The Corpus of Medieval Documentation from the Monastery of Sahagún (CODOMOSA): A Source for the Study of Astur-Leonese

Abstract

In the field of historical linguistics, the study of original documentation is essential for the analysis of language change and the characterization of medieval Romance varieties. In this context, the present paper aims to introduce the Corpus of Medieval Documentation from the Monastery of Sahagún (CODOMOSA), currently being developed by the GEDHYTAS research group, and to provide an initial assessment of its potential for linguistic research. The corpus currently consists of 394 original notarial documents dating from the 13^th to the 15^th centuries, preserved in the Spanish National Historical Archive. The selection has been carried out according to strict philological criteria, prioritizing original texts written in the vernacular and excluding later copies and Latin documents, thus ensuring the reliability of the data for linguistic analysis. From a geographical perspective, the documentation originates from a contact area between Astur-Leonese and Castilian, which makes the corpus a valuable source for the study of medieval linguistic variation. In addition, the diversity of document types allows for the analysis of both writing practices and linguistic uses across different textual contexts. The study begins with a brief reflection on the importance of research based on original sources, followed by a concise description of the documentary holdings of the Monastery of Sahagún. Subsequently, a detailed presentation of CODOMOSA is provided, including information on the diverse geographical origins of the documents that make up the corpus, their chronological distribution by centuries, thematic content, writing materials employed (parchment or paper), and the forms of intitulatio used by scribes and notaries. A more detailed century-by-century analysis is then offered, with particular attention to the scripts employed, ranging from Gothicised Caroline or early Gothic script in the first half of the 13^th century to cursive court hand from the second third of the 15^th century onwards. The article also presents a preliminary linguistic analysis focused on consonantism, specifically the following phenomena: preservation of the cluster -mb-, neutralisation of grouped liquid consonants, conversion of implosive consonants into [l], palatalisation of -ks- and -^uls-, palatalisation of -kt- and -^ult-, evolution of the clusters pl, kl, and fl, palatalisation of the groups -ld- and -l’d-, palatalisation of -ll-, palatalisation of initial l-, evolution of the groups -lj-, -k’l-, -g’l-, and -t’l-, and the evolution of I and of the groups g^e,i, -gj-, -dj- and -bj-. The study concludes with a more detailed analysis of the evolution and representation of the three pairs of sibilants during the 13^th century and the beginning of the 14^th century. The findings reveal the coexistence of Astur-Leonese and Castilian features, as well as the influence of different scribal models. The preliminary results show that, taken as a whole, CODOMOSA constitutes a highly valuable tool for the study of linguistic change in a frontier territory and for the history of medieval Spanish.