GLOSAS EMILIANENSES: ORIGIN, CHARACTERISTICS, EXAMPLES - LITERATURE - 2025

The Glosas Emilianenses are a set of marginal annotations made in various languages ​​on a Latin manuscript. With this text it is considered that aspects of the liturgy and shepherding were studied, at the end and beginning of the first millennium AD. C., in the areas surrounding the Pyrenees.

Among the languages ​​used, there is a Hispanic romance similar to medieval Spanish with Riojan characteristics that can be classified as a Navarrese-Aragonese one. The texts also have influences from Latin and Euskera itself.

Part of the Glosas Emilianenses, source:

This series of notes were found as marginal notes, also between the paragraphs and lines of certain passages, of the well-known Latin codex: Aemilianensis 60. It is estimated that they were made near the end of the 10th century, or in the early 11th century.

It is speculated that those who made these notes were monks with the trade of copyists. It is believed that these sought to convey the significance of certain parts of the main Latin text.

It was not until after the 20th century that several philologists of the Spanish language realized the great importance of these notes for the Spanish language.

origins

There are no exact notions about the place where the Aemilianensis 60 was written, nor the precise date of its creation. We only have hypotheses based on the evidence present both in the place of its discovery, as well as in the spelling and philological features of the writing.

According to Díaz and Díaz (1979), it is considered that these manuscripts must have been made near the Pyrenees. The researcher limited this on the basis that towards that border area with France, there is data of having spoken and written in the various forms manifested in the notes.

For his part, Wolf (1991) argues that the origin points to being Navarrese-Aragonese, having as a basis for its criteria also particular linguistic aspects present in the annotations.

Why "Glosas Emilianenses"?

The name "Emilianenses" is due to the place where the manuscripts were found, the Monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla. Millán, or Emiliano, comes from the Latin word Aemilianus. This monastery is located in La Rioja, which at that time belonged to the Kingdom of Navarra.

It was in 1911 when the real value of these glosses was perceived, and this thanks to Manuel Gómez-Moreno, a student of Mozarabic architecture.

Gómez-Moreno was analyzing the structures and construction methods of the Suso Monastery when he found the documents. Such was his emotion that he stopped doing what was his pertinent architectural work, and took charge of transcribing all the glosses.

There were about a thousand transcripts. The young architecture student, after the transcription, ordered the documents meticulously and then sent them to Ramón Menéndez Pidal, nothing more and nothing less than one of the most renowned philologists in Spain, as well as a folklorist and historian.

A Menéndez is owed, apart from giving the real value to the Glosas Emilianenses, the foundation of the Spanish Philological School. History arranged for the Gómez-Moreno and Menéndez coalition to bring to light such revealing and important documents about the real origins of the Spanish language.

It is necessary to note that the ILCYL (“Instituto de la Lengua Castellana y Leonesa”), apart from the Glosas Emilianenses, also recognized the importance of the Nodicia de Kesos and the Cartularios de Valpuesta as part of the oldest known written records with presence of semblances of the Castilian language.

characteristics

The way in which the glosses are presented and used makes it clear that this codex could have been applied to the learning and teaching of Latin in Aragonese lands.

It is worth noting, through the notes, the meticulous follow-up of the copyists in explaining each fragment of the codex. This need to denote all aspects of the manuscript with such expertise allowed us to assume that it was used for said pedagogical and andragogical purposes.

The exact date of creation is not known

Specialists suggest that everything happened between the 10th and 11th centuries. However, this is not yet entirely clear. Despite the fact that there is a lot of material in the bibliography allusive to the manuscript, many of the questions regarding it remain to be elucidated.

The first written testimony of current Spanish

Among the characteristics of these glosses, perhaps this is one of the most representative. Incidentally, no one had noticed it until almost a thousand years after its conception, and after, as said in advance, Gómez-Moreno made the respective transcripts.

The language shown is a clear romance, albeit a bit archaic, typical of the Spanish that was spoken in the Navarra area at that time. Despite the crudeness of its linguistic uses, philologically everything points to a proto-Spanish.

First records of a Latin homily explained

Perhaps one of the most interesting data is the presence in the Codex Emilianense, on page 72 thereof, of a homily written in Latin. There you can see the very well explained glosses of the copyist monk in a Navarrese-Aragonese, both in the margins and between the lines.

