Cartularies of Valpuesta

File:CartulariosValpuesta.jpg

Fragment in Visigothic script

The Cartularies of Valpuesta are two medieval Spanish cartularies which belonged to a monastery in the locality of Valpuesta in the province of Burgos, Castile and León, Spain. They contain a series of documents from the 12th century which, in turn, are copies of older documents, some of which date back to the 9th century. Although the authenticity of some of the texts is disputed, the cartularies are significant in the history of the Spanish language, and their status as manuscripts containing the earliest words written in Spanish has been promoted by the Spanish Royal Academy and other institutions, even though the documents are meant to be written in Latin. They are written in a very late form of Latin mixed with other elements of a Hispanic Romance dialect that corresponds in some traits with modern Spanish.

The cartularies are called the Gótico and the Galicano from the type of script used in each. They are housed in the National Archives of Spain. Selections from the oldest documents were published in 1900 in the French journal Revue hispanique. The preamble of the Statue of Autonomy of Castile and León mentions the cartularies, along with the Nodicia de Kesos, as documents that contain the most primitive traces of Spanish (las huellas más primitivas del castellano). In November of 2010, the Spanish Royal Academy endorsed the cartularies, written in a Latin language assaulted by a living language, as the record of the earliest words written in Castilian, predating those of the Glosas Emilianenses (marginalia of circa 1000 ce). The cartularies are available in a recent scholarly edition.

Further reading

• Emiliana Ramos Remedios. Los Cartularios de Santa María de Valpuesta. Análisis Lingüístico, 2000.