LAWSUITS BETWEEN THE COUNCIL OF VILLAFÁFILA AND THE

SANTA MARIA DE MORERUELA MONASTERY

1254 - 1835

 In the middle of the 12th century, a process of reorganization of the territory took place in these lands of Zamora due to the royal intervention, first by Alfonso VII and later by his son, Fernando II, which led to the refounding of the Moreruela Monastery on the ruins of an old establishment. monastic and its integration into the Cistercian Order, and the reorganization of Villafáfila as a royal town, with the endowment of a council, the granting of charters and the allocation of an alfoz. From the beginning both institutions maintained cordial relations with the acquisition of property by the monastery, and the administration of a farm and a cellar.at the town. The exchange of the properties that the Monastery of Sahagún had in the region in 1254, in some of which the residents of Villafáfila had certain rights, originated a series of confrontations between the convent and the council that continued until the disappearance of the monastery in the nineteenth century, and even the dispute continued between the towns of Villafáfila and Granja de Moreruela until 1965.

It seems, according to tradition, that the Cistercian monastery of Moreruela had its origins in an old monastic establishment founded by the first bishop of Zamora, Atilano, in the 10th century, under the patronage of Santiago, although there is still some controversy about its location at a or another bank of the river Esla, discussing whether it would be the later Bernard monastery, whose ruins survive, or it would correspond to another located in Moreruela de Tábara.

The donation of Alfonso VII in 1143 of the town of Moreruela de Frades, whose name is very clear regarding the previous belonging to a monastic community, abandoned for a long time, to the friars Pedro and Sancho, sets in motion the establishment of a new monastery, welcomed by the Cistercian reform. In the delimitation of this donation, some very vague terms are reflected, especially in those referring to the eastern zone: it borders on the terms of Castrotorafe, Riego and Manganeses, and Santovenia, La Pedrera and Tábara are mentioned, leaving a gap without delimit between Manganeses and Santovenia that corresponds to the imprecise limits of Santo Tirso, Muélledes and Villafáfila.

One of the first areas of expansion of the Cistercian monastery is that of Villafáfila and its surroundings. In 1162 they receive a donation of estates in Falornia, near Villarrín, and that same year they had already established a farm, which was the formula for exploiting the heritage of the white monks, in Villa Ordoño and Oterino, in addition to owning vineyards in Villafáfila. In this town, the monks of Moreruela were not only interested in acquiring real estate, but also tried to participate in the decimal income generated by the salt, and in 1206 they received from King Alfonso IX half of the tithe of the Lampreana salt flats, a concession that collided with the enjoyment of the Terce by the bishop of Astorga since the time of the Emperor in 1154, and it did not take long for a lawsuit to arise between both institutions before the Roman pontiff, which must have been favorable to Astorga. The properties of Villafáfila must have already been important at the beginning of the 13th century, since in 1208 they already had a farm entity, which was the exploitation system of the estates of the Cistercian monasteries:

 “ grangiam de Villa Fafila et grangiam de Autero cum salinis et aliis pertinencis suis ”,

This Autero farm must have been located in the village of Oterino (the old Auterol ), in Villarrín, where at the end of the Middle Ages they owned several concentrated estates, and not in Otero de Sariegos. In addition to the Villafáfila farm, they had a cellarium in the town , or warehouse located in the main cities and towns around the monastery (Salamanca, Zamora, Benavente, Toro, Villalpando and Tordehumos), as a center for collecting and distributing grain. These assets were increased in 1214 by a donation made by Alfonso IX of his royal estate in Villafáfila, perhaps as compensation for the loss of the aforementioned lawsuit.

 The great conflicts between the abbot and convent of Moreruela and the residents of Villafáfila, which were maintained throughout the entire existence of the monastery, arose as a result of the acquisition of Montenegro by the latter, since the cattle of the residents of Villafáfila grazed there. and on those mountains their neighbors cut firewood.

The Montenegrin mountains had been donated to the Sahagún Monastery in 951 by King Ordoño III and were linked to the villages they had in Lampreana, for their supply of firewood for the salt production processes.

They were located on both banks of the river Esla at the height of the Piélago de Mancorvo, between San Lorenzo, the Peña de Vecilla and the path that ran from Vecilla to the Carrera de Lampreana, and on the left bank from the Peña de Mancorvo through the Sierro , along the road from Bretó to Moreruela and along the road that went from Lampreana to Vecilla, in addition, this estate in Montenegro had a cane field on the river Esla, surely the Cañal del Collado.

In the 12th century, differences arose between Sahagún and Moreruela due to the expansion of this monastery towards the estates that Sahagún had held for more than two centuries, and an agreement or lawsuit was imposed between the two monasteries. In 1182, through an agreement signed by both monastic communities, the Maguetes estate was shared, which had been bought by the Leonese monastery in 971, but given its proximity to the Cistercian monastery preserve, it was very important for Moreruela; In this partition, four residents of Villafáfila intervene as dividers, who I suspect were the mayors of that year and the witnesses of the document are residents of the neighboring towns: from Muélledes, from Benavente, on which Bretó depended, from Villafáfila and from Oter de Frades, which belonged to Sahagun.

Moreruela's interest in these territories near the abbey continues and in 1254 the Moreruela monastery obtains, through an exchange, all the estates that the Sahagún monastery had in Muélledes and in Montenegro. These properties must have been problematic in terms of their limits and uses, so they would not bring many benefits to the Sahagún monastery, but which the Moreruela monastery intended to value, given its proximity to the monastic preserve.

In the exchange it is specified that the estates that Sahagún has in Montenegro and Muélledes are exchanged, in exchange for those that Moreruela had in Prado, Quintanilla and Villalpando. It is clarified that it is the estate that they had received from King Ordoño III, so I suppose that it would correspond to what in 1201 was already called La Pedrera, Matilla and Maguetes. This donation is controversial because the imprecise delimitation is made from the right bank of the Esla to the Muélledes terms, a very wide space, whose demarcation to the East did not correspond to the donation documents of Ordoño III, nor to the purchases of Sahagún.

Likewise, on the day of the exchange, another document is signed by which the Sahagún monastery is released from the obligation to make Moreruela's possible claims on water and terms sound, except for the duty to help him with the letters and documents that they have in his possession. can:

“If by chance we can win more from the waters and from the terms... but if we want to sue ourselves, let us sue ourselves... and you help us in good faith, without evil deception, with cartherizas and with testimonies like yours Aves” .

From this document we know the intentions of those from Moreruela to begin litigation to obtain the enjoyment of everything that had belonged to Sahagún, increasing if possible their rights over terms and waters.

 This exchange was a source of territorial conflicts with the town of Villafáfila from then until almost today. The more or less voluntary permissiveness of the monastery of Sahagún with the residents of Villafáfila, to whom it allowed to graze with their cattle and cut firewood in these mountains, must have obeyed some type of agreement or mutual benefit, which had been established years behind. With the reorganization of the town in the middle of the 12th century, there was an increase in the population, which would translate into an increase in the need for forests for their use, being more necessary, in the case of Villafáfila, for the use of firewood. for the production of salt in its salt flats. We know that the Sahagún monastery was allowed to build its own church, that of San Miguel, in Villafáfila, and it is not unreasonable to establish the relationship between both facts. The Moreruela monastery never had its own parish within the town, because in the exchange of 1254, all Sahagún's assets in Villafáfila remained in the hands of the Leonese monastery.

The new owners of the mountains of Montenegro forbade their use to the residents of Villafáfila, which triggered a bitter conflict.

The residents of Villafáfila claimed a secular right to graze and cut firewood in these mountains that belonged to Sahagún:

“The council said that in the mountains that belonged to San Fagún and Montenegro, which are now part of the Moreruela monastery, they should use cutting and grazing in the time that they were from San Fagún and therefore they said that there was now the right to graze and to cut in these aforementioned mountains that now belong to the monastery of Moreruela, as well as what they used before in the time they were from San Fagún” .

The prohibition of activities that fully affected the economy of the town (livestock and salt mines) prompted the Villafáfila council to take a series of reprisals against Moreruela's assets:

-The residents gathered in council agreed to go to the monastery preserve, specifically to the meadow that the monastery had between the abbey, San Andrés and El Sierro and they cut down the trees and took the firewood.

-The council restricted the enjoyment of the goods and properties that the monastery had in Villafáfila, making them a public road through the middle of the josa and not letting them graze with their cattle in the terms of Villafáfila.

