val de Funes), by custom and by the judicial internship . Also used, although to a lesser extent, was the ius commune, the law that was the object of study in the medieval universities, and whose fundamental content was constituted by the Roman Law justinianeo and the Canon Law.
In 1238 a commission was appointed, made up of the king, the bishop of Pamplona and forty other people, who were to be in charge of putting the charters in writing, probably with the aim of informing Theobald I of their contents, goal . The result of this commission was the text of the regional law General, most probably written by a jurist whose name is unknown.
The regional law General of Navarre has 531 laws distributed in 6 books. The first of them is dedicated to the king (his elevation; the maximum of five non-natural persons of the kingdom who could occupy public positions; or the Royal committee , composed of twelve rich men who intervened in the most relevant matters of the kingdom), and to the nobility (obligations, such as accompanying the king in host; and rights, such as being judged by the Cort, having special procedures, or being holders of honors, whether they were lands, villas or rents).
The second book contains Procedural Law (the relative to procedure judicial: citations, means of test, resources) and succession issues (the most relevant, the primogeniture in the succession to the throne; abolition goods and patrimony; freedom of disposition of the conquered goods; or succession rights of the children).
The third book regulates manorial rights, contributions and civil matters (loans, leases, sales and purchases, donations, pledges, bonds, and also testamentary matters).
Family matters are the subject of the fourth book (marriage, arras, capacity to dispose, strength and adultery). The fifth book is dedicated to Criminal Law (deaths, homicides, wounds, robberies, thefts, falsehood, injuries and damages) and includes the reptorios et batayllas as special judicial procedures (forms of mourning, or exceptional means of test ). Finally, the sixth book deals with neighborhood issues (use of pastures, wood, water, custody of roads and fields, tillage, and threshing floors).
The regional law General includes many of the traditional institutions of Navarrese law, such as the testament of brotherhood, the truncation of goods, the retracto gentilicio, the regime of conquests, the communities faceras and facerías, or the institution of the major relatives.
Although there is no record of the official sanction of the text of the regional law General, it was indirectly sanctioned through its two amejoramientos or updates, approved by Philip III of Evreux and Charles III the Noble in 1330 and 1418, respectively.
The drafting of this text marked a fundamental milestone in the evolution of Navarre's law, since it was the first legal text whose scope of application was the entire kingdom of Navarre.
Transcendence and application of the regional law General over time.
Until their elaboration, the fueros had a local character, which meant that each locality had a specific legal regime or rules of coexistence, although it was common for some texts to be taken as "model" and extended to other localities. This fact is what makes it possible to group the fueros into "families", the text that served as model to the others being called "head of the family". Thus, in Navarre, seven families have traditionally been distinguished: five from Navarre itself, those of the fueros of Estella, Jaca-Pamplona, Tudela, Viguera-Val de Funes, Novenera, and those of the fueros of Daroca and Medinaceli, also granted to some localities in Navarre.
These local charters coexisted, from the 13th century, with the Generalregional law that, with subsidiary character with respect to each local regional law , was applicable in all Navarre. Only in the case of Pamplona, when the city was physically and legally unified by virtue of the Privilege of the Union of September 8, 1423, did the regional law General replace the regional law of Jaca-Pamplona as the text in force in the city.
In final, from 1423 the regional law General became the legal text applicable in Pamplona, already the unified capital of the kingdom of Navarre, but it was also of general application throughout the kingdom as a complement to the local fueros.
This medieval regional law has survived over time, remaining in force to the present day. In spite of the legislative activity, both of the Cortes and of the king, which was collected in the various compilations elaborated throughout the Modern Age, it was always considered that the Generalregional law contained the essence of Navarrese law from its first law, in which the king-kingdom pact appears.
Also, in 1530, a broad legal text was elaborated, the regional law Reducido, which was intended to replace the regional law General, "reducing" to unity the various local Navarrese fueros and the regional law General itself, in such a way as to include what was in force with better technique and eliminating what was anachronistic. However, even though the kingdom requested it throughout the 16th century, the Reducedregional law did not obtain royal approval from Charles I or Philip II.
Thus, the Cortes decided to apply for the printing of the old regional law General, of which authenticated copies were used, known as regional law colacionado, used by jurists throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Finally, the regional law General was printed for the first time in 1686, together with the laws that the Navarrese Cortes had C since 1512, in the compilation elaborated by Antón de Chavier.
The fact is that the regional law General maintained its validity. After the first printing in 1686, it was printed again by the Diputación Foral in 1815, and by Ilarregui y Lapuerta in 1869. This last edition was reprinted by the Diputación in 1964, with the addition of the Amejoramiento of 1418. In 1987, Utrilla edited the protosystematic redactions.
When in 1973 the regional law Nuevo or Compilación del Civil Law Foral de Navarra was enacted, the first law made reference letter to regional law General as part of the legal tradition of Navarre, so that until today it has been legally available as source interpretative and integrative of the current Civil Law of Navarre. In the recent reform of the Newregional law of this same year 2019, it is also maintained as a text of preferential rank for the interpretation and integration of the laws of the Compilation.
The fazania of man and snake
Now that the relevance that the text of the regional law General has had in the legal life of Navarre is clear, it is worth drawing attention to some particularly curious aspects of its content.
Traditionally, the so-called regional law Antiguo has been highlighted, a set of twelve articles considered the original core of the text, among which the following stand out: degree scroll or section dedicated to the reptorios et batayllas, exceptional means of test or conflict resolution when there was no other means to resort to; and degree scroll de fazanias, on which we will briefly focus our attention.
