VILLAFÁFILA ORIGIN AND REPOPULATION, IX AND X CENTURY

Villafáfila's origin may be Roman or earlier. The inhabitants of these lands were Vaceos in the 6th-4th centuries, before Christ and their agricultural-pastoral beam type, with a predominance of the former.

It is located in the vicinity of the so-called "Vía de la Plata", more or less coinciding with the itinerary of the Roman Antonio, which linked Mérida ( Emérita Augusta ) with Astorga) ( Asturica Augusta ). Its remains show us a Roman origin of the centuries after Christ.

Nearby were also inhabited nuclei of "Vicuos Actuaría" Castrotorafe and "Briciego" (Benavente) not very distant "Intercatia" .

According to the division carried out by the Emperor Augustus of Spain, (27 before Christ), this land of ours belonged to the Terraconensis province, while in Diocletian's to the Carthaginensis.

Three archaeological sites have been found within the current municipality of Villafáfila, in the places of San Pedro, Wamba and Valorio [1] .

The first one has found tegulas, pieces of kitchen ceramics, others belonging to a "dollium" and above all pieces of Roman mosaic formed by marble and terrazzo tesserae of different colors, forming geometric drawings based on circles and semicircles, squares, curved triangles, etc. Which constituted the pavement of a late Roman "Villa" or country house of a rich agrarian owner. (s. IV).

In the area of ​​Wamba, what is most abundant are pieces of fine kitchen and spatula ceramics, with other vessels, and in Valorio, tegulas, tiles, and paleo-Christian gray ceramic plates have been found, with stamps from the VDC century.

All these remains are kept in the Provincial Museum of Fine Arts in Zamora.

Perhaps the clearest example of Roman habitation in Villafáfila is the "Villarigo" bridge located over the salt flats. Extensively modified over time, barely revealing its origin. The properly called "Fountain of San Pedro" may be one more vestige.

Rudimentary was the degree of Romanization of the Duero basin, there is a small number of cities of small importance, which at the beginning of the s. V, are in full decline and in the process of disappearing. Some, however, endure: Zamora-Ocelun Durii.

Greater importance has Villafáfila in the time of the Goths. Its own name has that origin: “Villa de Fáfila” .

It was part of the Gothic Fields ( Campus Gothorum ), which constituted an important portion of the current “Tierra d Campos”.

By chance, an important archaeological complex was found in Villafáfila consisting of three Greek-type sheet crosses (two of them with their corresponding suspension chains), a bronze container, a stem of the same alloy and an indeterminate fragment of copper. , perhaps part of a bell, 68mm in diameter, belonging to the s. VI-VII dc [2] .

The finding constitutes one of the most outstanding archaeological sites of Visigoth goldsmithing and, together with the treasure of Arrabalde, also from the province of Zamora, one of the most notable in the Iberian Peninsula. The Museum before said, guards such an important set.

With the defeat of King D. Rodrigo (711), the arrival of the Muslims and the rebirth of the Asturian kingdom, the appearance of the area, in which Villafáfila is located, changed.

DEPOPULATION BY DON ALFONSO I

Would it be the Asturian king D. Alfonso I, the Catholic (739-757) who rebuilt and populated Villafáfila and its area, as his kingdom increased at the expense of the infidel? It is not very likely, since he did not do it in Zamora either, that he was in the same conditions and circumstances. More possible is that he took them and then abandoned them. These are times of the warrior expeditions that, more than settlements, far from the central nucleus of the Christian kingdom, do not have the mission of destroying, cutting down, the positions of the infidel. “exercitu mobens” says the chronicle of D. Alfonso III.

Abelda's chronicle says of Don Alfonso I:

“ urbes quoque Legionen atque Asturicam ab inimicis possessas victor innasit campo dicunt Goticos asque ad flemen Durieum eremavit et xcritianorum regnun estendir ” (The victor also invaded the cities of León and Astorga, possessed by the enemies. He seized the fields called Goticos, until the Duero, and extended the kingdom of the Christians).

His successor D. Alfonso II, the Chaste, also barren the Gothic fields, up to the Duero.

