Pedro de Fontecha y Salazar (1673-1753), un abogado tradicional

Abstract

This new information about Pedro Fontecha y Salazar is based on a file from the Biscay Court of the Royal Chancery of Valladolid, from a case which was heard between October and December 1736. Pedro de Fontecha y Salazar and other Biscayan lawyers, including his son-in-law, Juan Antonio de Dudagoitia, were brought before the Senior Judge of Biscay, in Valladolid, for contempt. The content of this file goes beyond a typical conflict between lawyers, who see themselves as noblemen, and the chief magistrate of the pre-enlightenment sovereign king. The folios of the judicial file capture an instant in the life of a group of provincial lawyers, whom Fontecha represented in an exemplary manner, defending their privileges as lawyers and Biscayans, during a period in which the values of the merchants and commerce were beginning to dominate life in Biscay. Pedro Fontecha y Salazar was to put all his outstanding intellectual energy into the defence of his idea of the foral system, which Professor Arrieta has studied in his recent publication of the Escudo de la más constante fe y lealtad (del Muy Noble y Muy Leal Señorío de Vizcaya).