BASQUE CUISINE

Basque cuisine refers to the cuisine of a spanish northern area (País Vasco) and includes meats and fish grilled over hot coals, marmitako and lamb stews, cod, Tolosa bean dishes, paprikas from Lekeitio, pintxos (Basque tapas), Idiazabal sheep's cheese, txakoli sparkling wine, and Basque cider.

A basquaise is a type of dish prepared in the style of Basque cuisine that often includes tomatoes and sweet or hot red peppers.

Overview

Basque cuisine is influenced by the abundance of produce from the sea on one side and the fertile Ebro valley on the other. The great mountainous nature of the Basque Country has led to a difference between coastal cuisine dominated by fish and seafood, and inland cuisine with fresh and cured meats, many vegetables and legumes, and freshwater fish and salt cod. The French and Spanish influence is strong also, with a noted difference between the cuisine of either side of the modern border; even iconic Basque dishes and products, such as txakoli from the South, or Gâteau Basque (Biskotx) and Jambon de Bayonne from the North, are rarely seen on the other side.

Basques have also been quick to absorb new ingredients and techniques from new settlers and from their own trade and exploration links. Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal created a chocolate and confectionery industry in Bayonne still well-known today, and part of a wider confectionery and pastry tradition across the Basque Country. Basques embraced the potato and the capsicum, used in hams, sausages and recipes, with pepper festivals around the area, notably Ezpeleta and Puente la Reina.

Olive oil is more commonly used than butter in Basque cooking.

Cuisine and the kitchen are at the heart of Basque culture, and there is a Museum of Gastronomy in Llodio.

One of the staple cookbooks for traditional Basque dishes was initially published in 1933. "La cocina de Nicolasa" (the Kitchen of Nicolasa) by Nicolasa Pradera has gone into 20 editions.

Ways of eating

In addition to the dishes and products of the Basque Country, there are features of the way of preparing and sharing food unique to the area.

Cider houses (sagardotegiak) are a feature of the hills around Donostia, especially near Astigarraga. These are usually large country restaurants with enormous barrels of cider. Cider is poured from a height straight into the glass for visitors, with a rustic menu invariably of salt cod omelette, grilled T-bone steak and ewes' milk cheese with walnuts and quince paste. The cider houses are only open for a few months of the year.

The txikiteo is the tapas crawl from bar to bar seen across Spain, but it reaches its pinnacle in Donostia, with hundreds of people on the streets of the old town wandering from bar to bar, each known for its specialty, whether it be croquettes, tortilla, toast, or seafood. The txikiteo is also popular in cities such as Pamplona and Bilbao.

Gerezi beltza arno gorriakin is a cherry soup served warm or cold. The cherries are poached in wine, often with enough sugar added to make a light syrup. A cherry without pits is preferred for this dish. To release their flavor, the cherries are carefully pitted or cut in half. Usually the soup is prepared on the day it will be served, because 24 hours is enough time for the cherries to blanch noticeably in the liquid. The soup is often served with a dollop of sour cream, crème fraîche, or ice cream.

Gastronomic societies are organisations, almost always of men, who cook and eat together in a communal txoko. In large cities, the society's premises can be large and formally organised, but the txoko is frequently a small space owned by a group of friends in smaller towns and suburbs, where food and costs are shared. The first txoko was noted in Donostia in 1870. This unique feature of the Spanish Basque Country enables men to participate in the cooking process and spend time together away from the traditionally formidable matriarchs (etxekoandreak). In recent years, women have been allowed into some clubs.

New Basque Cuisine

In the 1970s and 1980s Basque chefs were influenced by the nouvelle cuisine of France and created the nouvelle cuisine basque, radically original in its form but solidly Basque in substance, with lighter and less rustic versions of traditional dishes and flavours. The first Spanish restaurant to be awarded 3 stars in the Michelin Guide was, in fact, Zalacaín, a Basque restaurant, although located in Madrid. Juan Mari Arzak in Donostia became the most famous exponent and one of the first three-star Michelin Guide restaurants in Spain. In a few years the movement swept across Spain, becoming the state's default haute cuisine. Many tapas bars, especially in San Sebastián, serve modern-style pintxos employing novel techniques and ingredients. In more recent years, young chefs, such as Martin Berasategui, have given new impetus to Basque cuisine.