These are the times when the lands of the Duero are frontier: barren lands, of struggle, of nobody, where the only inhabitants are birds and beasts. “Strategic desert” according to Sánchez Albornoz and the Portuguese Herculano. D. Alfonso I and his brother D. Fruela, had produced the emptying of the population in the area between the Astures mountains and the Duero, during twenty years of campaigns (739-757) of desolation and destruction [3] .

Three events, says Sánchez-Albornoz, contributed to the emptying and barrenness of the Duero basin: 1st The Hispanic-Gothic emigration to Asturian lands, forced by the Muslim invasion, as a way of freeing themselves from it, 2nd The abandonment of the basin by the Berbers, established in it on the occasion of the invasion, when in 740 they rose up against the Arabs. The civil struggles in Ándalus, exploited by D. Alfonso I and 3º The great famine suffered by the peninsula from 748 to 753, which forced emigration.

The chronicles of Albeldense, D. Alfonso III and Sampiro describe many cities in the uninhabited area as “civitas desertas” [4] .

This "desert" is also confirmed by the meaning of the Muslim raids, in the s. IX, to attack the Christians. These were not made directly, but rather by making a detour through the Ebro Valley, to enter Castile through the north of La Rioja, later advancing towards León and Astorga, along the Roman road that went to Zaragoza. It is suspected that the front companies, along the Duero plains, encountered the difficulty of supplying the Muslim army with the uninhabited [5] . On the other hand, the intensity of the repopulation also indicates the intensity of the emptying.

For Menéndez Pidal, although very probably, they have lost their old administrative, political-religious functions, and although very weakened demographically, they remain a sufficient entity to attract settlers as their repopulation capacity is strengthened.

“We must consider that the Christians brought by D. Alfonso I could not have been all the inhabitants of the Duero basin. The chronicle only refers to the Christians of the thirty cities and towns. It is reasonable to believe that not all emigrated but only the bourgeoisie, who had no roots in the countryside. Those who worked the fruits of the land would have to stay. It seems impossible to think of a depopulation of the Duero and Alto Ebro basins. When Alfonso I took the Christians away, he did not completely depopulate the thirty cities, he did not barren them or raze them to the ground, all with their old names return to be present after one, two or three centuries, without telling us that they are rebuilt again” [6] .

Muslim domination was barely effective. It only materialized in the imposition of taxes. There is no basic political-administrative organization. The only thing the infidels find is a depressed territory, with very poor structures. They barely find rural gentlemen with whom to agree on the administration of the area.

The Muslims were never interested in these territories, over which they failed to establish an effective political-administrative domination.

D. Alfonso I exterminated in those thirty cities, the rudimentary Muslim administration and abandoned them, that is, he disorganized and destroyed, politically speaking.

The depopulation of the Duero basin was only the departure of the few military, political and administrative personnel there were. The majority of the population rooted in the land continued to live it.

“populari”, populating the depopulated, “must mean reducing to a new political-administrative organization a disorganized, unformed or perhaps dispersed population due to the upheaval brought about by Muslim domination, however brief and fleeting it may have been” “no entry of emptiness [7] .

Sánchez Albornoz does not agree with what Menéndez Pidal previously pointed out and defends his emptying of the indicated area:

“ All the cities and towns-in the chronicle of Alfonso III-had always been pure agricultural centers, without noteworthy industrial and mercantile life, and they were especially so after the fall of the Roman Empire. After the ruin and extinction of the municipal organization of Spain Goda, when the Arab invasion occurred, they all lived in those thirty cities of agriculture and for agriculture. After the Muslim occupation, the small number of Hispanic-Gothic officials who had been governing them had disappeared from these cities. If Alfonso I had only taken to the north those inhabitants of such cities, whose existence passed with their backs to the countryside, they would not have been able to take to Asturias and Cantabria but a few dozen inhabitants of the destroyed land” [8] .

Twenty years (739-757) destroying cities and towns and driving the Christians north, had produced the emptying. While Muslim Spain was torn apart by civil wars, until the advent of Abd-al-Rahman I. Muslims in those circumstances could not react against D. Alfonso I and his brother Fruela.