The abbot resorted that same year to King Alfonso X, who grants a privilege by which he addresses the men, judges and officers of the kingdom of León so that they protect the abbot Don Pedro de Moreruela, who had complained that some cattle and those of his vassals, ordering that no one can seize cattle of the monastery, or his vassals or other things. After two years of differences, in the year 1256 they made a compromise before three referee judges, agreed by both parties: Fernán Fernández, mayor of the king, Mynaya de Zamora and Martín García, commander of Castrotorafe, in whose hands they put the resolution of the conflict. . The parties previously agree to accept the arbitration, under a compensation of 1000 mrs. that he would pay the opposite, the one that did not accept it. Furthermore, if a party does not accept the resolution, the other could appeal to any judicial instance, be it the king, the merino mayor or the judges of Zamora; or ecclesiastical of the bishopric of Zamora or Astorga to resolve conflicts. The three arbitrator judges met in the monastery, and after hearing the reasons of the two parties, they issued their judgment on the day of Candlemas, at sunset.

In the ruling they provided that the council of Villafáfila could graze with their cattle and cut firewood in the mountains that now belonged to Moreruela, but limiting said right to an area determined by two roads that converged in the Pedrón, which was the preserve of the monastery, these paths were the one that went towards Villafáfila and the one that went towards Bretó, between those two paths towards Villafáfila the residents of this town could graze and graze, with the express prohibition of passing towards the river Esla. In addition, the Moreruela monastery retains the right to cultivate and populate these mountains if it wishes to do so at any time.

The abbot withdraws the claims he had made about the felling of the monastery pasture and hopes that force will not be used again by the residents of Villafáfila. In exchange, the town council allows:

 "The friars of the monastery who live in Villafafila who live with a county in their terms, as well as neighbors, and in waters none for themselves and for their cattle or for their flocks, do not cover them and let them use them, as well as their neighbors, and for the xosa that dug the house to the monastery, they won't be beaten from here on in the race”.

It follows that the monastery had a house, orchards, a josa and wells and water, it is assumed that, to make salt, in addition to having cattle, and that some friars lived in the town in charge of the hacienda, which would be the same farm mentioned in 1208. Relations between both institutions, council and monastery, prior to the exchange of the mountains of Montenegro, had been good and they hoped that they would continue to be so in the future:

 “and for many loves that the abbot and the convent received and received from the council of Villafáfila ”.

But things should not have gone smoothly, because the issue of the jurisdiction of these terms had not been settled, since Moreruela's property was recognized, but not the exercise of jurisdiction, and in the year 1311 the abbot complained to the king Ferdinand IV:

“Because Don Jaime, abbot of Moreruela, for himself and for his convent, told me that in Montenegro, which is in the preserve of the said monastery, that many forces are made and robberies and deaths of omes, ansi in their vassals who dwell in their homes and on their farms, and many other evils that are not punished, and he asked me for mercy that those who could enforce my justice, ... that they do not enter their preserve to do justice in advance, nor merino , nor mayor, nor any other ... I ordered that those or that abbot and the convent of the monastery put, that they do and fulfill my justice in the places and farms of the said monastery " .

Given the background, the cause of these forces must have been the residents of Villafáfila in the use or abuse of the exercise of rights in those mountains. In the face of the dispute, the monastery obtained, thanks to its influence with the kings, the exemption from neighboring jurisdictions and that Montenegro was considered its preserve, when it was nothing more than an annexed property, obtained after the delimitation of the monastic preserve.

But despite the royal mandate, the discord between Villafáfila and the monastery did not cease and new conflicts arose, such as the one documented in 1453 over the pasture of La Tabla, which the monastery included within the mountains of Montenegro, considering it the preserve of the latter and the neighbors of Villafáfila. they always maintained that they were terms of the town. That year several residents of the town seized several rams from the flock of the monastery,

"of the peak that is the whole of the said mount that is said to be from the Table, the boundary that is from the mount of Muélledes, saying the said pawnbrokers to be the said pasture of the said mount of this town of Villafáfila" .

The zone of the Table, which Moreruela included in the terms exchanged to Sahagún in 1254, continued to be discussed by those of Villafáfila, who considered that they were their own terms. The attorney of the monastery alleges that he was on the edge of the Muélledes mountain, with which he would enter the mountains received in 1254, which bordered on the east with the terms of Muélledes. But at that time, this village was depopulated or in the process of depopulation, and that part of its terms was subject to contradiction by those of Villafáfila, and between the two a dispute had been delimited as no man's land, which would later give rise to another long territorial dispute between Villafáfila and Villarrín.

The monastery resorted to the ordinary justice of Villafáfila, surely because the pledgers were residents of this town, rather than as recognition of jurisdiction over these terms, and the ordinary mayor of the town, Fernando Manso,

“seated and hearing and waging lawsuits in the abdiençia de la terçia in the plaça of the said town or the portal of the houses of Martyn de Barrio” ,

He ruled in favor of the right of the monastery to graze in La Tabla, declaring that they had been badly pledged and forced the pawnbrokers to return them.

According to long-held oral tradition, between the monastery and the council another agreement was established on cattle, which consisted of the friars taking their cattle to go out to the salty lagoons in the Villafáfila district, and the cattle from Villafáfila could reach the Esla river to drink. This was also affirmed by the witnesses presented by Villafáfila in a lawsuit on this same matter in 1775, such as José Ledesma, a neighbor of Otero who testified:

“and he also heard his father say that before those from this town came with their sheep to the river Esla to see its waters and that the Monastery with his people went down to the brackish...” or Francisco García, from Santovenia: "The cattle of this said town could go to the river Esla to drink the waters and those of the Monastery to the Salinas of said town".

Due to these conflicts, at the end of the 15th century this agreement was not fulfilled, possibly because the council again prohibited the use of salt water in the monastery, which was forced to move with their cattle to Villarrín to get them out as they had done since before 1502:

"On one day in the month of April one thousand five hundred and two years, the shepherds of the said monastery passed with their sheep from the Moreruela district to the farm that the Table says and going through the ravine to the Villarrín terminus, place of the jurisdiction of the Marquis of Astorga, to give water to the Salgada where many other times and years, with the license and permission of the good names of the council of the said place of Villarrin, they used to pass freely”.

Several residents of Villafáfila were waiting armed and seized several head of cattle:

“these said went out to the said cattle that were waiting for him on hoops, armed with various weapons, the said Frcº de Collantes on horseback and with lance and sword and dagger, and the said Juan Flores and Fernando de Muélledes with lanças and swords, they knelt the said cattle by force against the will of the shepherds who guarded it, they had taken and taken nineteen gasanejo rams and one ewe with her lamb”.

The abbot and the friars went to ecclesiastical justice, specifically before the bachelor Pedro González de Almenara, general vicar of the church of Zamora, accusing the pawnbrokers of sacrilege, offenses and insults. They appealed to the jurisdiction of the judge, alleging that the events had occurred in Villafáfila, and the competent justice was secular, in this case the corregidor of Villafáfila and royal justice. They were convicted in the first instance, but appealed to the Royal Chancery of Valladolid, which confirmed the sentence, issuing a royal judgment in favor of the monastery.

 Faced with these difficulties and others that had arisen, the monastery must have ceased the direct exploitation of its estates and handed them over to jurisdiction. Thus, in 1404, all the estate that he owned in Revellinos: land, houses, land, meadows, orchards and vineyards are given in perpetuity for 100 mrs. and 2 hens a year; A little later, in the year 1447, they made a forum for Martín Rodríguez, son of Rodrigo Mateos, from a land in Villafáfila. At that time, a certain Alonso de Villafáfila, surely a native of the town, was a soprior of the monastery.

The hut to make salt that the monks had in Villafáfila, was also gauged in the fifteenth century, because in 1523 Salvador Façera, aged 81 or 82, recalls :

"When this witness got married, which may have been sixty years ago [1468] , then he gauged a salt-making cabin in the monastery of Nuestra Señora de Moreruela and had it gauged for more than twenty years" .

From a survey of 1528 we know that the Moreruela cabin was located in the vicinity of the Salina Grande, to the north of it, between the current settlement of Las Cabañas, and La Carrerita.  The salt farm had 25 inns or graters and two holes and several lands, but the cabin must have already been abandoned because in its meadow, the boundaries of the adjoining owner had been placed.

