[4] Some documentation for it occurs in picaresque works as early as the Spanish Golden Century, such as in Quevedo's El Buscón.
[7] As time passed, several words entered popular use and even standard Spanish, losing their value for secrecy.
The term germanía ("brotherhood" in Catalan—compare with Galician irmandade and Spanish hermandad) originated from the name of a revolt against the local nobility in Valencia, Spain during the sixteenth century.
Characters in the original Spanish version of Arturo Pérez-Reverte's Captain Alatriste series make use of germanía.
Pérez-Reverte gave a speech on the subject of germanía to the Real Academia Española de la Lengua after they invited him to join the academy for the work he had done on the series.