A century after the start of D. Alfonso I's campaigns, the dividing line with the Muslims was where he left it, after his raids. Isn't this stagnation surprising? If there were some Christian urban population to the south, why didn't they advance their borders by relying on it? [9] .

Some current historians are not satisfied with these and insist on Menéndez Pidal's theory. For Mr. Carlos Estepa Díez. D. Ordoño I conquered and repopulated Tuy, Astorga, León and Amaya. The chronicle of D. Alfonso III indicates it in the word "repopulavit" This does not mean that what was desert was repopulated, but that they were conquered and "dominated again" that is "reconquered".

"Ordoño I and Alfonso III, kings of a scarce territory, seem to be able to carry out a planned repopulation in a perfect way that there may be small owners carrying the spirit of the Hispanic idiosyncrasy" [10] .

With which Mr. Estepa Díez does not agree.

For if "populare" means to dominate a "terra depoputata" it is a land that is unoccupied, without a lord, but not uninhabited.

The repopulation of the 9th and 10th centuries, in the Duero Valley, must have been carried out through the occupation of the terrazzo by great lords with the dependency of the inhabitants that were there, of those above them.

It would be an area of ​​certain repopulation, which would depend on the gentlemen who occupied the terrace.

Together with the King, the tycoons would be the protagonists of the repopulation, while the inhabitants of the new lands would assimilate into the dominant classes, sharing the same economic and social structures.

Nobody doubts that the four “civitates” conquered by Ordoño I, in the middle of the 9th century, were episcopal seats or important fortified centers [11] .

The "civitates" are scarce but in the documents from the Astur-Leones kingdom there are many "villae" , "castros" and "castellas" as forms of settlement.

But our part believes that the cities eluded by the chronicle of D. Alfonso III were never completely depopulated, life continued in them although very impoverished. But in the intermediate spaces, between them, there was almost a real desert. This could happen where Villafáfila currently sits, until its repopulation due to "haste".

He followed this area as intermediate territory. In 795 there were Muslim expeditions that occupied Astorga and in 846 they attacked León, but during the reigns of D. Fruela I (757-768) and D. Alfonso II el Casto (792-842) the Duero border was strengthened, with fortifications and repopulation of it.

In 812 the battle of Polvoraria took place, around present-day Benavente, against Omar, Wali de Mérida and the fortification and repopulation of Zamora.

REPOPULATION OF D. ALFONSO III AND D. RAMIRO II

Between the years 856 and 860 León and Astorga were repopulated and fortified by Ordoño I (850-866), according to the chronicle of D. Alfonso III (866-910). With this comes the true moment of the repopulation of the northern area of ​​the Duero. He rebuilt and fortified Zamora (893), "which was deserted", supported in the rear, in the opinion of D. Julio González, by the castros or fortresses of Castrotorafe and Castrogonzalo and repopulated it with Mozarabs from Toledo.

Unpublished fragments of Ibn Hayyan's chronicle contained in the Oxford Codex, fol. 83.

“Isa Ibn Ahmad says: Already in this year (280 hegira = 893 Christian) Alfonso (III) son of Ordoño (I), king of Galicia, went to the city of Zamora, the depopulated one, and built and urbanized it and repopulated it with Christians and restored its surroundings. Its builders were people from Toledo and its defenses were erected at the expense of an Agemi man from among them. So from that moment the city began to flourish and its inhabitants joined others and the people from the border to take a place in it” [12] .

They were people who wanted to live free from the Islamic yoke, among people of the same religion and sheltered from the discord that convulses Andalus and of which they were the first victims.

The documentation of D. Alfonso III also confirms that repopulation. In 908 D. Alfonso gave the recently occupied church of San Mamed in the suburb of Zamora to the see of Oviedo.

“ ut de squalido ad prehendimus ” (and by breakage we occupy it) [13] .

Very surely D. Alfonso III was also able to repopulate Villafáfila, since according to the previous Arab chronicle he "restored all its surroundings" in Zamora. He also did it with Simancas (899).