In addition to the land and the salt pans, Moreruela continued to maintain a house with a cellar in Villafáfila, and surely a garden, at the end of the 15th century, since in 1499 his winery was documented, next to the Drinking Well, we do not know if it was abandoned or leased and In 1513, the fences of Moreruela on the outskirts of the urban area are mentioned, which would correspond to the ramparts of La Josa.

They also continued to exploit their estates in neighboring towns through leases, since in the vicinity of Villarrín the monastery owned several salt mines, surely coming from the old estates of Villaordoño, Oterino and Muélledes, which they leased to the residents of Villarrín as stated in the Documentation preserved in the 18th century in the monastery archive.

  Despite the conflicts, the relations between the neighbors and the monks were common, especially at the end of the 15th century, during the period in which Don Pedro González de Mendoza, Cardinal of Toledo, was abbot of the monastery. He ceded it to the Count of Benavente, Don Rodrigo Pimentel, who in turn left it in the effective hands of his brother, Don Pedro, Lord of Tábara and owner of Villafáfila, also on behalf of his brother:

“I met Mr. Pedro González de Mendoza as abbot of the monastery of Santa María de Moreruela, who had a soprior, and he was a merino from the Granja de Moreruela, a Valderrábano, from Faramontanos, who had put him in the abbey as a merino, the said Mr. Pedro [Pimentel] , who said that he had the encomienda for the old count, his brother ”.

The abuses of the Pimentel family, both in the domain of Villafáfila, and in the exercise of the Moreruela encomienda are remembered many years later by the residents of the region, and they testify to it in 1528:

"When the monastery of Moreruela was encomienda of the Count of Benavente, Don Pedro and others by his mandate seized the providers and monks and their azedores and butlers and took them prisoners to Villafáfila and Távara and other places" .

The treatment between the residents of Villafáfila and the monks in those years of common dominion under the Pimentel is common, and this is how some of them manifest it years later:

“At the time that the monastery of Moreruela was plagued by chaos, I treated some of the time there and consorted with some of the monks”; “being the said avadia of chaostrales she met the avad and some of the monks who were then heran”; "who knows the abbot, the prior, the priest and some of the monks of the said monastery... and has been there many times" ,

and even some noblemen from the orbit of the Pimentel took their children to train in the monastery, such as Diego de Robles, who was archpriest of Villafáfila from 1523 and testifies "that he grew up in it, well eight or nine years" where he would receive the ecclesiastical education that would allow him to be ordained.

In those final years of the fifteenth century, the residents of Villafáfila leased the pastures of Tábara to Don Pedro Pimentel, to take their cattle to winter and to cut firewood for the salt huts, so that the transit from Villafáfila to the Esla was made by the terms of Moreruela, and the passage of the river in a boat that Don Pedro had placed at the height of Quintos, which competed with the boat that the monks had in Mojabarbas, downstream.

The Quintos boat sank around 1515, and when Don Pedro Pimentel's widow, Doña Inés Enríquez, and her son Bernardino Pimentel put up another boat in 1527, the monks opposed it, alleging that the port of embarkation was in their terms, and the cellarer and some servants of the monastery set fire to the boatman's hut. All this originated a long lawsuit before the Royal Chancery of Valladolid.

The judges agreed with the monastery and Don Bernardino had to take the boat upstream to the height of the watermills of Quintos.

 Apart from the problem caused by the pastures of La Tabla and the passage of cattle through the monastery grounds when they went to or returned from the pastures of Tábara, the conflicts are reproduced by the interest of the residents of Villafáfila in farming the Table, especially in the 16th century, motivated by the increase in the population of the town.

During the first half of the 16th century, the council of Villafáfila asked the abbots of the Moreruela monastery several times to allow them to plow and break up the area of ​​La Tabla, in exchange for an annual rent, and at some point they must have been about to reach an agreement. This is how the witnesses of the lawsuit that took place in 1556 relate it. Andrés Barrado, 70 years old who was a resident of La Granja, but who had previously been from Villafáfila, and testifies, presented by the monastery, that:

 “I could be forty years old [h. 1517] more or less, being this witness from the town of Villafáfila, he saw that it was discussed in the said town, among those of the regiment of it, that they go to ask the monastery of Moreruela for a license to ronper and work in the said termyno of La Tabla and it was agreed that Françisco Martínez and Bartolomé Manso, mayors who were in office at the said time, and Juan Rodríguez, alderman, would go to speak to the abbot of the said monastery that was in office at the said time, and this witness went with them and did not deal with this business, and they gave each other sixty or seventy loads of bread... and afterwards they were disconcerted, so that the said abbot said that the tithe of what they took had to be from the said monastery, and with this the said vezinos of Villafáfila returned to their homes without doing anything....

 This eagerness to break new terms again caused a confrontation between the council of Villafáfila and the monastery of Moreruela regarding the use of the term of La Tabla. The monks were also interested in being able to break and till the Table, either on their own account or to lease it to whomever they wanted, which would bring new income to the abbey.

On November 9, 1556, several servants of the monastery and a friar of the same, with the agreement of the entire convent, and with the support of several residents of La Granja, went to the end of La Tabla and began to plow and break it. The residents of Villafáfila found out immediately and proceeded to prevent it by legal means and by force.

On the 10th, Juan Manso de San Pedro, attorney general of the council of Villafáfila, appeared before the mayor of the town:

"The great Mr. Doctor Beltrán", representing the facts: "Being as it is, La Tabla ended and the jurisdiction of this town, and even within its coffers and landmarks, yesterday, Thursday, which counted nine days of this present month of November, were to the said Table of this town and they plowed a large part of it and at present they are plowing in it with three pairs of oxen, without a license from the council and justice and rulers of said town... and incurring serious criminal and criminal penalties... certain servants of the house and convent of Moreruela, with oxen, plows and gear” .

They present information from witnesses before the corregidor, such as Juan de Ballesteros, who assures that the Table:

 “For more than thirty-five years, the said Table is avid and kept of this town and they mark it out and graze with their cattle the vºs of this town... coming from the Mount he saw that with a couple a friar from Moreruela was plowing and with the other for a young man... and there were people from the Farm and Convent with their crossbows” .

On November 13, 1556, a process is opened by the corregidor of Villafáfila at the request of Juan Manso de San Pedro, attorney general of the town, on behalf of the council, justice, aldermen and neighbors of it, by filing a complaint criminal against those who were responsible for the facts.

 The same day:

"The bell of the clock rang to the general council so that the vºs of this town, or some of them, went with the said gentleman corregidor to arrest those who were plowing in the said Table" .

Many neighbors got together and with the ordinary mayors and the corregidor they went to the Table, armed with spears and crossbows, although it is not stated in the records, where they found three pairs of oxen plowing "in the two pairs a young man and in the one pair a friar” . The mayor, keeping the procedural formalities, asked them if they were plowing and they answered yes, and proceeded to arrest three young men: Juan Ramos, Bernardo Barrado and Francisco de la Puebla, handed them over to Antonio Álvarez, merchant and resident of Villafáfila, to take them prisoners to the Villafáfila prison. The lay friar who was plowing, Fray Pablo de Moreruela, asked the clerk for testimony that the three young men were arrested.

Likewise, the three pairs of oxen with the corresponding plows and yokes were taken to Villafáfila.

To prevent an armed confrontation, the corregidor required:

"all the people who were present on behalf of the said monastery, that they did not make any noise, scandal or disturbance, before they were all quiet" ,

and that the part of the monastery come before him in his hearing of Villafáfila, who was ready to do justice with all rectitude.

In the town, the attorney general of the council asked the corregidor to keep them prisoners,

"that his mercy did not give them loose or on credit until they fulfilled justice" .

The corregidor ordered the three pairs to be deposited in the houses of three farmers, and that they feed each ox half a bushel of rye and 3 straw arneros.

The next day, curators were appointed for the young men, to represent them before the judge, since they were older than 14 and younger than 25.

The young men confess that they are servants of the house and monastery of Moreruela, and that they were sent to plow by Fray Juan de Zamora,

“by order of the abbot and of the entire convent” .

In addition, they declare that they became quiñones and plowed three other pairs of other residents of the Farm,

“The ones who, seeing the said Lord Corregidor and other people, stopped plowing in the said Table and left because they were not caught” .

That same day he arrived in Villafáfila, and appeared before the corregidor, "Fray Luys [Álvarez Solís], abbot of the Moreruela monastery of the Order of San Bernardo ", to ask him to release the prisoners and return the oxen, because they were plowing in the term and property of the monastery and was not a competent judge to prosecute them.

The corregidor's response is that the abbot present before him whatever petitions he wants, and he will be ready to do justice.

