The Fors de Bearn, or

fueros (), (), (), () or () is a Spanish legal term and concept. The word comes from Latin , an open space used as a market, tribunal and meeting place. The same Latin root is the origin of the French terms and , and the Portuguese terms and ...

Béarn Béarn (; ; or ''Biarn''; or ''Biarno''; or ''Bearnia'') is one of the traditional provinces of France, located in the Pyrenees mountains and in the plain at their feet, in Southwestern France. Along with the three Northern Basque Country, ...

, are a series of legal texts (privileges, rulings, judicial sentences, decrees, formularies) compiled over centuries (mostly the eleventh to thirteenth) in the

Viscounty of Béarn The Viscounty, later Principality of Béarn ( or ), was a Middle Ages, medieval lordship in the far south of Kingdom of France, France, part of the Duchy of Gascony from the late ninth century. In 1347, the viscount declared Béarn an independent ...

. Together they formed the constitution of Béarn at the time of their first known complete version in the fifteenth century. ''For'' is a Gascon word derived from the

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

''forum'', specifically from the '' Forum Iudicium'', which was the law of the

Visigoths The Visigoths (; ) were a Germanic people united under the rule of a king and living within the Roman Empire during late antiquity. The Visigoths first appeared in the Balkans, as a Roman-allied Barbarian kingdoms, barbarian military group unite ...

. The first of the ''fors'' was a

charter A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified. It is implicit that the granter retains superiority (or sovereignty), and that the ...

promulgated around 1080 by Centule V for the repopulation of the ancient town of Iluro ( Oloron). This was the seed of the future For de Oloron, which granted the city a commune. In 1102, Gaston IV granted a privilege to his capital of Morlaas, the nucleus of a similar future For de Morlaas. Finally, in 1188, Gaston VI promulgated the

For General For or FOR may refer to: English language *For, a preposition *For, a complementizer *For, a grammatical conjunction Science and technology * Fornax, a constellation * for loop, a programming language statement * Frame of reference, in physics * ...

, applicable throughout Béarn. This ''for'' included several dispensations which had accrued in the second half of the century. In the first half of the thirteenth century, the viscounts William Raymond and Gaston VII issued a series of ''fors'' for each of the Pyrenean valleys: * Baretous (1220) * Ossau (1221) *First charter of

Aspe Aspe (, ) is a town and municipality located in the '' comarca'' of Vinalopó Mitjà, in the province of Alicante, Spain. The town is located in the valley of the river Vinalopó, from Alicante city. The economy of Aspe is based on textile and ...

(1247) *Second charter of Aspe (1250) In the sixteenth century, when Béarn was united with the

Kingdom of Navarre The Kingdom of Navarre ( ), originally the Kingdom of Pamplona, occupied lands on both sides of the western Pyrenees, with its northernmost areas originally reaching the Atlantic Ocean (Bay of Biscay), between present-day Spain and France. The me ...

, monarchs

Henry II Henry II may refer to: Kings * Saint Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor (972–1024), crowned King of Germany in 1002, of Italy in 1004 and Emperor in 1014 *Henry II of England (1133–89), reigned from 1154 *Henry II of Jerusalem and Cyprus (1271–1 ...

and Joanna III reorganised and improved the ''Fors''. In 1620,

Louis XIII Louis XIII (; sometimes called the Just; 27 September 1601 – 14 May 1643) was King of France from 1610 until his death in 1643 and King of Navarre (as Louis II) from 1610 to 1620, when the crown of Navarre was merged with the French crown. ...

incorporated Béarn into the

French crown France was ruled by monarchs from the establishment of the kingdom of West Francia in 843 until the end of the Second French Empire in 1870, with several interruptions. Classical French historiography usually regards Clovis I, king of the Fra ...

, but preserved the ''Fors'', which continued to govern the viscounty until its abolition during the French Revolution in 1789.

Sources

*Tucoo-Chala, Pierre. ''Quand l'Islam était aux portes des Pyrénées''. J&D Editions: Biarritz, 1994. . *Omnes, Jean. ''Guide du curieux: Haut Béarn''. Pyremonde, 2006. {{ISBN, 2-84618-303-1.

Sources

See also