The documentation of King D. Ramiro II (931-951) [14] tells us about the existence of citizen and agricultural centers in the areas of Lampreana, current Benavente, Araduey (Valderaduey), and Campos: Castro Mutarraf, Castro Mozaref, Castro Muza, Villa Ceth (Belver de los Montes) Villa Nazaref, Villa Alpandef (Villalpando) Villa Brágima, Villa Tirso, Villa Nazar, Villa Sescuti, VillaOffilo [15] , which were the seat of the Mozarabic families: Brágima, Cete or Zeid, Escorriel, Revelliz, Gómez Abdella, Alpandez, Gamar, Abnazar, Beni Mozaref, Beni Godesteiz, etc., [16] .

In the documentation of the Sahagún Monastery, in the purchase of the Villafáfila salt mines, we find Arabizing names: Aboharon, Almundar and Fortunió Iben García, together with others of Visigothic origin: “ego Alarico et mea Fradegundia” , “ego Sabarico” , “ego Sesnado” , “ego Recemondo” [17] .

The courtiers of D. Ramiro II Nazar and Vincemalo, who had founded and owned, in common, the place of Villa Fahlon (Ardón) on the Esla and near León, are looking for new territories, they arrived colonizing the lands of Lampreana, Cea and del Araduey, where the king granted them the Villa de Mutarraf and Villa Vicencio (uninhabited next to Villalpando).

In the 10th century, Arabic (Mozarabic) names abound in Zamorano documents [18] . Thus we find the Mozarabic San Mamed, in the vicinity of Alcañices.

Names of Arab origin are cited in Vitalis's donation to the Sahagún Monastery of some vineyards in Zamora: Zuleima, Omar, Zaita, Abamore, and Abderrakmann [19] .

We know from the oldest document of the Monastery of Santa Marta de Tera (10-28-979) how the Mozarabs Marvan, Abzulama, Zuarez, Abdelón and Allup, donated to it a court, called Ordoño with all its trousseau and belongings in land of Lampreana [20] .

Mozarabic were the monks who restored the Sahagún Monastery (904), the ones who founded San Miguel de la Escalada (913) and Castañeda de Sanabria.

The Mozarabic Maio, in the Monastery of Escalada, minified the codex "Commentary on the Apocalypse of San Juan del Beato de Liébana" He also did the "Codices de Tábara" (978-970 and 975) [21] .

According to Menéndez Pidal, the vulgar Latin of Leonese medieval documents -written by notaries- were brought to the Duero Valley by the Mozarabs "stuck in an old Latin culture house due to the heyday of official Muslim culture". “Only assuming the radical depopulation of the Duero Valley can the possibility of such a Mozarabic implantation be admitted”, says Sánchez Albornoz [22] .

The repopulation of Alfonso III did not reach the definitive state until the reign of D. Ramiro II.

Sampiro's chronicle refers to the repopulation by D. Alfonso III of Toro, Zamora and Simancas.

Once Zamora was besieged, the second battle of La Polvoria (878) took place with the defeat of the infidel Al-Mundhir, son of Emir Muhammad I, which secured the Duero border. Toro was occupied (900) by King D. García I (910-914).

Zamora, not only fortified but also repopulated, was then, in fact, the capital of the kingdom, with its main church whose bishop was Attila (901-917), a monk, with Froila, from the Moreruela Monastery [23] .

In the times of Ramiro III, the battle of Simancas (939) and Alhandega took place, won from the caliph Abd-al Rahman III, which signified the warrior superiority of the Christians over the Muslims. The border advanced from the Duero to the Tormes.

An earthquake then changed the geographical configuration of our area: it changed the course of the Araduey (Valderaduey) to its current form, destroying the Roman bridge over the Duero river, which linked both banks in Zamora, as can still be seen, and changed the course of Esla in Ricobayo.

THE “PAUSATAS” (SALINES)

The first documented news that we have of Lampreana is dated 6-26-917. It refers to the assets of the female monastery of Santiago de León, among which “in Lamprea Pautas V” [24] is cited . Villafáfila does it in Tumbo Legionense fol. 417r.

In the year 936 we find Villafáfila among the documents of the Sahagún Monastery for the sale of a "pausatas" of certain laymen to him.