This also strengthened the thesis of the formative role of the glosses in regard to liturgical aspects within said monastery.

The manuscripts, then, were taken as guides to carry out, and faithfully, all the pertinent steps in ecclesiastical celebrations. The glosses, then, facilitated their understanding and interpretation.

San Millán de Cogolla, cradle of Spanish

This area, together with La Rioja, has received the nickname of the “cradle of Castilian”, all thanks to the Emilian Glosses. However, there are many detractors who are against considering that they do not contain an old Spanish, but a simple Navarrese-Aragonese.

By November 2010, and based on reliable evidence, the RAE (Royal Spanish Academy) considered the Cartularios de Valpuesta the true first written documentation where words of Spanish formally appear, even long before the Glosas Emilianenses.

However, they are just "words" placed or included in grammatical structures not typical of Spanish.

Now, despite the above, it is necessary to note that the glosses do contain romances grammatical structures that are not appreciated in the cartulars, which gives them an abysmal advantage in terms of syntax and linguistic organization.

Having exposed the specific differences between the Cartularios de Valpuesta and the Glosas Emilianenses, it is the latter that really denote, due to the different linguistic levels of Castilian they manifest and their complex structures, being the oldest reliable written sample of the Spanish language.

There was not a single glosser, but several

After its appearance, either in the 10th or 11th century, and the first marginal notes having been made, the manuscript was intervened more than once. That is totally normal, taking into account how expensive the paper was for the time and how difficult it was to obtain such excellent copies.

In addition to this, this text had the particularity of guiding and directing its owners along the path of grazing. Therefore, it is highly logical that it served not only one user, but several over time. The variance in calligraphy and the various languages ​​present, thus show it.

They contain the oldest written testimony in Basque

One hundred of the thousand Emilian Glosses have a very special separate value: they contain annotations in Basque, also known as Euskera. These marginal notes are the first known written manifestation of that ancient language.

This is of the utmost importance and significance, because Basque is not a recent language, we are talking about a language that has approximately 16 thousand years of existence.

Being such an old dialect, typical of the area of ​​the Basque Country, it is extremely important that just a thousand years ago its first written manifestation is appreciated, and particularly in these texts.

Wide linguistic variety

The Glosas Emilianenses, more than a thousand in total, were written in Riojan Romance, Latin, Euskera and pre-Spanish (already showing the first structural manifestations of our language). Three languages ​​in total.

Mozarabic, Asturian-Leonese and Catalan features are also clearly evident, although not so widely.

This particularity allows us to take the hypothesis that it was not just one glosser who was in charge of writing; and if he has been, he is not an ordinary individual, but a man trained in various languages ​​in a very learned way.

Examples

«The first vague of the Spanish language»

If we go to page 72 we find this fragment, considered by Dámaso Alonso, a renowned Spanish philologist and winner of the 1927 National Prize for Literature, as "the first vague of the Spanish language."

This is the longest sentence in the codex:

Navarro-Aragonese

Spanish translation

Notations in Basque

Below are the first known notations in the Basque language and present in the Emilian Glosses:

- Basque

- Translation to Spanish

"We are glad,

we do not have adequate

What have they been for?

Thanks to these notations, it was possible to have certainty of when the Spanish language began to formally form.

Taking into account that languages ​​are constituted when they are written, we can, thanks to these manuscripts, assert that Spanish has on average a thousand years of being established.

References

1. Ruiz, E. (2001). Emilian Glosses. Spain: Royal Academy of History. Recovered from: rah.es
2. Concepción Suárez, X. (2014). The medieval Glosas:

   San Millán de la Cogolla, Silos, Valpuesta. Spain: Asturian cult page. Recovered from: xuliocs.com

3. Maestro García, LM (S. f.). Emilian Glosses. Brazil: Culture Corner. Recovered from: espanaaqui.com.br
4. García Turza, C. and Muro, AM (1992). Emilian Glosses. Madrid: Testimony, publishing company. Recovered from: vallenajerilla.com
5. Emilian Glosses. (S. f.). (N / a): Wikipedia. Recovered from: es.wikipedia.org