Editing Basques (section)

==History==
{{Main|History of the Basque people|Basque Country (greater region)#History}}
[[File:Pamplona - Monumento a los Fueros 12.JPG|thumb|upright|Monument to the [[Fuero#Basque and Pyrenean fueros|Charters]] in Pamplona (1903)]]

Basque tribes were mentioned in Roman times by Strabo and Pliny, including the [[Vascones]], [[Aquitani]], and others. There is enough evidence to support the hypothesis that at that time and later they spoke old varieties of the Basque language (see: [[Aquitanian language]]).

In the [[Early Middle Ages]], the territory between the [[Ebro]] and [[Garonne]] rivers was known as [[Duchy of Vasconia|Vasconia]], a vaguely defined ethnic area and political entity struggling to fend off pressure from the Iberian [[Visigoths|Visigothic]] kingdom and [[Umayyad conquest of Hispania|Arab rule to the south]], as well as the [[Franks|Frankish]] push from the north.<ref>{{cite book |author=Trask, R.L. |year=1997 |title=The History of Basque |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lbLbAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA14 |location=New York, US |publisher=Routledge |isbn=0-415-13116-2 |page=12 |access-date=2017-11-01 |archive-date=2020-05-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200504204223/https://books.google.com/books?id=lbLbAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA14 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Lewis AR 20-33">{{cite book|title=The Development of Southern French and Catalan Society, 718-1050|last=Lewis|first=Archibald R.|author-link=Archibald Ross Lewis|year=1965|publisher=The University of Texas Press|pages=20–33|access-date=2017-10-28|url=http://libro.uca.edu/lewis/sfcatsoc.htm|archive-date=2019-10-07|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191007095449/https://libro.uca.edu/lewis/sfcatsoc.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> By the turn of the first millennium, the territory of [[Gascony|Vasconia]] had fragmented into different feudal regions, such as [[Soule]] and [[Labourd]], while south of the Pyrenees the [[Kingdom of Castile|Castile]], [[Kingdom of Pamplona|Pamplona]] and the Pyrenean counties of [[County of Aragon|Aragon]], [[Sobrarbe]], [[Ribagorça]] (later [[Kingdom of Aragon]]), and [[County of Pallars|Pallars]] emerged as the main regional entities with Basque population in the 9th and 10th centuries.

The Kingdom of Pamplona, a central Basque realm, later known as [[Kingdom of Navarre|Navarre]], underwent a process of feudalization and was subject to the influence of its much larger Aragonese, Castilian and French neighbours. Castile deprived Navarre of its coastline by conquering [[Basque Country (autonomous community)|key western territories]] (1199–1201), leaving the kingdom landlocked. The Basques were ravaged by the [[War of the Bands]], bitter partisan wars between local ruling families. Weakened by the Navarrese civil war, the [[Spanish conquest of Iberian Navarre|bulk of the realm eventually fell]] before the onslaught of the Spanish armies (1512–1524). However, [[Lower Navarre|the Navarrese territory north of the Pyrenees]] remained beyond the reach of an increasingly powerful Spain. [[Lower Navarre]] became a province of France in 1620.

Nevertheless, the Basques enjoyed a great deal of self-government [[End of Basque home rule in France|until the French Revolution (1790)]] and the [[Carlist Wars]] (1839, 1876), when the Basques supported heir apparent [[Infante Carlos of Spain, Count of Molina|Carlos V]] and his descendants. On either side of the Pyrenees, the Basques [[End of Basque home rule in Spain|lost their native institutions and laws]] held during the ''[[Ancien régime]]''. Since then, despite the current limited self-governing status of the [[Basque Country (autonomous community)|Basque Autonomous Community]] and Navarre as settled by the Spanish Constitution, many Basques have attempted higher degrees of self-empowerment (see [[Basque nationalism]]), sometimes by acts of violence. [[Labourd]], [[Lower Navarre]], and [[Soule]] were integrated into the [[Departments of France|French department system]] (starting 1790), with Basque efforts to establish a region-specific political-administrative entity failing to take off to date. However, in January 2017, a single agglomeration community was established for the [[French Basque Country|Basque Country in France]].<ref>{{cite news |last=Garicoix |first=Michel |date=2017-12-29 |title=Le Pays basque se constitue en communauté d'agglomération |trans-title=The Basque Country is established as a agglomeration community |url=http://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2016/12/29/le-pays-basque-se-constitue-en-communaute-d-agglomeration_5055172_823448.html |language=fr |access-date=2017-10-31 |archive-date=2020-04-30 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200430121358/https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2016/12/29/le-pays-basque-se-constitue-en-communaute-d-agglomeration_5055172_823448.html |url-status=live}}</ref>