“ Er ego alarico et exor mea Fradegundia vendo vobis IIª Pausatas in Lamprea cun suid puteis et sous eiratos cun suos servicios: Iª Paustata ad Lacuna Moire ad terminun de Abiza et Pinniolo et de Villa Fáfila the term of Atanarico” (and I Alaric and his Fradugundia woman we sell to you the II salt pans in Lamprea, with its wells and its beds, with its limits: Iª salt pan at the Laguna Mayor, at the end of Abiza and Piniolo and Villa Fáfila and the end of Atanarico” [25] .

The Laguna Mayor refers to the current Salina Grande.

In addition to this sale of "pausatas" the aforementioned monastery takes place, between 930 and 937 others. They are all found “in Lamprea in locum quem dicunt Lacuna Moire” (in Lampreana in the place they say Laguna Maior).

“et ego aboharon vendo vobis II Pautas in Lamprea cun suis puteos et ciscertnas cum Suos Terms: Iª Pautata in illo Campo in the term of Feles, from alia part Stephano, from III part Guilliamon et de Cano; Alia Pautata ad Lacuna Maiore, term of Quildefonso” (and I Abo-haron sell to you II salt mines in Lampreana with its wells and cisterns, with its terms. I salt mine in Campo, in term of Feles, on the other hand Stefano, of III part Guillamón and de Cano and another saline to Laguna Mayor, term of Piniolo, on the other hand stream of Campo term of Quidefonso).

“I Redeem to you Recesvinto abbot of the Monastery of Sahagún I sell to you III pauses in Lamprea: I in Laguna Mayor de Goino, from another part Requila term of IIIª part of Lallo; another pause in Caureses next to the road that runs to Zamora; IIIª Pautas in the Field” [26] .

In total, the Sahagún Monastery, a true economic power in the area, had acquired 17 and a half “pausatas” from 10 different owners, to which another 12 donated by King D. Ramiro II of León had to be added.

Other monasteries also acquired "pausatas" in Lampreana. The one from Eslonza in 946 acquired from the Abbot Proficio, in Revellinos, some pauses “et in alios locos in Lacunas de Arcello vindo vobis meas Pautas” possibly refers to the current Barillos lagoon [27] ; the one in Santiago de León made new “pausatas” with V in 970 [28] and in 954 the one in San Martín de Valdepueblo, an uninhabited area located next to the Cea river near Mayorga, received a donation from magnate Piloti Gebuldiz “in Torrones VII Pausatas ” [29] .

Count Sancho Ordoñez also had "the breaks where the salt was worked" in Villarrín by inheritance from his grandfather Count Pelayo Rodríguez [30] .

The documents speak of "puteos et eiras" and "puteos et cisternas" means of extracting salt.

According to the documents, these are small free owners who begin to be absorbed by the great monasteries and magnates, through purchases or donations, with the aggrandizement of the manorial economy and the decline of individuality. It is the general process of feudalization. However, of which individual exploitation persists, although with clear regression. Still in the second half of the 12th century, the documentation shows us small owners who sell "pausatas" to the previous monasteries or to others, determined to monopolize the salt business.

These small owners exploited and directly traded the salt, taking it to market and paying their toll. On the other hand, the monasteries exploited and marketed it directly or through lessors whom they demanded in their benefits, without payment on their part of the toll, by royal dispensation [31] .

The origin of Villafáfila is found in the salt of its “Lacuna Maiore” .

THE REPOPULATION

The repopulation of the area before the official one by kings and counts, was due to lay peasant communities of "small free owners" according to Sánchez Albonoz. Villa-village communities: Villafáfila would be one of them, that is, a pre-city (IX-X centuries).

“The repopulation was done a few times by loose individuals who came to form villages, more generally it must have been grouping together several families “sortitores” or “sodales” that remained associated and with common lands. This system of undivided land is generalized. Not only was pro-indivision common among co-heirs, but also the adoption of strangers, who entered, as participants, "heirs" with equal rights. The aforementioned collectivities were the probable origin of the categories of free men called “benefactory” as opposed to the so-called “iuniores” subject to benefits and personal tribute” [32] .

These families generated villas wherever they settled. The Bini Sendati settled in Revellinos [33] .

The individual or the community have in fact acquired ownership of the land through occupation and plowing of the barren terrazzo, without an owner (presura-scalio) [34] or real donation.