International Basque cuisine

Basque cuisine has continued to have an influence on international cuisine, particularly in Spain and France where it is highly regarded. Catalan chef Ferran Adrià has taken the techniques pioneered by Arzak and other Basque chefs to new heights. Karlos Arguiñano has popularised Basque cuisine in Spain through TV and books. Teresa Barrenechea was among the first people to bring traditional Basque cuisine to America with her first restaurant Marichu in Bronxville in 1991, where she hired Chef Joseba Encabo to set up and the develop the menus and run the restaurant till soon later was offered to share his knowledge becoming faculty at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. Teresa Barrenechea and husband Raynold von Samson continued to promote Basque cuisine in America by opening their second Marichu restaurant in Manhattan in 1994, which, due to its proximity to the United Nations Headquarters. Teresa Barrenechea has written two books, The Basque Table (Harvard Common Press, Boston 1998) and The Cuisines of Spain (Ten Speed, Berkley 2005). Teresa Barrenechea is the holder of two awards: Premio Nacional de Gastronomía^[4] (National Prize of Gastronomy, the highest culinary award given by the Spanish Administration) and Best Regional Cuisine Book at the 5th World Cookbook Fair,^[5] Périgueux (France). At the other end of the scale, Basque-style pintxos bars are common in Barcelona and Madrid. In cities where large numbers of Basque people emigrated, such as Buenos Aires, Argentina; São Paulo, Brazil, Boise, Idaho; and Bakersfield, California, there are several Basque restaurants and a noted Basque influence on the local cuisine.

Typical dishes

·         Bacalao (salt cod) al Pil-Pil or a la Vizcaína

·         Cuajada (Mamia)

·         Elvers (young eel)

·         Gâteau Basque

·         Kokotxas (cheeks of hake)

·         Marmitako

·         Grilled and roast meats

·         Percebes (Gooseneck barnacles)

·         Pintxos (Basque tapas)

·         Piperade (or 'Piperrada')

·         Pisto

·         Porrusalda

·         Talos

·         Ttoro

·         Txangurro (spider crab)

·         Txipirones (baby squid) in their ink

·         Wood pigeon

Cheeses

  Roncal, Ossau-Iraty and Idiazabal cheeses

Fruits and vegetables

·         Artichokes from Tudela

·         Asparagus from Mendavia

·         Beans from Tolosa

·         Peppers from Ezpeleta, Gernika and Lodosa

·         Cherries from Itxassou

Meats

·         Chistorra and Chorizo de Pamplona (spicy sausage)

·         Jambon de Bayonne (cured ham)

·         Sausages from Viana

·         Tripotx (lamb blood sausage from Biriatou)

Beverages                                                                                                                                                                           

·        Basque cider served in Basque cider houses (Sagardotegi)

·        Irouléguy AOC wine

·        Izarra liqueur

·        Kalimotxo wine and cola

·        Patxaran liqueur

·        Picon Punch cocktail - popular in Basque-American communities

·        Pili (mandrake-root liqueur)

·        Txakoli wine

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Pinchas

Pinchas

Basque cider

Idiazabal cheese

Marmitako

VITORIA-GASTEIZ

In 581 AD the Visigoth king Liuvigild founded the city of Victoriacum, trying to emulate the Roman foundations, as a celebration of the victory against the Vascones near what is assumed to be the hill occupied by the primitive village of Gasteiz. This however is not sufficiently proven, and some historians and experts believe that Victoriacum was located not on the site of present-day Vitoria-Gasteiz but nearby. Several possible locations have been proposed, the foremost of which is the late Roman military camp of Iruña-Veleia (cf. J.M. Lacarra). Veleia is located some 11 km north of modern Vitoria, on the banks of the same river. However, modern archeological studies of the site suggest that Veleia was last inhabited c.5th century AD, and archeologists are still to find a 6th-century visigothic resettlement in the site.  Another theory has suggested that Victoriacum was located at the foot of Mount Gorbea where there is a village called Vitoriano. The town of Armentia, nowadays in the outskirts of Vitoria, has also been proposed as a possible location of Victoriacum.  In either case, Victoriacum vanishes from history shortly after its foundation.

