HISTORICAL NEWS OF HUNTING IN VILLAFÁFILA

The activity of hunting has been linked to the human being since the beginning of its existence.

            Hunting was for the first settlers of this region a fundamental resource for their subsistence, but we have few indications of this activity. In some deposits from the Copper Age (4000 years ago) there are remains of bones of small animals that may correspond to rabbits, hares and birds that, together with the collection of eggs from the surroundings of the lagoons, would constitute an important part of the diet of these people. Likewise, in some settlements of the first Iron Age, dated around 600 a. C., remains of wild boar tusks and deer antlers have been found, which indicate that, at the dawn of the romanization of the region, the ecosystem of the Mediterranean forest would be more extended, occupying spaces now dedicated to cultivation, or that its inhabitants would go to the nearby mountains to hunt these larger species. Some of the utensils used to practice it have also come down to us, such as carved stone arrowheads found in El Fonsario or Teso del Marqués and a bronze spearhead or javelin.

            With the arrival of the Romans and the change in economic activities that it brought about, hunting ceased to be a fundamental resource with which to supplement the diet, to become a recreational occupation. The owners of the villas used to dedicate part of their leisure time to the practice of hunting and among their tastes was decorating the rooms of their villas with mosaics and paintings with hunting motifs. In addition to this, sometimes they acquired crockery utensils adorned with hunting themes, as is the case with a fragment of sigillata pottery , found in the Fuente de S. Pedro in which a scene of a hare hunting is clearly seen by part of two greyhounds, which indicates the hobbies of the dominus villaeand the antiquity of the practice of this sport in the plains of Tierra de Campos.

            Hare hunting with greyhounds is an activity that not only the lords have practiced in these lands, since since the Middle Ages we have documentary evidence that it was also carried out by the residents of Villafáfila.

            In 1418 in a complaint made by the neighbors and the council to the Master of the Order of Santiago, to whom the town belonged, about the differences they had with the Count of Benavente and the neighbors of his villages, it is said:

"And another has been done and done to the said our vassals many other forces and evils and damages and sins and especially they say that just a few days ago certain squires of the said count came to the said town of Villafáfila and that all honor was given to them and entertainment and when they returned to the said Benavente that certain vassals of ours who were hunting failed and raised a hare in the term of the said our town and that they ran towards the term of the said Benabente and that they followed her for their term of the said Benabente and because of how much they failed them there and they seized their bodies and took their greyhounds and they took them to the said Benabente and that they had them and have them prisoners there” .

In the year 1490 a testamentary mandate of one of the neighbors of Villafáfila is known, who had one of the largest cabins of sheep of:

"Fifty reals to Losylla, hunter, as a conposytion that the said Collantes made with them before he died ."

From here we know that some were dedicated to hunting as a lucrative activity, and it is possible that their services were rewarded by the ranchers so that they would kill the vermin that could harm the cattle.

The hunting of hares and partridges was the most practiced, and sometimes, furtive means were used that forced the justice to intervene. In 1531 the mayor sent a neighbor from Villafáfila:

"that he had a house in a vineyard in the terms of this town, that he closed an embrasure of said house because in times of snow and fortunes with an armadixo that he had there he killed many hares and partridges".

The sentence was appealed before the mayor of León, who confirmed the sentence.

            The control of hunting was one of the reasons for disagreement between the council and residents of Villafáfila and their land (Revellinos and San Agustín) with Don Bernaldino Pimentel, Marquis of Távara, who bought the town from King Carlos I in 1541. One of The first commandments of the new mayor when he took possession of the town was to prohibit hunting to his neighbors:

“In the town of Villafáfila, on the fourteenth day of the month of January, 1542 ,  the very noble licensed gentleman Garcia de Marron, corregidor of the town, made it publicly proclaimed in the public square of the said town, that no person from the said town and his land and jurisdiction be daring to hunt in the limits of the said town with greyhounds and hounds and of nets and of ferrets and chuniegos dogs in snowy weather or in other times prohibited by laws and prematics of these kingdoms and lordships, under penalty of six hundred mrs for the camera of his magts and the said dogs and ferret and lost armandijas”.

            There were so many offenses that the new lord did to them that in 1543 they filed a lawsuit against him in the Royal Chancery of Valladolid, one of whose demands was:

“Ansymism being the common poaching to all the people and when it stopped hunting it would damage the bread and the vineyards and the said Marquis had decided to order it closed and make it a shame that no one would hunt” .

            The witnesses put by the council adduced the time immemorial custom of hunting in the terms of the town and land freely:

“Throughout the said time, the inhabitants and inhabitants of the said town, all those who wanted and loved, hunted and hunted in the said town and its terms, all the animals that wanted hares and partridges and other bees that are raised in the said terms, with greyhounds as with crossbows and nets and açores and podencos freely and without penalty or contradiction, and I have never seen or heard that the gentlemen who are from the said town have prohibited the said hunting until Don Bernaldino conpro the said village for two years"  "and even this witness in snowy weather went many times to hunt hares with a crossbow and saw many other times and go to the said hunt with hounds and mastiffs" .

The species they hunted were mainly hares and partridges, but other waterfowl are cited:

"They went to hunt wild geese and cranes and cararapitos in the lagoons of that term...and gallarons and white-tailed birds and other wild birds...".

The sentence given by the high court was on this point favorable to the demands of the council:

“ Others if insofar as the said council complains that the said marquess sees the hunt, we must order and we order that the said council and its inhabitants be able to hunt without the said marquess giving them any request and observe the laws and precautions that on they dispose of it” .

The practice of hunting was not always free of risks and thus, sometimes, in the old documentation there are cases of accidents such as the one that occurred on June 27, 1686 between two residents of San Agustín when:

“Damián Fernández, a relative of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, a hare was running with his horse and Juan de Villarreal was standing on a piece of land, and he ran over him and hit him with the horse, as a result of which he died at the age of twenty. days".

Or when in 1758, Manuel Fdez-Velasco was killed by a shotgun fired by Fabián del Río, both young men and residents of Villafáfila who were in the Dehesa de Quintos.

Although the greatest risk for salvation was to contravene the mandate that the Bishop of Astorga made in his pastoral visit in 1747:

“Let no one shoot with shotguns at the birds that perch on the roof of the tower of Santa María under pain of excommunication” [1] .

           Also sometimes the public powers encouraged the hunting of species that they believed harmful to exterminate them and we have news of this in the accounts given by Cosme de Vitacarros, steward of the City Council of Villafáfila in 1817, in which the following item appears:

“the tip to Diego del Campo for hunting vermin (two foxes), twenty-two reais” .

Author - Text:

Elijah Rodriguez Rodriguez.

http://villafafila.net/caza/cazahistoria.htm

Photography:

Jose Luis Dominguez Martinez.

Transcription and montage:

Jose Luis Dominguez Martinez.

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