FU'ERO, a Spanish word derived from Lat, forum, signifies strictly the seat of justice, jurisdiction. In this last sense it was transferred to collections of laws, and specially to the civic rights granted by the kings to individual cities, the most famous of which were the F. of Leon and that of Naxera. As these city charters contained for the most part special liberties, concessions, and privileges, the word F. became current chiefly in this sense, and was particularly so applied to designate the body of privileges and liber ties that made up the constitution of Navarre, and of the three Basque provinces of Bis caya, Alava, and Guipuzcoa. These are the fueros the maintenance of which gave rise to wars in the Basque provinces in 1833. The fueros of other provinces and cities of Spain have been long extinct.
These Basque fueros were grounded on the old laws of the Visigoths, and grew up in the period between the irruption of the Moors into the Spanish peninsula and the con solidation of the Spanish monarchy under the house of Hapsburg. The same was the case in. the half-Basque province- of Navarre, which formed an independent, kingdom under its own sovereigns. The fueros were thus the product of the ancient Gothic laws —those fertile sources of Modern rights—and the new circumstances in which they were placed. They resulted by degrees, here as elsewhere, in a struggle between the people and the princes; and their development forms an interesting chapter in the history of modern constitutionalism. They were at first only privileges and statutory rights granted to single places, and from these were extended to others. By the introduction of the representative element of the cortes, and extension over whole provinces, they were then transformed, in virtue of the general law of custom, into constitutional rights of these provinces, and were in time collected and formally embodied and sanctioned rte such. It was in this way that the fueros of Navarre, which had been growing into con sistency for centuries previously, were, in 1236, during the contests between king Theo bald and his tortes, collected and recorddd, and remain yet under the title of Cartulario del Rey Tibaldo. Ferdinand the Catholic, who united Navarre with the crown of Cas tile, maintained the fueros, adapting them to the new relation to Castile. Their leading provisions were these: The cortes, chosen for three years, and consisting of the three estates of clergy, nobles, and commons, are to meet yearly; and without their consent no law can be passed, or anything of importance undertaken. The government consists
of the viceroy, who presides in the cortes and great council; the great council of Navarre (a body similar to the old Fiend' parliaments); and the contaduria, before which all accounts of revenue and expenditure must be laid. There is uo custom-house or toll but at the frontier, and except the trifling grant of 176,000 reals, nothing flows into the royal treasury. All these fueros the king had to bind himself by a royal oath to maintain.
In the lordship (sefiorio) of Biscaya, the fueros grew up in the contests of the inhab itants with their counts. They were first collected into a code by count Juan in 1371, which, after the final union of Biscaya with Castile, was recast (1526), completed, and confirmed by king Charles I. (the German emperor Charles V.). According to this charter of rights, every new " lord "—for only so do the Biscayans style the king of Spain as their prince—fourteen years old, must come Into the country within a year, and take the oath to uphold the fueros in certain places appointed for that purpose. The government consists of a corregidor, appointed by the "lord," and two deputies; these, aided by six regidores, and forming the reginaiento, conduct the administration. But the supreme power resides in the general assembly (junta general), which meets yearly under the tree at Guernica, and regulates all the affairs of the lordship, and appoints the deputies and regidores. Justice is administered, in the first instance, by the lieutenants (teneutes) of the corregidor; in the second, by the corregidor and deputies: and in the third, by the royal court at Valladolid. Other privileges were. that every Biscayan of pure blood was counted noble; that except the post-office there was to be no royal governing board in the province; that Biscayans were not bound to serve in the Spanish army. The fueros of Alava and Guipuzcoa were of analogous origin and character, but differing in details. Abolished by Espartero, these fueros were restored by queen Isabella in 1844. In 1876, a law abolishing the Basque fueros was adopted, and in 1877 a decree was passed assimi lating the administration of the Basque provinces to that of Spain.