While Biscay is today the most important Basque-populated territory from an economic and political point of view, the territory of La Rioja was the one that held this condition during the 11th century. The importance of this territory in that period was because the capital of the Kingdom of Pamplona-Nájera was located in Naiara, a city of La Rioja that is known in Spain as Nájera. Additionally, the first coin of a peninsular christian kingdom was minted in this city in 1034 and the name of Naiara was included in it.
Near the old Naiara there was the city of Donemiliaga Kukula, currently known in Spanish as San Millán de la Cogolla, where the first texts in medieval Basque were written as well as in Aragonese, which was the Romance language spoken by the local population of Latin speech. Those writings are known as Glosas Emilianenses (Glosses of St. Emilianus).
La Rioja would be annexed by the Kingdom of Castile since the 12th 
century, what made the languages spoken in the area disappear gradually when being replaced by Castilian. Those languages were Euskara (the indigenous language of the territory since Pre-Roman times) and Aragonese (the Romance language that was introduced in La Rioja when it belonged to the Andalusi Upper March that was ruled from Zaragoza). The Basque language was preserved in several areas of La Rioja until the 16th century, while Aragonese would progressively be assimilated by Castilian since the 13th century.
The aim of the Glosas Emilianenses was to facilitate the comprehension of the texts that were written in Latin, so that the ordinary people that ignored the language used by the clerics could get close to those texts. One or several anonymous copyists wrote different notes in Latin, Euskara and Romance Aragonese in which they commented or glossed the most difficult paragraphs to understand.
"Gaudeamus frates karissimi et Deo gratias agimus, quia uos, secundum desideria nostra, jncolomes [ sanos et salbos ] jnueniri meruimu [ jzioki dugu ] (...) Si uero, quod Deus non patiatur [non quieti] et mala opera exercimus [nos sificieremus] et plus pro carnis luxuria quam pro salute anime laboramus, timeo ne quando boni christiani cum angelis acceperint uitam eternam nos, quod absit, precipitemur [ guec ajutuezdugu ]* [ nos non kaigamus ] jngeenna (...)"
The Basque annotations 'jzioki dugu' and 'guec ajutuezdugu' that were included in the glosses are translated as 'we have lighted' and 'we do not plunge into' respectively.
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