The abbot, without accepting the jurisdiction of the corregidor of Villafáfila in the matter

"He said that he did not ask his md justice and come to it, but only to ask him to release the said prisoners" ,

that the scribe testify that he did not recognize the jurisdiction of the corregidor.

The corregidor orders the clerk to give the testimony to the abbot of everything that has been processed so far as part of the complaint, so that the royal jurisdiction could see how he had acted from the beginning, motivated by the complaint filed by the council of Villafáfila.

In addition to the young men, that day they had arrested the friar who was plowing with them, not by order of the corregidor but by order of the ordinary mayor for the status of the sons of the sons, Don Lope de Robles. The abbot went to jail and also required the one who had the friar imprisoned, to give him as a testimony and to release him, and Antº Álvarez said that he had him imprisoned by order of the mayor and that he would not release him until further order. The abbot came out of jail and when he was getting ready, in the middle of the square, to mount his mule, again the corregidor told him for the last time that he was ready to do him justice, surely aware of the influence of the abbot in the Court .

On the same day, the corregidor ordered proclamations to be published so that the residents of the Farm who had plowed in La Tabla were arrested: Pedro de la Pobladura el mozo, Alonso Guardado, Santiago Burganes, Pedro Alonso, and Francisco Sánchez, son of the convent butler, and Antonio Gómez, notary public of Irrigation. Three announcements were published, the last one on December 7 and they did not appear in Villafáfila, sure, as they would be, of their conviction.

The council attorney confirms in the complaint:

"The accused said postponed the fear of God, and in contempt of justice, giving mutual favor and help together and summoned many people for it, armed with lances and vallesta and swords and other offensive weapons, with scandal and uproar... with many yoke of oxen and broke and broke much of the said term " .

The imprisoned young men adduce in their defense:

“We are servants of the house of the monastery of Moreruela and because of the sold and salary that we earn, we are forced to obey our master even if what they order is a crime, especially since no one used it here” .

On November 24 there was already a Royal Provision ordered to release the prisoners on bail, since the monks had gone to Valladolid, before the court of the Royal Chancery. They were handed over that day on bail to Adán Fernández de S. Pedro and Licentiate Diego de Valencia, the town's doctor.

He appeared before the corregidor:

“ Fray Alº Aragonés, çyllerero in the monastery of Santa María de Moreruela ”,

requesting the oxen, under guarantees given by the previous neighbors who were guarantors, and he took them to the monastery.

In the evidence that the council of Villafáfila had to make, it presented several witnesses from Faramontanos de Távara, Bretocino, Santovenia, Villaveza, Otero and Villafáfila, who testify that the Table is within the limits and milestones of Villafáfila, and that its neighbors and guards seized the cattle that entered it, even the residents of La Granja.

On December 17, Fray Alonso Aragonés presented himself again in Villafáfila, asking that the corregidor be inhibited, because a lawsuit was pending before the Royal Chancery of Valladolid.

However, the mayor issued his ruling, which was to declare La Tabla the end of this town, and sentence the accused to 6,000 mrs. divided into Thraces for the chamber of the Lordship of him the Marquis, for expenses of justice and for public works of the town, and 6 months of exile from the town and jurisdiction. The sentence was given and pronounced on January 9, 1557.

The attorney for the young men appealed the pecuniary penalty and consented to the banishment from the town, since it did not harm them at all that they could not return to Villafáfila in six months.

The absentees were sentenced in absentia to 20 days in jail, 8,000 mrs. each and in a year of exile from the town.

The process was claimed by the high court and was taken to the Royal Chancery on March 22, 1557, since the monks had also filed another lawsuit because the town of Villafáfila had plowed and plowed the term of La Tabla in 1556.

 In Valladolid, both parties make their proofs and present their witnesses. Villafáfila's witnesses before the Foreign Ministry were different from those who testified in the first trial, also residents of Benavente and other neighboring towns, some natives of Otero or Villafáfila, and they ratify in their testimonies that La Tabla belonged to Villafáfila and that the guards seized the cattle of the surrounding towns that they found within La Tabla, including those of the residents of La Granja de Moreruela.

The testimonies of the witnesses presented by the monastery, neighbors of Granja, Villarrín, Riego or Villalba, affirm the opposite, saying that La Tabla has always belonged to the monastery and that its guards were the ones who captured it. In addition, the monastery presents as evidence various documents that were found in its archive, such as the exchange of Montenegro with the monastery of Sahagún in 1254, the arbitrary sentence of 1256, the privilege of Fernando IV of exemption from jurisdiction of 1311, the sentence of the mayor of Villafáfila on the pasture of La Tabla in 1453, and the execution of the pledge of cattle in 1505.

 The final sentence of the President and Oidores of the Royal Chancery was given and pronounced on October 12, 1558:

“We rule that the part of the said monastery of Moreruela provoked its petition and demand, we give it and pronounce it as well proven, and that the part of the said council of Villafáfila did not provoke its exemptions and defenses, we give them and pronounce them as not proven, therefore we must declare and we declare the term of the Table, on which this said lawsuit is, to be proper to the said monastery of Moreruela and we must adjudicate it and we adjudicate it, and we condemn the said council and neighbors of the said town of Villafáfila from now on they will not do or ronpan The saying ended under penalty of fifty thousand mrs. for the Chamber and Treasury of SM for every time they do the opposite, and we do not condemn costs and for this our final sentence, so we pronounce it and order it” .

The council of Villafáfila appealed the sentence and new testimonies were presented.

On June 13, 1559, a new final judgment was given in the grade of review ratifying the previous sentence.

As soon as the sentence was known in the town, the neighbors did not accept it and agreed to appeal it in a new instance for which they meet in council in the Plaza on June 20 and grant:

“ A power of attorney to beg for a second time, before the real person of His Majesty, with the penalty and bond and bail of the thousand and five hundred doubles of gold of head that the Law of Segovia provides ”.

It was a last resort that entailed the loss of that amount of money in case of being sentenced on the costs for having resorted improperly. To pay, since the council was short of resources, some guarantors were given, in the persons of Juan García Mayordomo, Juan Martínez Viejo, Rodrigo Rodríguez, Antón Tartalla, Bartolomé Gallego, Francisco García, Pedro del Concejo, Babilés Martínez, Gómez de Olea, Diego de Collantes, Diego del Prado, Lope de Robles, Andrés Simón, Andrés de Ledesma, residents of Villafáfila,

" Laymen, plains and subscribers and very rich and rooted and that balan the goods and estates rayzes that among them they have and possess in quantity of three thousand ducats and before more than less ",

and they allege that the term of the Table is worth, at least, 3000 ducats.

That is why they present testimonies from other residents of Villafáfila who swear and declare that the guarantors' assets are worth more than 25 or 30 thousand ducats.

The monastery alleges that the Table has always been theirs, that if those from Villafáfila have any right, it is to graze it with their cattle, and that:

"Many and diverse times have asked the abbots who have been in the said monastery for a time to lease them to work some parts of the said terminus of La Tabla" .

 In addition, in the questionnaire presented by the abbey to ask its witnesses, the origin or chronology of the conflict is declared, from their point of view, and they show that it was the monks who had broken the pre-existing situation when they sent their servants to break up La Tabla, which caused the intervention of the residents of Villafáfila:

“For the month of November of the year of myll and fifty and fifty-six years, the justice and aldermen of the said town of Villafáfila with many other residents of the said town who were more than one hundred men, armed with various weapons, with great scandal and uproar, to canpana tañiyda, they went to the said terminus of the Table and, by force and against the will of the said monastery, seized certain servants of the said monastery who were plowing in the said terminus and seized and seized their oxen .

Later, the council of Villafáfila, with the excuse that there was locust in the Table, proceeded to plow and sow it:

"And another day with the same uproar they bullied the said terminus and by force and against the will of the said monastery they plowed and broke it with a large number of mules and oxen . "

Various testimonies, such as that of Alonso Crespo, a resident of La Granja, who says that sixty years ago (at the end of the 15th century) there was a landmark between La Tabla and Villafáfila, assure that at that time there was no longer any sign that differentiated and separated the terms. He tells that he had seen in November 56 that:

“Twenty or thirty men from Villafáfila went towards the end of La Tabl... with swords and crossbows and lances in an uproar” .