The examples could be multiplied. They are people who claim to own their own land. They are free men or descendants of them. They form villages, independent of political power, which represent an economic organization, a unit of men who inhabit a small common property territory (9th-10th centuries).

The word "villa" "villae" (village) responds to the Latin "vicus" of the documents, populated place, that is the word is accompanied by a place name or name, Villafáfila, Villarrín, etc. [35] .

In the appellations made up of the word “villa” it was the repopulator who gave the name to the place that he had taken in “hurry” or donation. The name of Villafáfila comes from a repopulator called Fáfila: Villa de Fáfila, as Villarrín alludes to the repopulator Rein: Villa de Rein: Another example is Villarigo and with it we allude to the area where the bridge of his name sits in the salt flats of Villafáfila . Revellinos (Revellines) comes from the settler Revelle [36] .

“For the people of León and Castilian, the word “villa” was used to designate tiny human groups, a small group of families, populated bulbs, devoted to agricultural tasks, that is, villages, as we have been saying. The nature of the country would contribute to the rapid increase in the number of villas-villages, since the Leon paramo normally offered and even frequently required the life of peasants in small population centers. The same repopulation company had to contribute to the spread of the housing system in villages” [37] .

What were these villas like? Some documents indicate it to us, although apart as stereotyped formulas, from the Sahagún monastery of that time. They are farms with low population density.

In 951, King D. Ordoño III donated to the aforementioned monastery of Matela, which had the limits of Bretó, Quintos and the river Esla, in which there were

“terris, vineis, partis, pasquis, padulibus, argoribus, molinarias, piscarias” , etc. [38] .

Which, in Villafáfila, were worked by Fáfila and their relatives and neighbors, without the existence of serfs or settlers, since they were all free owners.

The form of exploitation of these “villas” is not known . However, the climate, terrazzo and population deficit reject intensive cultivation, which forces us to admit that it was a cereal and wine farm. Work utensils are also unknown, but we must admit that they would be the most elementary and rudimentary: wooden plow, hoe, etc. on fertilizers: manure and little, due to the scarcity of livestock [39] .

How did these towns communicate with each other, in Lampreana? The documents provide us with news of the roads of the same under the names of "carrera" , "carrele" etc. delimiting estates and communicating them with each other and with others, outside the study area.

The "Cembrana race" or Zamora, following the Araduey valley, led to Zamora. It crossed another, much more important, that went from Astorga to Zaragoza, following the Roman road, in Becilla del Valderaduey. Another of them ran along the Cea River, passing through Castrogonzalo, where it joined the Vía de la Plata, which linked Astorga with Mérida. Both were cattle ravines.

From Castrogonzalo, as a secondary road, a branch started off that also went through Lampreana to Zamora, where it met the first one, which we have considered.

“karrele qui discurrit de Castro de Gundisalvo ad Lampreana” [40] .

It is also called.

“in Cuareses iuxta carrele que discurrit a Zamora” (race that goes from the Lampreana lagoons to Zamora [41] .

“career that ran at Lacuna Maiore” [42] .

Sometimes in the documents there appear other villages or neighborhoods attached to the main town-village and within its territory. Fuentes de Ropel was a neighborhood of Castrogonzalo [43] , Revellinos was a neighborhood of Villafáfila in 945, the oldest date on which it is known [44] .

In the town-village and its neighborhoods, the local peasantry was grouped, who cultivated the fields and also exploited its communal assets: forests, meadows, water, etc. that constituted the alfoz or term of the same.

Colonization was preceded, in the settlements created by the king or magnates above all, by defensive positions: castles or strongholds. These fortifications constituted the nucleus of new towns that, in addition to their strategic function, served as protection and refuge for the inhabitants of the towns-villages that arose and developed under their protection [45] .

The function of the town or city was identified with its definitive conquest and this with the domain of castle fortress.

The number of towns populated by free men must have been great and this is how the settlement of the Leonese and Castilian area has reached the present day. Indeed: According to calculations made by E. Melefakis from the Rustic Wealth Registry Corresponding to the year 1930, the small properties (less than 10 Has.) in Castilla la Vieja were 99.65% of the number of farms, which presented the 64.95 of the total area [46] with which we can see the influence that those distant times had on the current ones.