In the legal world it is considered that a relevant source of creation of law, both in Roman and medieval times, are the judicial decisions, source very present in the Anglo-American system.
Custom also plays an important role in the creation of law, so that when considering the origin of any law, custom, judicial decisions, certain covenants, and royal concessions are always alluded to as sources.
The fazañas were precisely judicial decisions and played a relevant role in the creation and consolidation of law. They were judicial decisions in which the judge decided at his own discretion. The fazañas responded to specific cases, in which the judge, with his decision, created a new rule or consecrated one internship. Although they responded to specific cases, when collections of fazañas were made, general principles tended to be extracted, disregarding specific details.
In the case of the regional law General of Navarre, degree scroll IX of the sixth book is dedicated to the fazanias. This is the last degree scroll of the regional law General, which gives the impression of wanting to conclude the text with a set of practical cases.
This section has the title degree scroll De fazanias and is composed of seven chapters, some of which are more than sentences, they are folk tales from which a kind of legal moral can be extracted.
One of them, chapter VII, is degree scroll: Fazania de I ombre et una serpient, et como ninguno deve non deve ser iurgado soviendo preso.
The text is as follows:
Fazania que un ombre yva por una carera et trobó muytas serpientes, padres et madres y ermanos et otros parientes, et mató todas ellas, salvo la menor, et crióla; et quoando fó bien criada adormiós este ombre. This serpent entered into his clothes and wrapped itself around the throat of this man, and wanted to kill him. This man said to this serpent, do not kill me, for I have raised you and have done you great good. The serpent answered, if you kill me, if you kill my father and mother, brothers, sisters and relatives, I will kill you. On these reasons they came before the mayor, and as the man had hidden the serpent, he said his reason as he had raised I man and great good deed, and eyll wanted to kill him. Et dixo lalcalde que non daría a eyll solo iuyzio a una razón iuyzio. Et escubrió la serpient, et dixo eylla su razon eylla cómo este ombre avia muerto su padre et su madre et sus hermanos et otros parientes. Et dixo lalcalde que non daria iuyzio el ombre estando preso, et desoltós la serpient; et el alcalde et este ombre mataron la serpient. This fazania is of the iusticias et de sus vecinos et de los alcaldes.
The consequences or legal lessons to be drawn from this fazania may be several. On the one hand, that only one party cannot be heard in court. On the other hand, that no one may speak under duress or "while in prison".
The emblem Ingratis servire nephas
The reason to consider this fazania is that the image that it offers us coincides with one of the emblems collected by Juan de Horozco y Covarrubias, specifically in his book II, emblem 14. As is known, emblems are images that represent an idea. In this case, the emblem is: Do not do good to the ungrateful.
Accompanying the image, in the book of Horozco and Covarrubias, there is the story of an unwary peasant who saw an unknown snake, whose body was painted with different figures and, as it was terrified by the winter cold, he picked it up and put it in his lap. But the snake, having received the warmth, stuck its venom into the wretched peasant. This shows the danger of doing good to the ungrateful, who repay good deeds with unworthy responses.
The farmer then shouted something that many know and experience: Do not do good to the ungrateful.
This story accompanies the image of an engraving that sample of the peasant with the snake that leaps out of his lap to bite him on his left arm.
The annotation accompanying the engraving indicates that this fable had a great tradition. It is explained by Aesop (176) and Phaedrus (4.20), and in the Age average it is collected by Pedro Alfonso and Juan Ruiz in his Book of Good Love. Apparently, Horozco took it directly from Phaedrus.
Ingratis servire nephas
No good should be done to the ungrateful
Juan de Horozco y Covarrubias, Three Hundred Moral Emblems
Book II, emblem 14
Although the fable represents the teaching that one should not do good to the ungrateful, the text collected in the regional law General has a different meaning. The similarity is great from the graphic point of view, but the fazania of the regional law contains the double juridical moral to which it has been made reference letter: nobody can be judged under duress, and it is always necessary to take into account the vision or testimony of both parts.
In any case, the fact that in a relevant legal text, such as the regional law General, the image of a well-known fable is taken to extract from it lessons from subject legal and, specifically, from the procedural field, shows, once again, the importance of the use of images as a means of Education popular.
Undoubtedly, the emblem is part of a long popular tradition, but particularly the fazania of the man and the snake can be considered a very rich figure of the Navarrese legal heritage, as a customary narrative of procedural forms of action. Moreover, this fazania is included in one of the most relevant legal texts of Navarrese law, the regional law General, part of the immaterial heritage of our land and a legal text that has remained in force from the 13th century to the present day, at least as an interpretative and integrating source .
SOURCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
AGUDO ROMEO, M. M.; ENCUENTRA ORTEGA, A.; ESTEBAN LORENTE, J. F. (Editing, translation, notes and comments): DE HOROZCO Y COVARRUBIAS, Juan, Trescientos emblemas morales, Zaragoza, Prensas de la Universidad de Zaragoza, 2017.
ILARREGUI, P.; LAPUERTA, S., regional law General de Navarra, Pamplona, Imprenta Provincial, 1869.
UTRILLA UTRILLA, J. F., El regional law General de Navarra. Estudio y edición de las redacciones protosistematicas (series A and B), 2 vols., Pamplona, Institución Príncipe de Viana, 1987.