Iceland is known for its Thermal waters, volcanoes, aurora borealis and glaciersall between coastal landscapes and villages worthy of the best postcards. Until not so long, however, it was not the best destination if the visitor came from a very specific region of the planet: the Basque Country. Although it sounds extemporaneous (which was) and crazy (idem) until a decade ago Scarce the island kept in force a seventeenth -century edict that gave white letter to its inhabitants to assault, steal and even kill Basque sailors.
The law is interesting for its content, but also by its context, which connects with the past whale of the region and one of the most terrible episodes in Icelandic history, if not the one that most: the massacre Spánverjavígin.
A peculiar diplomatic trip. In April 2015 Martin Garitano, then General Deputy of Guipúzcoa, starred in the one that may have been the most rocambolesco trip of his political career. Not so much for fate, Hólmavika people west of Iceland, as for what There it was done.
As part of An institutional act With local authorities during which a commemorative plaque was discovered, they sang songs and recited a marine sentence, Jónas Guðmundsson, commissioner of the region of the region Western Fjords Icelanders, he revoked An edict of the seventeenth century.
Why’s that? Very simple. Because the edict in question was probably one of the most rocambolesque, extemporaneous, delusional and cruel of international legislation. The norm He had his origins in 1615 and stressed that if an Icelandic was with a Basque sailor on the island, he could assault him, snatch everything he had on top and even, if necessary, kill him without mercy.
Of course, in 2015 on the island, other laws that neutralized that old edict and prohibited the Icelanders from killing Basques just like the slaughter of any other neighbor’s son. But the truth, being felling, is that in 400 years nobody had bothered to repeal the decree of the seventeenth, so technically remained in force. When asked about it, Guðmundsson He joked: “At least now it will be safe for them (the Basques) come.”
Of politics and economy. To understand the “Anti Vascos” edict of 1615 you have to know its context. From the outset, the Iceland of the early seventeenth was quite different from that of now. It was not an independent country (status that did not in fact achieve centuries later, In 1944) and his control was in the hands of regional governors protected by the king of Denmark, a position since 1588 exercised Cristián IV.
With regard to the economy, at the time there was a lucrative business that especially interested the Danish crown: whale hunting in the North Atlantic.
Of the huge cetaceans captured in the sea, meat, bones, sperm and even beards were used, highly appreciated for the elaboration of rods for umbrellas, umbrellas and corsets. If there was an appeal of the appreciated whales it was however its oil. Among other purposes, it was used to illuminate houses and the manufacture of soap, lubricans and drugs. So appreciated was the fat of the whales that There are those who match it To our oil.
And what does it have to do with the Basques? Well, they stood out in that company, as Imanol Sánchez explains in detail in An essay Posted in Riev on the Basque whales in the Iceland of the XVII. Their sailors soon look at the possibilities of the Eubalaena glacialthe huge cetaceans that inhabited between Iceland and Mauritania and navigated the North Atlantic during their migrations. And that encouraged them to enter more and more in the ocean.
It is known of incursions by the Basque coast to capture cetaceans already in the XI, between the XII and XIV the hunters expanded along the rest of the Cantabrian coast and around the 16th and seventeenth centuries, Sánchez recallsBasque whales were already looking for prey in the waters around Greenland and Iceland. There are evidence that places them there at least in 1604 and before they had already left a mark on Terranova and Labrador.
A business played. The problem is that Basque sailors were not the only ones interested in whale oil, a very valuable appeal that also ambitioned the king of Denmark and Norway. And of course, friction emerged.
“The Danes were sent by Christian IV to hunt whales to the seas in northern Norway and for the islands Spitzbergen In 1615, and his encounter with the Basque sailors created the first disputes “, He recounts The researcher of the UPV/EHU.
In April of that same year, the sailors of Euskadi hunt whales in Aguas de Iceland was prohibited. And to make it clear that the Danish authorities were seriously issued the famous (and terrible) edict that gave a white letter to pursue, assault, steal and kill Basque navigators. Of course, Icelanders were also prohibited to get friendship or trade with the whales of Spain.