In 1181, Sancho the Wise, King of Navarre founded the town of Nova Victoria as a defensive outpost on top of a hill at the site of the previous settlement of Gasteiz. The existence of Gastehiz, apparently inhabited by vasconic people, can be traced back to the lower Middle Ages; it is certain that by the 11th century, prior to the foundation of Nova Victoria, the settlement was already walled. It is assumed that Sancho the Wise gave the new city its name in memory of the old settlement of Victoriacum, which must had long since been abandoned.  In 1199, the town was besieged and captured by the troops of Alfonso VIII of Castile, who annexed the town to the Kingdom of Castile. The town was progressively enlarged and in 1431 it was granted a city charter by King Juan II of Castile. In 1463, it was one of the five founding villas of the Brotherhood of Álava alongside Sajazarra, Miranda de Ebro, Pancorboand Salvatierra/Agurain.

The Battle of Vitoria of the Peninsular War occurred near Vitoria-Gasteiz along the river Zadorra on 21 June 1813. An allied British, Portuguese, and Spanish army under General the Marquess of Wellington broke the French army under Joseph Bonaparte and Marshal Jean-Baptiste Jourdan. The victory assured the eventual end of French control in Spain. There is a monument commemorating this battle in the main square of the city known as the Monument to Independence.

When news came to Vienna in late July of that year, Johann Nepomuk Mälzel commissioned Ludwig van Beethoven to compose a symphony, the op. 91 Wellingtons Sieg oder die Schlacht bei Vittoria (Wellington's Victory, or the Battle of Vitoria) or Siegessymphonie.

Work began on the Institute for Middle Education in 1843, with classes beginning during the 1853–54 academic year. It is now current headquarters of the Basque Parliament and formerly the convent of Santa Clara. The Free University opened in the wake of the revolution of 1868. The University operated from 1869, to just prior to the 1873–1874 term, largely because of the second Carlist War. Chief academics were Ricardo Becerro de Bengoa, Julián Apraiz, Federico Baraibar, and so on. This latter, great Hellenist (1851–1918), was also among the first teachers of Basque in Vitoria-Gasteiz as an off-syllabus subject.

During the Spanish transition to democracy, the Church of St. Francis of Assisi was the scene of a police shooting on March 3, 1976 during a peaceful labour assembly. Under the orders of Interior Minister Manuel Fraga, the police shot tear-gas into the church where 5,000 demonstrators and others had reunited, firing on them as they struggled their way out of the religious temple. It resulted in five dead and over one hundred wounded by gunshot.

On 20 May 1980, by decision of the Basque Parliament, Vitoria-Gasteiz became the place of the common institutions of the Basque Autonomous Community.

Today, Vitoria-Gasteiz is the seat of government and the capital city of the Basque Autonomous Community and of the province of Araba/Álava in northern Spain. It holds the autonomous community's House of Parliament, the headquarters of the Government, and the Lehendakari's (Prime Minister's) official residency. The municipality — which comprises not only the city but also the mainly agricultural lands of 63 villages around — is the largest in the Basque Autonomous Community, with a total area of 276.81 km² (106.88 sq mi), and it has a population of 242,082 people (2014). Vitoria-Gasteiz is a multicultural city with strengths in the arts, commerce, education, healthcare, architectural conservation, aeronautics, vehicle industry, oenology and gastronomy. It is the first Spanish municipality to be awarded the title of European Green Capital (in 2012) and it is consistently ranked as one of the 5 best places to live in Spain. The old town holds some of the best preserved medieval streets and plazas in the region and it is one of very few cities to hold two Cathedrals. The city also holds well known festivals such as the Azkena rock festival, FesTVal, Vitoria-Gasteiz jazz festival, and the Virgen Blanca Festivities.

Vitoria-Gasteiz's vicinity is home to world-renowned wineries such as Ysios (by Santiago Calatrava) and Marques de Riscal (by Frank Gehry); relevant heritage sites including the Neolithic remains of Aizkomendi, Sorginetxe and La chabola de la Hechicera; Iron Age remains such as the Settlement of Lastra and the Settlement of Buradón; antique remains such as the settlement of La Hoya and the salt valley of Añana; and countless medieval fortresses such as the Tower of Mendoza and the Tower of Varona.

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Sagrada Familia

Krea-Gasteiz Monastery

Maria Imaculad
(Catedral interior)

Artium

Parque Florida

Plaza Virgen Blanca

Casa Pando-Arguelles

Calle Eduardo

Street scene

Plaza Virgen Blanca,
Monument to Spanish Independence
(Wellington's victory,
Battle of Vitoria)

Abetxuko Bridge

ORIGINS OF THE BASQUE PEOPLE AND THEIR LANGUAGE

The Basques (Basque: euskaldunak; Spanish: vascos; French: basques, English: /bɑːsks/ or /bæsks/) are an indigenous ethnic group characterised by the Basque language, a common Basque culture and shared ancestry to the ancient Vascones and Aquitanians.  Basques are indigenous to and primarily inhabit an area traditionally known as the Basque Country (Basque: Euskal Herria), a region that is located around the western end of the Pyrenees on the coast of the Bay of Biscay and straddles parts of north-central Spain and south-western France.