Andrés Barrado, 70, a native of Villafáfila, but a resident of La Granja,

“Between Villafáfila and La Tabla, this witness does not know that there are landmarks from one terminus to another, but rather a boundary that crosses from the land of Benavente to the terminus of Muélledes, and Ansy has seen it for the said sixty years to this part . ”

 He recalls the events of the fall of 1956 in which he was present, when, anticipating the reaction it would provoke in the residents of Villafáfila, many residents of La Granja were accompanying the:

“Servants of the said monastery were breaking to take the lobster and he saw, as if heading towards the town of Villafáfila, many people came with great noise and uproar, who would have been up to fifteen or twenty on horseback and many others on foot, he does not know how many they would be, more than how benyan armed with swords and crossbows and lances and other weapons... they davan bozes and began to throw spears at this witness and the boys, and this witness was wounded in the neck by a spear... then another day after the said uproar many people from the said town of Villafáfila returned to the said terminus of La Tabla and plowed much of the said terminus ” .

What is never questioned by the testimonies of one part or another is the community of pastures between the council and the monastery.

The sentence, again, awarded the property of La Tabla to the Monastery and kept the pasture in common.

The residents of Villafáfila, while the lawsuit was being settled, took the opportunity to sow in the terms of La Tabla in several quiñones in the years 1556-56 and 1557-58, reaping its fruits. In 1563 the lawsuit was still pending before the Chancery, since the monks claimed the fruits that those from Villafáfila had obtained, who defend themselves by claiming that if they broke the term and planted it, it was to put an end to a plague of locusts that devastated the fields and that found refuge in the vacant lots:

“If they broke said term, it was by order of the judge of the lobster commission” .

It is true that in 1556 the council of Villafáfila requested and obtained a license from the Mayor of the Adelantamiento de León, Juan López de Irízar, to break up and plow the vacant council terms, to exterminate the locust plague in its terms. That was the excuse they had to proceed to plow and break the two terms that were in dispute: La Recierta and La Tabla, although the monks, with the same excuse as the locust, or perhaps aware of the intentions of the neighbors, since they would have informants from the town, they went ahead and proceeded to start clearing the land before those from Villafáfila.

The judges ruled again in favor of the monastery on July 31, 1565 and condemned the council of Villafáfila to deliver within a period of 30 days to the abbot and monks half of the fruits that they had taken and brought from the term of La Tabla, taken the seed that they had sown and half of the expenses that they had made in sowing and reaping the fruits. Nor do they condemn the costs of the town, for all of which the attorney of the monastery claimed again, because he wanted the adverse party to be sentenced for the costs of the process and that all the fruits collected in La Table. After a year, a final sentence was given again on December 3, 1566, confirming all the previous ones and not ordering costs.

Compliance with the sentences must have been problematic, since in 1567 the monastery required the judge of Bretó to proceed with the execution of these, and days later the high court had to appoint Don Francisco de Paniagua, as judge. special to carry out the sentence. On July 21 of that year, 1567, this judge gave possession of the term of La Tabla to Fray Froilán Hurtado, on behalf of the Moreruela Monastery, for which he proceeded, following the required formalities, to take him by the hand and introduce him in his terms, of which he took possession on a mule, before several witnesses, among others Pedro García, alderman of Villafáfila.

 But the taking of possession of the term of La Tabla by the abbot did not put an end to the conflicts. The differences arise again when the convent tries to raise the landmarks to delimit the term of La Tabla.

In March 1574 the abbot of Moreruela addressed the justice and regiment of Villafáfila:

“at the request of the mayor of the place of Granja de Moreruela, so that they would come to see the erection of landmarks in our terminus of La Tabla, which is typical of said monastery” .

Mayors Antonio de Barrio and Babilés Martínez, aldermen Antonio Marbán and Antonio Rodríguez and Pedro Tartalla, attorney general, attended.

“those who came with a rod of justice” ,

and they were required there by Fray Nicolás de Rueda, abbot, so that:

“Attend the demarcation and felling that the said monastery wants to do in the said place of La Tabla...” ,

and do not prevent the monks from their purposes:

“Another yes, I ask you, not wanting to attend the said surveying and marking, not to disturb it or make any mess or force, with protest to ask before Your Mgt and where I should rightly and to complain about any outrage that they do to me and that we will ask the judge and receiver in the court of his magistrate to come and carry out said felling at the expense of the guilty parties and to undo the force and injury if any were done to us” ;

claiming jurisdiction of the term for itself:

“Another yes, I ask and require the aforementioned justice and regiment not to enter or consent to enter with a raised rod or otherwise with a rod of justice in the said terminus number of the Table... and that, mindful that you clearly know that the said term has been awarded to us by executory letter of His Magt. let Fracº Tristán, mayor of the abbey of said monastery, and his notary public freely exercise the office of justice in said term . ”

The officers of the Villafáfila regiment said that they heard him, but that they were coming to raise the milestones between La Tabla and La Granja, and the council of this town was summoned, but since they have not attended, and since the councils of this town have not been summoned, the villages of Benavente, they are not going to participate in the demarcation. Therefore, the residents of Villafáfila accepted ownership of La Tabla for the monastery and the common pasture, but said that the jurisdiction belonged to the town.

After these responses, the mayor of the monastery went on to mark the first milestone, which they call Muélledes, with the mayor of Villarrín, but those of Villafáfila opposed it, and:

“The said mayor of the said monastery, wanting to continue the right of jurisdiction that the said monastery has in the term of the said Table, argued with the justice of Villafáfila, and to avoid lawsuits and dissensions and damages that could follow, we fired them after fulfilling our requirements, and how it happened that way and how I show the mayor without any contradiction, he was with a stick raised in that term” .

The difference could go to dispute:

"there were words and to avoid scandals they stopped getting off ",

and before the opposition of those of Villafáfila the marking was abandoned:

"The said vezinos of Villafáfila did not want to consent to it, before they put themselves in reasons with the said mayor of the abbey" .

In May 1586, Simón Fernández, mayor of the Moreruela abbey, made a new request to the mayors and aldermen of Villafáfila to:

“mark out and remove the term of La Tabla jurisdiction of the said monastery that borders on the jurisdiction of vs mds” .

Next, they made the same requisition to the rest of the towns with Rayanos. Those from Benavente apologize, replying that in order to carry out the demarcation it is necessary for the corregidor and the attorney general to attend, but that those days are busy and they ask him to postpone it for a few days.

Those from Villarrín did come and proceed to start the milestone from the Canto de Muélledes and continued making the milestone between Muélledes and La Recierta with La Tabla:

“until you reach the Benavente line to the road that comes from La Jana de Villafáfila, which is where the road that comes from Villafáfila by the terminus of Muélledes makes a picaño and comes out on the road to La Jana that goes to Santo Andrés” .

The justice of Benavente did not show up to build the landmark, despite being summoned, and the mayor of Moreruela proceeded to make the journey alone, not finding any landmark on the road from La Jana to San Andrés until finishing La Tabla in the path that those from Otero take to the mills of San Andrés.

 In addition to the term of La Tabla, there was another portion of the term called El Sierrico, in which the cattle of Villafáfila also had a community of pastures. I have not found it mentioned in documentation prior to the 16th century, but by surveying in 1721 it is located to the west of Valdelayegua, against the river Esla, up to the road from Moreruela to Bretó, coinciding with the limit indicated in the 1256 document, for the one that authorizes the cattle of Villafáfila to graze in part of the old mountains of Sahagún.

The markings that were carried out between the towns of Benavente and Villafáfila were made with the participation of mayors and aldermen of both towns, sometimes with the presence of the respective corregidores, always each one for his term with his rods of justice raised, with the assistance of two scribes and with the participation of some residents of the villages. We have news of several of them, the oldest of which have been preserved is from 1525:

“In the term that Terdehuso says that between the terms of the town of Benavente and the town of Villafáfila, twenty and seven days of the month of February, the year of the birth of No. Salvador Ihuxpo of myll and five hundred and twenty and five years, being Messrs. Pedro de los Rios and Hernan Charro, aldermen of the town of Benavente on behalf of said town, and Mr. Bachiller Represa, mayor of the town of Villafáfila, and Alonso Glez alderman, and Alonso Hernández, ordinary mayor on behalf of the town, were present. said town, and Frcº de Caramaçana, attorney of the said town, to raise the following terms, in the presence of the said gentlemen and before my Diego Glez, notary public and notary public of their majesties in their court and in all their kingdoms and Lordships and one of the twelve public notaries of the number of the town of Benavente,by the very illustrious Mr. Alonso Pemyntel, count of the said town and of the written witnesses of yuso”.

