nd the Basoche of the
parlement of Toulouse.

[v.03 p.0485] See also _Repertoire de jurisprudence des Guyot; Recueil des
Statuts du royaume de la basoche_ (Paris, 1654); L. A. Fabre, _Etudes
historiques sur les clercs de la basoche_ (Paris, 1856).

(J. P. E.)

[1] A procedure for obtaining a provisional judgment on urgent cases.

BASQUE PROVINCES (_Provincias Vascongadas_), a division of north-eastern
Spain, comprising the three provinces of Alava, Biscay or Vizcaya and
Guipuzcoa. Pop. (1900) 603,596; area 2739 sq. m., the third in density in
Spain. The territory occupied by the Basque Provinces forms a triangle
bounded on the west and south by the provinces of Santander, Burgos and
Logrono, on the east by Navarre, on the north by France and the Bay of
Biscay. The French Pays Basque forms part of the arrondissements of Bayonne
and Mauleon. For an account of the people, their origin, customs and
language, see BASQUES. Of the Provinces, Guipuzcoa is the only one which is
wholly Basque, Alava is the least so. Its capital, Vitoria, is said to have
been founded by the Gothic king Leovigild (581). Older than these
divisions, the date of which is uncertain, the ancient limits of the
dioceses of Pamplona, Bayonne and Calahorra, probably corresponded more
nearly to the boundaries of the ancient tribes, the Autrigones, the
Caristi, the Varduli and the Vascones, with their still differing dialects,
than do these civil provinces.

Leaving aside the legendary and uncertain portion of their history, we find
the Provinces in some districts dependent allies of Navarre, in others of
Castile. In Biscay the counts of Haro were lords of Biscay from 1093 to
1350. There was a short union with Castile under Pedro the Cruel, but the
definitive union did not take place till 1370. In Alava the ruling power
was the confederation of Arriaga (so called after its meeting place), which
united the province to the crown of Castile in 1332. Guipuzcoa, which had
been dependent sometimes on Navarre, sometimes on Castile, was definitively
united to Castile in 1200. From the year 1425 the provinces were desolated
by party wars among the lesser nobles (_parientes mayores_) but these came
to an end in 1460-1498, when Henry IV. and Ferdinand the Catholic
strengthened the power of the towns and forbade the erection of any
fortified house in the country. Though the three Basque Provinces were thus
united to the crown of Spain, they still remained a land apar