The Basques are known as:

·         Euskaldunak in Basque (this ethnonym means "the speakers of the Basque language"; to refer to all the inhabitants of the Basque Country, the name euskal herritarrak is preferred)

·         Vasco in Spanish

·         Basque in French and English.

·         Basco in Gascon and Portuguese.

In Basque, the people call themselves the euskaldunak, singular euskaldun, formed from euskal- (i.e. "Basque (language)") and -dun (i.e. "one who has"); euskaldun literally means a Basque speaker. Not all Basques are Basque-speakers. Therefore, the neologism euskotar, plural euskotarrak, was coined in the 19th century to mean a culturally Basque person, whether Basque-speaking or not.

Language

A language isolate, Basque is believed to be one of the few surviving pre-Indo-European languages in Europe, and the only one in Western Europe. The origin of the Basques and their languages are not conclusively known, though the most accepted current theory is that early forms of Basque developed prior to the arrival of Indo-European languages in the area, including the Romance languages that geographically surround the Basque-speaking region. Basque has adopted a good deal of its vocabulary from the Romance languages, and Basque speakers have in turn lent their own words to Romance speakers.

The Basque alphabet uses the Latin script.

The Basque language is thought to be a genetic language isolate. Thus Basque contrasts with other European languages, almost all of which belong to the broad Indo-European language family. Another peculiarity of Basque is that it has been spoken continuously in situ, in and around its present territorial location, for longer than other modern European languages, which have all been introduced in historical or prehistorical times through population migrations or other processes of cultural transmission.

However, popular stereotypes characterizing Basque as "the oldest language in Europe" and "unique among the world's languages" may be misunderstood and lead to erroneous assumptions.  Over the centuries, Basque has remained in continuous contact with neighboring western European languages with which it has come to share numerous lexical properties and typological features; it is therefore misleading to exaggerate the "outlandish" character of Basque. Basque is also a modern language, and is established as a written and printed one used in present-day forms of publication and communication, as well as a language spoken and used in a very wide range of social and cultural contexts, styles, and registers.

The strongest distinction between the Basques and their traditional neighbours is linguistic. Surrounded by Romance-language speakers, the Basques traditionally spoke (and many still speak) a language that was not only non-Romance but non-Indo-European. The prevailing belief amongst Basques, and forming part of their national identity, is that their language has continuity with the people who were in this region since not only pre-Roman and pre-Celtic times, but since the Stone Age.

History

Since the Basque language is unrelated to Indo-European, it has long been thought to represent the people or culture that occupied Europe before the spread of Indo-European languages there. A comprehensive analysis of Basque genetic patterns has shown that Basque genetic uniqueness predates the arrival of agriculture in the Iberian Peninsula, about 7,000 years ago.

It is thought that Basques are a remnant of the early inhabitants of Western Europe, specifically those of the Franco-Cantabrian region. Basque tribes were already mentioned in Roman times by Strabo and Pliny, including the Vascones, the Aquitani, and others. There is enough evidence to support the hypothesis that at that time and later they spoke old varieties of the Basque language.

In the Early Middle Ages the territory between the Ebro and Garonne rivers was known as Vasconia, a vaguely defined cultural area and political entity struggling to fend off pressure from the Iberian Visigothic kingdom and Muslim rule to the south, as well as the Frankishpush from the north. By the turn of the first millennium, the territory of Vasconia had fragmented into different feudal regions, such as Soule and Labourd, while south of the Pyrenees the Castile, Pamplona and the Pyrenean counties of Aragon, Sobrarbe, Ribagorza (later Kingdom of Aragon), and Pallars emerged as the main regional entities with Basque population in the 9th and 10th centuries.

The Kingdom of Pamplona, a central Basque realm, later known as Navarre, underwent a process of feudalization and was subjected to the influence of its much larger Aragonese, Castilian and French neighbours. Castile deprived Navarre of its coastline by conquering key western territories (1199–1201), leaving the kingdom landlocked. The Basques were ravaged by the War of the Bands, bitter partisan wars between local ruling families. Weakened by the Navarrese civil war, the bulk of the realm eventually fell before the onslaught of the Spanish armies (1512–1524). However, the Navarrese territory north of the Pyrenees remained beyond the reach of an increasingly powerful Spain. Lower Navarre became a province of France in 1620.