REPOPULATION BY THE MONASTERIES

The influence that the great Zamoran monasteries of San Salvador de Tábara and Moreruela, on the other side of the Esla, had on the area in the 10th century must have been notable, as the Leonese kings desired. For this reason, the newly populated Villa de Fáfila had to notice its power, as later happened with that of Moreruela de Frades, within the Cistercian Order.

But possibly the greatest known influence is due to that, so often cited, of Sahagún, who between 930-937 made massive purchases of “pausatas” in Lampreana, as we have previously indicated. He also acquired, by purchase or donation, other properties or belongings in Villa Traviesa, not far from “Lacuna Maiore” .

“Et ego Senda una cum filis meis Lubla et Luppi tridimus vobis una media vinea quod habuimos in Lampreana in villa Travessa quan habuimus cun Segerico” (and I Senda with my children Lubla and Lupi give you a half vineyard that we had in Lampreana, in Villa Traviesa, which we had with Segerico) “Et ego María filias meas Sesildi et Servanda vendimus vobis una vinea de frattes, de IIIª parte carrera que discurit a Lacuna Maiore” (And I, María, with my children Sesildi and Servenda, sell you a vineyard in end of Villa Traviesa, next to Viña Graciosa, on the other hand, the road that runs to Laguna Mayor).

“Er ego Senando et filio meo labandus presbister vendimus vobis Iª corte cum III houses et sus terra conclulsa et una ferragine iuxtra eclesia vestra de Sancto Martino in Lampreana” (And I Sesnando and my son Inbandus, presbyter, sell to you 1st curtain with III houses and a fenced land and a blacksmith shop next to your Church of San Martin in Lampreana) [47] .

The same monastery also had other important possessions in Lampreana. King D. Ramiro II of León in 945 donated the Villa de San Martín y Traviesa with 12 “pausatas” and his belongings in exchange for three water mills in Zamora, in Olivares, which belonged to the monastery.

“ideoque annuit serenitatis nostre glorie ut concederemus ibiden de serviendun sancti Martini et villa Travessa et duocecin pauses cum suis adiacenzis unde nobix ex inde portatico non pledgent, et ispa villa de Travessa that is located in the territory of Lampreana sicu est cum omni integritate per terminis suis See Swiss benefits. Ita ut amido et deinceps omnis ispe populus qui in ipsa villa avitant vel postmundun avitare videntur post parte monastery persitan per cunctis utliitaris frattum peragendis et quiecqui ab eos iniuctus ordinatun accepprint inexcus saber illut impleant adque peregant absque aliqua unsettlementen regia potestas comes episcopus set pos parte monasterii mancat stabilita per secula cuncta. Et desisti nob pro ipsa villa tres azenias in Zamora ad Olivares iusta palacium nostrum”(And for that reason he agreed to the glory of our serenity so that we grant that they serve us right there from San Martín and Villa Traviesa and twelve pausings with their annexed belongings where they pay us the toll and the Villa Traviesa itself that is located in the territory of Lampreana as it is, in all its terms and services in such a way that from now on and in the future all the people who live in said town and will live later on behalf of the monastery persist in doing all things for the benefit of the monks and everything insofar as it was imposed and ordered by them, they receive it in an inexcusable way, comply with it and carry out without any concern the royal power, the count, the bishop and by the monastery is established forever. And you give us for that town three mills in Zamora, in Olivares, next to our palace)[48] ​​.

Villa Traviesa is located in the vicinity of Villafáfila and the church of San Martín (church of Otero)

Also in 962 Fortunio Iben García donated a hacienda in Lampreana, next to the salt flats, to the Sahagún Monastery.

“id est terra territory Lampreana de parte orientis terminus illas salinas” (a land in the territory of Lampreana in the eastern terminus of las salinas [49] .

A meadow called San Fagúndez is known in Villafáfila, close to the salt flats, which possibly with these would be the possession of the Sahagún Monastery, also called "Santo Facundo y Primitivo".