 No friar or representative of the Moreruela monastery was ever present at these markings, despite including the La Tabla line:

“And from there they went right uphill and raised another milestone at the end of the Valle terminus, along the road that goes from Villafáfila to the azeñas de Quintos, and from there they went down the wide road azia down and raised another milestone that they say the on the way to La Refierta and Quintos, and from there they went up the ravine of La Tabla, on the edge of said ravine, and at the end of Valle and raised another landmark, and from there they went along the said ravine ahead, along the path that goes from Villafáfila to La Granja and they raised another landmark and from there they went along the said path forward to Pico de la Tabla to Punta Alta and there the said path was given by termyno, which goes to the boat and Piélago de Moncorvo and to the Villafáfila, and there on the said road no landmark was made because it was never found to have been done” .

In that first boundary marker that we know of, the milestone was finished at the peak of La Tabla, not including El Sierrico.

In the next landmark that is preserved, made in 1548, the town of Villafáfila already belonging to Don Bernardino Pimentel, with the participation of the corregidores, from Benavente, Mr. Gonzalo Pérez, appointed by the Count, and from Villafáfila, Antonio García de Montalvo , appointed by the new lord of the town, is reached by marking out El Sierrico:

“LXXII. and from there they went all the way along the old road until they say Laguna de Santa Marta, and from there along the said road they went forward until they reached the peak of La Tabla to Punta Alta and all the said road remains in common between both parts, and from there all the way forward until reaching the Sierrico they say, at the crossroads of the paths, one that goes to the Piélago de Mancorvo and the other to the Carretas that goes from the monastery to the mills of Quintos, and there they finished the saying apeo, vesita e amojonamyento” .

During the years of the previous lawsuit, several other markers were made, between Benavente and Villafáfila in 1551, 1554, 1558, 1563, 1570 and 1581, and in none of them were the monks present and in all of them one reached the Sierrico, from which that it is deduced a recognition by the council of Benavente of the jurisdiction of that of Villafáfila over the term of La Tabla.

 The situation remained at an impasse and the justice of Villafáfila proceeded in La Tabla as before the execution of 1566, entering with a high stick and making markers and seizing the foreign cattle that they found grazing, which caused the monks to complain.

In 1620 Fray Ángel Guerrero, on behalf of the monastery, once again requested the justice of Villafáfila to:

“Do not enter or command to enter the terminus of The Table with a high rod of justice, nor walk through it with it in any way, or mark out or cause the said terminus to be marked out with your authority of justice, or in any other way, except with order and license of the abbot and monks of the said monastery, whose is the jurisdiction, property and lordship of the said term, and to do otherwise, I protest nullity of everything they did and to sue before the king our lord and before whom with right I owe for break and break foreign jurisdiction” .

But things remained the same, despite these requirements, because in 1643 another notification was made by the abbot to the justice of Villafáfila, because he had news that:

"By order of their mercedes, the mayors and ordinary justice of this town of Villafáfila, my mayor of the town of La Granja was summoned to make a redundancy between the terminus of the said town and the terms of the convent on the part they border" ,

and urges them, by virtue of the executory letter that the monastery has, not to enter La Tabla with a raised rod of justice, because:

" again they got involved with high sticks of justice to amoxonar the said round term in violation of the jurisdiction and property that the said convent has ",

for which it requires the regiment and justice of Villafáfila, that they do not enter again and that they annul and give for none the said demarcation made of the term of La Tabla, threatening to file a lawsuit before whomever they have the right.

The mayors said that the following Saturday they would respond with their reasons.

Indeed, the council of the town of Villafáfila met:

“On the ninth day of the month of August of one thousand and six and forty-three, having convened the bsº of it to canpana tañida, I made them notify the above request and they agreed that the following be answered: that said request is not made to legitimate party for not making the town hall in the form, which was the one who made the moxonera, but that, however, this town is in possession of making the said moxonera, citing the town of La Granja from time immemorial to this part, according to costs for papers that will be produced and shown in court in due course, and that, in accordance with what has always been done, was done this year as well, in which the bill did no offense because it continued its right without being affected and, if in this particular the father abbot of Moreruela has any unusual letter, he will exhibit it,that his md is ready to obey her and order her to execute and in the meantime it does not harm her ".

 At that time, the relations between the council and the monastery seem to have entered the path of a peaceful solution, since both parties would be disillusioned of the expenses that the legal conflicts entailed, and they tried to make an amicable agreement that would resolve the differences without having to go to trials. For this, the abbot and two neighbors with power of the council signed an agreement:

“Concord made by Fr.Abad fr.Miguel González, and Lizdº Alonso Pérez and Dn Antonio Osorio, vºs de Villafáfila, by virtue of the power they had, the one they signed of their names, on the jurisdiction, pastures and who to lower the term of The Table and how. Year 1643” .

It seems that this concord was not protocolized or carried out with due formalities, possibly due to opposition from some monks who would be dissatisfied with the recognition of cumulative jurisdiction.

In a later letter, possibly from the end of the 18th century, coinciding with a new lawsuit about the same thing, it is noted below:

“This concord, or better said poorly written paper, as opposed to the executory letters won by the court in a contradictory trial, and to the agreement letters written on parchment, year 1256, is of no value and without any formality to deserve the name of concord, and public instrument for lacking all the requirements” .

However, harmony must have had its effect, and relations between monastery and council for more than a century were not conflictive, carrying out the felling of La Tabla and Sierrico, by common agreement between both.

 Having carried out surveys in the 18th century by the justice of Villafáfila with the agreement of the monks of Moreruela, in 1774 some difference had arisen because in that year the monastery tried to carry out a survey with all the Corrayano towns within its preserve. The council of Villafáfila, anticipating the survey that the monastery intended to carry out, by agreement of the city council on June 8, proceeded to summon the justice of Benavente and that of Granja de Moreruela to carry out the surveys of the terms of La Tabla and Sierrico :

“because in the future they do not experience damages that may originate in point of jurisdiction” .

On June 14, the Justice and regiment of the town of Villafáfila appeared at the point where the Vidayanes, San Agustín and Barcial del Barco lines meet to proceed with the lifting of the coffers and renovation of the milestones, but on the part of No one showed up in the town of Benavente, however, those from Villafáfila proceeded to make the landmark, stating the notary:

“I the ssnº give faith that because the xª de Benavente did not attend said landmark, only for this town half of the milestones were raised on the part of this xºn. and for the record I put it by diligence " .

Table Houses Table Houses

In addition to the justice of Benavente, the town hall of Villafáfila requested the abbot of the monastery on June 11. On the same June 14, upon reaching the border between La Tabla and El Sierrico with La Granja de Moreruela, the councilors of Villafáfila met the abbot of the monastery accompanied by many people from the monastery and La Granja, armed with sticks and batons, that required them not to pass forward:

"We, the residents of the municipality and town hall of this town of Villafáfila, attest that today the fourteenth day of this month of June, accompanied by the lady justice and regiment, representative deputies and chief bailiff, mayordomo, attorneys and field guards of this nominated town, we departure to make the border marker with the end of the Moreruela Monastery, and having arrived at the appointed time and meeting the mayor of the Monastery and Farm, due to several protests that said P. abbot made and the many people who were in his company with sticks and batons, said landmark was not executed, according to custom” .

In fact, the father abbot, Don Fray Pedro López, required one, two and three times to those of Villafáfila with the Royal Executory Letter of 1566, so that they did not go too far to do the lifting of milestones, because in the terms of La Tabla and El Sierrico only had a pasture community

“and if they insist on doing the aforementioned renovation or removal of the coffers, from now on at all times, I protest the force, violence and usurpation of jurisdiction and novelty of the precepts and mandates of the King, God Guide him, before whom from then I appeal and interpose it” .

Faced with this requirement, those of Villafáfila allege the custom:

"Regarding having done so on other occasions in accordance with said Royal Monastery" .

The same request as the father abbot is made by the mayor and the trustee attorney of Granja de Moreruela.

"Regarding not having preceded for it the life prior summons to the justice and regiment of the aforementioned town of La Granja, as bordering its term with that of La Tabla and El Sierrico" .

On June 20, the monks and convent of Moreruela empowered their attorney in Valladolid, Reverend Father Master Fray Esteban Suarez, to appear before the court of Royal Chancery against the town of Villafáfila for having proceeded to mark La Tabla. On August 13, the latter grants a new power of attorney to D. Gabriel Rodríguez, attorney of Valladolid, to bring the lawsuit before the court.