A MAZAZO FOR RELATIONSHIPS. The belligerent posture that Denmark adopted in 1615 must have been a mazazo for the Icelandic rulers, to say what the Danish law said did allow the islanders to do business with the Basques … as long as the latter passed before box to pay the commissions to pay the commissions corresponding, of course.
Sanchez recalls in fact that the relationship between the two peoples was “largely good” and was based on a “close commercial relationship.” His link was narrow and frequent enough to give rise to a Pidgina kind of mixed language, Basque and Icelandic mixture. In the fall of 1615, with the relations with the sailors of Euskadi tensada and Copenhagen especially belligerent, there was nevertheless an episode that would end up advising a severe hand about the relations between both peoples.
Of paper … to the baskavígin massacre. The seventeenth century edict that allowed to hunt and kill Basque sailors in Iceland could have remained in a legal eccentricity without more if it were not because, towards the end of 1615, they decided to apply it with all its hardness at the west end of the island. And that gave rise to one of the most bloodthirsty massacres in the history of the country, one that It is still present in the memory of the locals. His name: Baskavígin or Spánverjavígin.
His involuntary protagonists were the crew of three ships who had sailed from Basque Aguas to hunt whales and anxiety in the northwest of Iceland during a storm. In total they ended up trapped on the island 83 sailors. To survive they dedicated themselves to appropriate cattle from the villagers, which led a pastor to alert the governor of the provinces of isafjörður and Strandir, an authoritarian mood leader named Ari Magnusson.
A bloody killing. The episode is masterfully recounts by Sánchez in Your essay for Riev. It is not known to what the Pastor’s letter was truthful, but Magnusson saw in it the ideal opportunity to apply the Danish edict. In October he summoned a dozen judges who gave green light to execute the orders issued by King Cristián IV and kill the Basque shipwrecked.
Of the 83 sailors who arrived at the Icelandic coast, 51 managed to escape the island, but the others 32 finished massacred. Although they separated into two groups, they failed to survive. Sanchez recalls that 13 were already killed on October 5, even before the judges activated the edict, at the hands of villagers who confused them with pirates. The rest was killed by Mganusson, who did not hesitate to resort to stones, boats and white and fire weapons to hunt them and end their lives. Some chronicles say they mutilated the corpses and walked them through the villages.
And why does that viciousness? It is known that Mganusson was an inflexible governor, but what happened in the fall of 1615 has little to do with his zeal as a legislator. Probably what he was looking for when he executed the Basques was not to fulfill the Danish law, but Delete the footprints of his own crimes. Making deaf ears under the orders of Cristian IV, until then the island leader had turned a blind eye with the Basque whales in exchange for the collection of commissions.
The problem is that the shipwrecks of 1615 and what happened west Islandia put it in a brete. If those events reached the monarch’s ears and deepened what had happened until then on the island (and their own role by disregarding the real orders), he risked to be himself the one who ended up in the chain. Your solution: be inflexible. And take advantage of what happened to show that if there was someone who enforced the edicts in Iceland it was him.
And 400 years later … That happened in 1615. It ended the seventeenth century, the eighteenth, the 19th century, the XX and Iceland arrived first to become an autonomous region and later in An independent countryeven millennium was changed … and no one remembered revoking the activated rule to keep the Basque whales away from the island. This was at least until 2015, when taking advantage of the 400th anniversary of the Baskavígin slaughter A tribute and the decree of the XVII was annulled, even if it was symbolic.
Garitano was not the only representative of the Basque Country who participated in That tribute to the massacred sailors centuries ago. The plaque that remembers what happened in Holmavk was discovered by two people linked to Baskavígin: a descendant of one of the killed navigators and another of one of the authors of the massacre. One more proof that times have changed and, as Gupleundsson jokedthe Basques can already disembark on the island to admire their landscapes without fear of losing their lives.
Images | EAJ-PNV (Flickr), GASHIF RHEZA (UNSPLASH), Stjórráð íslands and AIARALDEA GAUR ETA HEME (Flickr)