Nevertheless, the Basques enjoyed a great deal of self-government until the French Revolution (1790) and the Carlist Wars (1839/1876), when the Basques supported heir apparent Carlos V and his descendants. On either side of the Pyrenees, the Basques lost their native institutions and laws held during the Ancien régime.

Since then, despite the current limited self-governing status of the Basque Autonomous Community and Navarre as settled by the Spanish Constitution, many Basques have attempted higher degrees of self-empowerment (see Basque nationalism), sometimes by acts of violence. Labourd, Lower Navarre, and Soule were integrated into the French department system (starting 1790), with Basque efforts to establish a region-specific political-administrative entity failing to take off to date.

Genetics

In 1920, H. G. Wells referred to the Mediterranean race as the Iberian race. He regarded it as a fourth subrace of the Caucasian race, along with the Aryan, Semitic, and Hamitic subraces. He stated that the main ethnic group that most purely represented the racial stock of the Iberian race was the Basques, and that the Basques were the descendants of the Cro-Magnons. In 1994, in his book The History and Geography of Human Genes, population geneticist L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza stated that "there is support from many sides" for the hypothesis that the Basques are the descendants of the original Cro-Magnons.

Even before the development of modern genetics based on DNA sequencing, Basques were already noted for distinctive genetic patterns, such as possessing the highest global apportion of the Rh- blood type (35% phenotypically, 60% genetically). Additionally, the Basque population has virtually no B blood type, nor the related AB type. They have a high rate of O blood group but this is probably due to isolation.

Although they are genetically distinctive in some ways, the Basques are still very typically European in terms of their Y-DNA and mtDNAsequences, and in terms of some other genetic loci. These same sequences are widespread throughout the western half of Europe, especially along the western fringe of the continent.

The distinctiveness noted by studies of 'classical' genetic markers (such as blood groups) and the apparently "pre-Indo-European" nature of the Basque language has resulted in a popular and long-held view that Basques are "living fossils" of the earliest modern humans who colonized Europe.  However, studies of the Y-chromosome found that on their direct male lineages, the vast majority of modern Basques have a common ancestry with other Western Europeans, namely a marked predominance of Haplogroup R1b.

Initially Haplogroup R1b was theorised to be that a Palaeolithic marker, introduced when Europe was repopulated after the Last Glacial Maximum, about 25,000 years ago.  As such, Basque populations were used as proxy representatives for the "Palaeolithic component" in admixture studies that tried to quantify the extent of Neolithic diffusions. Such studies concluded that the main components in the European genomes appear to derive from ancestors whose features were similar to those of modern Basques and people of the Near East (or Western Asia), with average values greater than 35% for both these parental populations, regardless of whether molecular information is taken into account or not. The smallest degree of both Basque and Near Eastern admixture is found in Finland, whereas the highest values are, respectively, 70% "Basque" in Spain and roughly 60% "Near Eastern" in the Balkans. This theory encountered inconsistencies even prior to most recent chronological re-evaluations. That R1b should be a Palaeolithic marker was an ad hoc assumption suggested by Semino et al. (2000) and propagated by subsequent scholars without further analysis. Higher resolution STR analysis of R1b lineages from other western European populations (e.g. Italy or Britain) show that their populations appear to derive from the Basque ones.

More recent studies instead propose that R1b spread through Europe from southwest Asia in the Neolithic period or later, between 4,000 and 8,000 years ago.

Autosomal genetic studies have confirmed that Basques share:

·         close genetic ties to other Europeans, especially with Spaniards, who have a common genetic identity of over 70% with Basques.

·         homogeneity amongst both their Spanish and French populations, according to high-density SNP genotyping study done in May 2010, and;

·         a genomic distinctiveness, relative to other European populations.

Several ancient DNA samples have been recovered and amplified from Palaeolithic sites in the Basque region. The collection of mtDNA haplogroups sampled there differed significantly compared to their modern frequencies. The authors concluded that there is "discontinuity" between ancient and modern Basques.

Thus, while Basques harbour some very archaic lineages (such as mtDNA Hg U8a), they are not of "undiluted Palaeolithic ancestry", nor are they ancestral to large parts of western Europe. Rather, their genetic distinctiveness is a result of centuries of low population size, genetic drift and endogamy.

