Authors and languages in a sociohistorical context: Basque religious literature in seventeenth-century France

Abstract

In this paper, we apply the methods of historical sociolinguistics to seventeenth-century religious literature in Basque. We explore issues related to macrosociolinguistics, and, in particular, the problem of contextualisation of authors and their works. As an example of this approach, we analyse Doctrina Christiana by Esteve Materra (published in 1617 and 1623), the first Basque Catholic catechism in the province of Labourd, in the northern part of the Basque Country. It marked the beginning of an intense period of publishing in Basque which lasted until the late seventeenth century. We place the book in the context of major religious movements in France at that time. Materra’s catechism was a response of the Catholic Church to the Reformation in the Basque Country, and was produced with the support of the Church authorities, which needed Basque to reach monolingual speakers. Notwithstanding, Materra’s catechism also attests to the development of a model of written language to be used in the Labourdin literature.