The last said donations differ from the previous ones, they are not small, considered in breadth. They correspond to towns that not only include their lands but also the jurisdiction of their inhabitants. His donors are wealthy homeowners. The Sahagún Monastery has acquired total power: the land and the men.

Also the Monastery of Eslonza has interests in our area at this time. In 945 he receives from Elías and his wife Sisberte some land located in Revellinos and the following year he buys land in the same place from Abbot Proficio.

“aibandus abba quan etiam qui post illun loco eius sucesserit Offerimus impresses medietatem de meas terras own quas abemus interritorio Lampreana iusta villa que vocitant Revellines… et ipsa medietate que remansit acepimus de vos pretio solidos XX” (Ayubando abbot and who later succeeded him in his Instead, we offer half of my own lands that we have in the territory of Lampreana, next to the town called Revellinos... and the same half that remains we receive from you at the price of twenty solids) [50] .

“In the 10th century, the wisest, most important task carried out by these institutions (referring to the monasteries) was to socially and economically organize the lands near where they were located” [51] .

It is a superior right in which authority and property merge, imposing itself on small individuality.

"The domination by the large property and the full subjection of the peasantry to feudal dependency has nuances and graduations, as does the dissolution of the village community" [52] .

It had gone from "small free owners to peasant dependency" ( iuniores , men of mandatión and tributarii ). They were legally free men but with relative freedom, since it allowed them to leave the land but they lost their possession and half of their movable property.

But precisely to these, as I have said, there were left "small free owners" owners of their destinies, who appear in the documents contracting or litigating with episcopal sees and monasteries selling, buying or bequeathing at the time of their death goods of reduced extension and value. insignificant. These small owners are the "bono homines" that appear in the documents of the time.

Says Sánchez-Albonoz [53] :

“How could this society, thus articulated, have arisen in a country in which its old inhabitants and therefore old social cadres from before the Islamic invasion had continued, clinging to the ground? Only on the basis of an uninhabited land could these owners appear .

DEPOPULATION OF ALMANZOR AND REPOPULATION

At the end of the 10th century it was governed by the great figure of the Arab leader Almanzor (977-1002) who with his power devastated the Christian fortresses: Zamora, Toro, León, Astorga, etc. in times of D. Vermudo II.

Everything between León and Zamora was looted, including the great monasteries of Sahagún and Eslonza. Zamora, the center of the former's devastation, had once again become a frontier. All that had been reconquered had been lost.

“The fields abandoned again, the villages heaps of black coals, the rubble piled up on the ground, those walls, those buildings, those temples, … contemplate once again the dark crepe of abandonment and misfortune” [54] .

A document from the year 988 from the Monastery of San Pedro de Eslonza confirms this disastrous situation.

“Dun ergo ingressi sunt serraceni in terran istam et pergerent ad civitatem leginensem ut destruerent eam sicut et fecerunt” (because the Saracens entered this land to reach the city of León and destroy it as they did) [55] .

Almanzor's defeat in Catalañazor served as a relief to the Christians, who recovered what was lost and dedicated themselves to fortifying, repopulating and rebuilding their temples and homes.

“ Populare ” means here to fortify, to organize places populated uninterruptedly since remote times.

D. Alfonso V, of the Buenos Fueros (999-1028) grants the jurisdiction of León (1027) to the entire Leonese kingdom. With this, new laws began to be applied among Christians, which until then had been governed by the laws of the Goths [56] .

Count "Fafila Fernandiz" is distinguished to the Court.

In the fights between D. Sancho III of Navarre and Vermudo III of León, the death of count D. García Sánchez of Castilla (1029), the former seized Zamora and Astorga and even the capital: León. 

Author -text:

Manuel de la Granja Alonso:

Studia Zamorensia,  ISSN  0214-736X, No. 2, 1995, pp. 9-25.

http://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/oaiart?codigo=297328.

Villafafila. History and Present of a Castilian-Leonese Villa. Their Parish Churches 1996, pp. 29-46.

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

Photography:

Manuel de la Granja Alonso.  

Elijah Rodriguez Rodriguez.

Jose Luis Dominguez Martinez.

Transcription and montage:

Jose Luis Dominguez Martinez.

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