Unes ordenances del càrrec de sots-sagristà de la Seu de València dels segles XVI i XVII. Edició i notes lingüístiques

Resum

The study of old Catalan administrative documents allows one to observe the degree of evolution of this language, and at the same time is of great interest for the reconstruction of modern Catalan administrative language. The present article introduces some manuscripts, found in the Chapter Archives of Valencia, which are interesting from historiographic, legal, and linguistic perspectives. The documents are some statutes written in the 16th and 17th centuries which set forth the rights and responsibilities of the position of assistant sexton in the Valencia church. The author of the article has chosen four statutes, written between 1558 and 1666, coinciding with the appointment of different assistant sextons, and makes a meticulous comparison of the texts. To do this, he transcribes the first statute, which is the basis for the ordinances, in its entirety. He then transcribes those parts of the later documents having innovations vis -à- vis the older provisions. In addition, the author details all the tasks that assistant sextons and their aids were to perform. In a second part of the article, the author points out several linguistic aspects found in the administrative documents which are relevant to the internal development of Catalan. Some of these aspects are the writing, morph syntax, and lexicon used (Castilian expressions, Latinisms, synonym groups, etc). The author concludes that the level of language of the first two texts, composed in the 16th century, is obviously more genuine and closer to classical administrative language than the other two texts. The latter documents, composed in the 17th century, are closer to the register of spoken language and reflect a greater degree of Castilianization