A Royal Provision was dispatched by the president and hearers of the Royal Chancery, with which the justice and regiment of Villafáfila were required, who meet at the town hall on September 11 to grant power to continue the lawsuit to D. Juan Gámez de Villabedon, procurator of cases before the Royal Chancery. They allege that they have always made the markings citing the abbot and monks of Moreruela,

“The milestones that have been made with the said Monastery and the acceptances of the requirements dispatched by the lords of justice of said town to said Royal Monastery and its abbots prove it, because otherwise this present abbot would not have given the acceptance to him supplication requirement” .

In addition, it declares to belong to the jurisdiction of the terms 

“and if this were not so, that this town was in possession of the jurisdiction of said Table and Sierrico as it is, those of La Granja would not have cited it so that it would come out to the boundary marker of said Table bordering that of La Granja and they would not have cited the Monastery, ... because the monks of Sahagún from this term of La Tabla, Sierrico and Recierta, alienated it, and that this town was in possession of the jurisdiction as it currently is” .

On October 19, the notary had to send the minutes of the controversial landmark to the Royal Chancery of Valladolid, due to the claim of its judges, to hear the lawsuit that the Monastery had filed against the council of Villafáfila.

In the probanza of the town, made in April 1775, the depositions of the witnesses emphasize the immemorial custom of marking off the terms, as proof of the exercise of jurisdiction in La Tabla, recognizing only the community of pastures in El Sierrico.

In the year 1774, when the justice of Villafáfila arrived at Piedra Hincada or Las Abejas by another name, the Reverend Father Abbot of said Royal Monastery and its mayor were already there, accompanied by many other people, servants and shepherds, and all were armed with sticks, so the landmark could not be formalized.

After several allegations made by the parties, and evidence from witnesses, the court issued its sentence:

“In the lawsuit that is between Don Antonio Vives prosecutor of the King Our Lord in civil matters in this his Royal Chancery on the one hand; RP Avad and Monges of the Royal Monastery of Santa María de Moreruela, Order of Nuestro Padre San Bernardo, and Gabriel Rodríguez de Losada, his Procurator; the Justice, Regiment, Council and residents of the town of Villafáfila and Juan Gómez de Villavedón, his attorney from the other:

We fail attentive to the cars and merits of the process of this said lawsuit and cause that we must revoke and we revoke the cars and procedures in its virtue made by the Justice of the town of Villafáfila; and as a consequence, we order things to be restored to the nature and state they had, in accordance with what is mandated in the Royal Egecutory Letter obtained by the RP Avad and Monges of the Royal Monastery of Santa María de Moreruela last year of one thousand five hundred and sixty-six , and if the Justice, Council and residents of said town of Villafáfila had to request or sue on the community of pastures in the places of Table and Sierrico, do it where, how and before whom it is combined, and we do not condemn costs and for this our final sentence we pronounce it and order:

Mr. Juan Antonio García de Herreros. Christopher of Arquellada. Mr. Gonzalo Galiano.

This sentence was given and pronounced by the President and hearers of this Royal Audience and Chancery of King No. Señor, making it public in Valladolid on May 7, 1779 .

 The council of Villafáfila presented a protest of the sentence and requested its revocation, and the monastery asked for its confirmation and that its opponents be sentenced to the costs. The judges returned to pronounce sentence in magazine degree confirming the previous one.

At the request of the monastery, the appraisal of costs was made, which amounted to 489 reales and 20 maravedíes, which the council of Villafáfila, which had been ordered to pay costs, had to pay.

But the municipality of Villafáfila refused to pay the costs and to recognize and abide by the sentence, which forced the monastery to go again the following month before the high court demanding a Royal Provision in which the council of Villafáfila was ordered to abide by the sentences and pay the costs that had increased by 166 reais from the costs of issuing the aforementioned Provision and Execution.

Track that passes through the table and old Ruta de la Plata railway   Road that passes through the table and old railway route Tabal Route

When the monastery tried to carry out the felling of the terms of La Tabla and Sierrico and renew its coffers and landmarks on September 22, 1781, it again encountered opposition from the residents of Villafáfila who did not heed its requirements:

" Recurring in the temerity of not corresponding the jurisdiction of the expressed term of La Tabla and Sierrico to the aforementioned Monastery, for which reason it was forced to suspend the prosecution of the explained citations and go by way of complaint to the Royal Chancery ", for which the monastery went before the Court again: " having the precision of the Monastery to lower the said terms through its mayor, he issued the requirements leading to the citations of the confinents who gave their plain and simple compliance, with the exception of Villafáfila who, forming enpeño of contravening the Royal Executories and trying to disturb and deny their express literal wants to pretend not to compete for them on my part the jurisdiction .”, requesting the attorney of the friars that: “Please deliver your Auxiliary Provision to me with serious penalties so that the Justice and City Council of Villafáfila give full, plain and simple compliance with the requirements that in this and any other reason, are delivered by the Mayor of the preserves of the said monastery without impeding in any way the attempted felling and that the Provision that is released is at the expense of the alleged justice and its City Council ”.

The High Court issued in January 1782 a new provision, initially at the expense of the monastery, so that the justice and regiment of Villafáfila:

“Being with it required by the Abbot and monks of the Royal Monastery of Moreruela, the requisitions that are issued by the Mayor of the reserves of said Monastery, going in form, you will give them full, plain and simple compliance without preventing the mentioned Monastery the felling that they have trying to make of the estates and effects that correspond to them in terms of that nominated Villa and if you have cause or reason for not doing it, keeping, fulfilling and executing it in this way, you will sell it within eight first days following this our Audience” ,

imposing a penalty of 20,000 maravedíes (588 reais) if they did not comply.

On 1-23-1782, this Provision was requested from the Villafáfila City Council, which accepted it.

In March 1783, the corresponding requisitions were issued by the Mayor of the monastery preserves, Don José Joaquín, to the justices of the towns with scratches to proceed with the boundary marker.

When the summons arrived at the municipality of Villafáfila, the Mayor of the same, the Ldo. D. Rafael Pantigoso, proceeded to convene for the following day at three in the afternoon the chapter members of the town hall.

“At the appointed time of three o'clock in the afternoon of this twenty-eighth day of March 1783, Messrs. Justice and Regiment were gathered in this town hall and they are especially Ldo. D. Rafael Pantigoso, Mayor Mayor, D. José Costilla and Antonio Ledesma Lobato, ordinary Mayors for both noble and general estates, D. Tirso Díaz and Bernardo Riesco aldermen and José Herrero Bravo solicitor general, and made quanto positions said: that there is no place for its fulfillment due to not being duly documented, said requisite dispatch regarding not coming inserts the Royal Provision that mentions and responds in its consequence given by the Chapter Members of the City Council of the year before next. This was answered and signed by said gentlemen” .

On April 11, 1783, the Mayor of the Monastery, D. José Joaquín, the ordinary justice of the town of Granja, the notary public and the Prior of the Monastery, RPFr, were present. Manuel Canabal, at ten o'clock in the morning at the point where the term of Santovenia and La Recierta join, waiting for the Villafáfila justice to appear, who had been summoned by means of a:

"new notice that was communicated by missive letter" and they waited until 12 o'clock and seeing that no one of the interested parties in the explained Recierta was sympathetic, his grace ordered that it be executed without his assistance, renewing the landmarks by this said term of The Table and starting it was noted that in 1107 measured steps that there are from the last marra with that of the place of Santovenia, traveling along the path that is brought from the named town of Villafáfila to that of Granja de Moreruela, named Las Manseras , which is the one that divides the said Refierta and this term of La Tabla, up to the first milestone or ark where the deesa de San Esteban de Muélledes begins, there is no milestone and for the same reason they were not renewed nor did their mercy allow them to rise from new without the assistance of the interested parties for not committing annulment,taking for enough the dividing line that the aforementioned road makes through now”.

 The swords were still high, and the sentences did not put an end to this conflictive situation.

In 1785 the monks present a new document on sealed paper, possibly before a judge, since the preserved copy does not clarify it, denouncing that:

"Some outsiders, whose names are unknown, have gone overboard to erect pens in the aforementioned terminus of La Tabla, operating clandestinely without the corresponding license from the Rdº P.Abad",

 the corrals questioned the property right of the monastery over the term, requesting:

“It is good to go through said term and, finding in it some erected pens, order that from then to later they be demolished, proceeding by prison and seizure of goods against the people who now and at some time have erected those pens .”

