The Preparation of Letters Patent in the Court of Philip IV of Spain: In Search of a Linguistic Norm

Abstract

This article represents a second step in the study of how documents were prepared in the court of Philip IV. Having analyzed elsewhere the preparation of a largely informal letter from its inception to its final form without managing to provide a definitive answer to the question of whether royal secretaries are guided by a clear set of linguistic norms when they edit draft documents, I propose now to address the same question by examining a document whose stylistically formal nature is beyond doubt. The document concerned is the letters patent granted to the Marqués de Heliche in September of 1658, giving him overall charge of the Real Casa de Buen Retiro while D. Luis Méndez de Haro y Guzmán, the rightful incumbent, is absent from court. Three versions of this letter are housed in the Archivo General de Simancas: two drafts and a clean version. Careful comparison of the form and content of these documents opens a window on the difficult task facing those charged with revising and polishing draft papers and also allows us to say something about the thorny issues of norm selection and norm adoption.