New genetic findings, 2015

In 2015, a new scientific study of Basque DNA was published which seems to indicate that Basques are descendants of Neolithic farmers who mixed with local hunters before becoming genetically isolated from the rest of Europe for millennia.  Mattias Jakobsson from Uppsala University in Sweden analysed genetic material from eight Stone Age human skeletons found in El Portalón Cavern in Atapuerca, northern Spain. These individuals lived between 3,500 and 5,500 years ago, after the transition to farming in southwest Europe. The results show that these early Iberian farmers are the closest ancestors to present-day Basques.

The official findings were published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States America.  "Our results show that the Basques trace their ancestry to early farming groups from Iberia, which contradicts previous views of them being a remnant population that trace their ancestry to Mesolithic hunter-gatherer groups," says Prof. Jakobsson.

Land and inheritance

Basques have a close attachment to their home (etxe(a) 'house, home'), especially when this consists of the traditional self-sufficient, family-run farm or baserri(a). Home in this context is synonymous with family roots. Some Basque surnames were adapted from old baserri or habitation names. They typically related to a geographical orientation or other locally meaningful identifying features. Such surnames provide even those Basque whose families may have left the land generations ago with an important link to their rural family origins: Bengoetxea "the house of further down", Goikoetxea "the house above", Landaburu "top of the field", Errekondo "next to the stream", Elizalde "by the church", Mendizabal "wide hill", Usetxe "house of birds" Ibarretxe "house in the valley", Etxeberria "the new house", and so on.

In contrast to surrounding regions, ancient Basque inheritance patterns, recognised in the fueros, favour survival of the unity of inherited land holdings. In a kind of primogeniture, these usually are inherited by either eldest male or female. As in other cultures, the fate of other family members depended on the assets of a family. The wealthy Basque families tended to provide for all children in some way while the less affluent had only one asset to provide to one child. However, this heir often provided for the rest of the family. Unlike England with the strict primogeniture where the eldest son inherited everything and did not provide for others. Even though they were provided for in some way siblings had to make their livings by other means. Before the advent of industrialisation, this system resulted in the emigration of many rural Basques to Spain, France or the Americas. Harsh by modern standards, this custom resulted in a great many enterprising figures of Basque origin who went into the world to earn their way, from Spanish conquistadors such as Lope de Aguirre and Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, to explorers, missionaries and saints of the Catholic Church, such as Francis Xavier.

A widespread belief that Basque society was originally matriarchal is at odds with the current, clearly patrilineal kinship system and inheritance structures. Some scholars and commentators have attempted to reconcile these points by assuming that patrilineal kinship represents an innovation. In any case, the social position of women in both traditional and modern Basque society is somewhat better than in neighbouring cultures, and women have a substantial influence in decisions about the domestic economy. In the past, some women participated in collective magical ceremonies. They were key participants in a rich folklore, today largely forgotten.

Society

Historically, Basque society can be described as being somewhat at odds with Roman and later European societal norms.

Strabo's account of the north of Spain in his Geographica (written between approximately 20 BC and 20 AD) makes a mention of "a sort of woman-rule—not at all a mark of civilization" (Hadington 1992), a first mention of the—for the period—unusual position of women. "Women could inherit and control property as well as officiate in churches. Combined with the issue of lingering pagan beliefs, this enraged the leaders of the Spanish Inquisition, perhaps leading to one of the largest witch hunts in the Basque town of Logroño in 1610".

This preference for female dominance existed well into the 20th century:

...matrilineal inheritance laws, and agricultural work performed by women continued in Basque country until the early twentieth century. For more than a century, scholars have widely discussed the high status of Basque women in law codes, as well as their positions as judges, inheritors, and arbitrators through ante-Roman, medieval, and modern times. The system of laws governing succession in the French Basque region reflected total equality between the sexes. Up until the eve of the French Revolution, the Basque woman was truly ‘the mistress of the house', hereditary guardian, and head of the lineage.

Although the kingdom of Navarre did adopt feudalism, most Basques also possessed unusual social institutions different from those of the rest of feudal Europe. Some aspects of this include the elizate tradition where local house-owners met in front of the church to elect a representative to send to the juntas and Juntas Generales (such as the Juntas Generales de Vizcaya or Guipúzcoa) which administered much larger areas. Another example was the fact that in the medieval period most land was owned by the farmers, not the Church or a king. 

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