It is signed by Ldo. D. Felipe Argenti Leys, a lawyer residing in Villafáfila, which did not prevent him from working for the monastery.

  As the justice of Villafáfila continued to act in the Table and seizing the cattle of outsiders who illegally entered the term, the monks try to proceed, by means of a lawsuit, against one of the mayors of Villafáfila, who, despite knowing the previous sentences , continued to proceed and judge in those cases. In addition, it seems that the town hall of Villafáfila made or tried to make a new demarcation in 1798. The pledge had occurred in the next past year of 1797 and that year:

“the aforementioned City Council and Xª had the courage to proceed to make the survey, demarcation, and marking of the terms of La Tabla and Sierrico” .

Thus, it can be deduced from the unsigned writing that it may be an opinion of a lawyer, who recommends that, before proceeding against the aforementioned mayor, they be informed precisely of the details, and for this reason a list of what has happened in recent years is made:

According to the lawyer's report, two lawsuits should be proposed, one in particular against the mayor Don Alonso de León, for having judged the pledge of José Gutiérrez and the other against the Villafáfila Justice and Regiment for having made the survey

“...because of the opportunity to be mayor and to be a relative of his, the city council clerk was the reason why in the same year the City Council of Villafáfila made the demarcation and demarcation of the term of La Tabla and Sierrico with the notable vice and defect of not having summoned the Monastº for the same so that the damage that was possible would not be known and caused”.

The personal complaint would be more effective in case of conviction, since it is easier for an individual to demand responsibilities.

 Around that time there was also some conflict between the monks of Moreruela, owners of good mountains near Villafáfila, and the administrators of the Royal Saltpeter Factory, established in the town, over the power to cut firewood, necessary for the operation of this industry. . There was an instruction that established a rotating use of nearby mountains, based on certain Royal Pragmatics, which regulated the use of private mountains to cut firewood for the saltpeter factories.

In February 1796, it was ordered that firewood be cut from the mountain that it touched, which was the one that the friars of Moreruela had in the place and area called Priory and Facera, for which the Administrator went to the Knight Mayor of Zamora, who was the political authority of the province, precursor of the civil governors, and took out a Dispatch, so that, under certain precautions, the types of firewood allowed for the factory could be cut, the woodcutters taking a ballot signed by the Administrator of the factory, to present it to the mountain guards. The friars appointed a lawyer from Villafáfila, Ambrosio Díaz Costilla, as Mayor of their mountains, who drew up legal documents against those who cut the firewood, alleging three issues: that it had to be removed first from public forests, before private ones. ; that they only take out four loads of firewood for each arroba of refined saltpeter that is manufactured; and that the woodcutters had to go to present a ballot signed by the administrator to the monastery before going to the mountain, from where it was a league away. The true intention of the friars was that they be paid something for cutting firewood from their mountains:

“Well, these friars say that if I send servants from the factory, they will give the firewood for free, but that because those who drive the firewood are paid, they must pay them” .

If these claims are accepted, the costs of firewood would increase and the factory would no longer be able to buy it at 12 million euros from the lumberjacks, with the consequent increase in production costs, according to the administrator of the establishment.

 At the end of the 18th century, the monastery tried to sell the term of La Tabla, due to the limitations that the common pasture of the cattle of Villafáfila puts on the exploitation for the cultivation of those lands, and for this they went to the Ministry of Finance requesting permission. for the alienation of these lands, in exchange for a contribution to the Royal Treasury of 100,000 reais.

The main legal argument of the monastery of Moreruela in all the lawsuits that it had with the council of Villafáfila is the comparison of the current term of La Tabla with the old term of Montenegro, for which the monastery has precise title deeds. But from the detailed analysis of the old limits that I do in the first part of this article, it is at least doubtful that La Tabla was included in the old Montenegro, clearly located on both banks of the Esla, around the hermitage of La Pedrera, not so El Sierrico, which I do believe was part of the donation of Ordoño III in 951, and was the object of the agreement of 1256, clearly delimited by the roads from Moreruela to Bretó and Villafáfila that converged at Piedra Hincada.

 The first years of the 19th century brought, as a consequence of the War of Independence and Confiscation, the disappearance of the community of monks from the monastery.

The new times and new ideas that the revolution brought allowed the monks who returned to the monastery to cultivate part of the term of the Table, through lease, and this is stated in an undated written statement in which reference is made to the rents of three terms Peripherals to the abbey preserve: La Tabla, Valdemaría and Las Apretaduras. About the first he says:

“The term titled La Tabla in which term the residents of the town of Villafáfila have a community of pastures and for each load of land they plant in it they pay three eminas of wheat. And by agreement made between the Monestº and the Parish priests of said town, the Tithe of both Grain and Lambs is divided in half ” .

 The first consignment of income in the Table is from the 1815-16 biennium and 7 fanegas and 6 bushels of wheat are received as income. The rent is received every two years, I suppose because of the practice of the fallow system. The amounts received increase over the years, surely due to an increase in the cultivated area. Thus, in the year 1817-1818, 7 f and 6 c were collected. of tº and 5 f of cº and 5 f of cº, the year 1819-20: 22 f. and 6 c. of tº and 19 f. of cª. After the return of the community in 1823, 18 fanegas of wheat are recorded. In 1825-26 70 f. and 2 c. of rye and 24 f. and 4 c. of barley From 1827-28 the rent amounts to 100 bushels of rye every 2 years, the last received in 1835.

As a result of the Decree of suppression of the Regular Orders of 1809, the first exclaustration of the monks took place in December of that year, with the seizure by the French army of numerous assets of the monastery, returning the community to the abbey in June 1814. Again in November 1820, as a consequence of the laws of the liberal triennium, the community had to leave the monastery. In June 1823 the monks return to the monastery, which they definitively leave at the end of 1835.

Table Station

Table Station

The proximity of the abbey led to the clergy of Villafáfila proceeding to transfer various objects of worship and ornaments from the convent church to the parish churches of the town during the first exclaustration in the years of the War of Independence. Thus, the parish priests of Villafáfila went to the monastery in 1812, which was abandoned, and brought several altars and images as a deposit. These situations of deposit of goods in the parishes of Villafáfila occurred again in the exclaustration of the liberal triennium.

 We know little about the fate of the exclaustrated monks, some would integrate into civil life, others would continue in other religious orders or in the secular clergy.

We know the fate of some of the last monks, who went on to live in Villafáfila, where they died, so in 1836 Fr. Cándido Cabreros died, 77 years old, exclaustrated from Moreruela, leaving in his will as heirs the family that took him in and the charge of 400 masses. In 1841, Fr. Manuel Ledo died, aged 37, the last prior of Moreruela, who, with the extinction of the monastery, moved the conventual apothecary to Villafáfila.

With the disentailment, the possessions of the monasteries were put up for sale, with many residents of Villafáfila participating in the acquisitions.

Among the estates that were unsold in 1840 in the province of Zamora, La Tabla is cited, with 880 fanegas of land that rented 50 fanegas of rye annually.

The great extension of this term made its joint acquisition by the local farmers unfeasible. Finally, in 1843, La Tabla was divided into 10 quiñones, to make their purchase more affordable, of which 8 were acquired by D. Marcelino Trabadillo, a lawyer and rapporteur, a native of Villafáfila and a resident of Madrid, who also acquired the Priory of the Hoyo, also from monastic property, and many other real estate. The other two quiñones from La Tabla were bought by Antonio Rodríguez Palomino, a farmer from Villafáfila.

With the promulgation of the Law of Municipal Terms, Villafáfila managed to get the terms of La Tabla included in his municipal term, renouncing the rights over the Sierrico, and they remained so until 1965, when a lawsuit was lost caused by the municipalities of Granja. and Villarrin.

Author: 

Elijah Rodriguez Rodriguez.

The monastery of Moreruela and the Council of Villafáfila history of a secular conflict.

Yearbook of the Institute of Zamorano Studies Florián de Ocampo,  ISSN  0213-8212, Nº 19, 2002, pages. 277-322.

www.villafafila.net - http://villafafila.net/moreruela/moreruela.htm

Photos:

Elijah Rodriguez Rodriguez.

Jose Luis Dominguez Martinez.

Transcription and montage:

Jose Luis Dominguez Martinez.

All text, photographs, transcription and montage, the rights belong to their authors, any type of use is prohibited without authorization.

All text and photography has been authorized for storage, treatment, work, transcription and assembly to José Luis Domínguez Martínez, its dissemination on villafafila.net, and any other authorized means.