Property and ownwes of las Salinas of Villafáfila

The characteristics and evolution of the Salinas property are the same as those of the rest of the properties in the area, although it is true that the perception may be conditioned by the fact that most of the properties documented in medieval times were They refer to salt flats.

In the 10th and 11th centuries, two facts are observed in the preserved documentation:

- the coexistence of small local owners together with large lay or clergy owners, well-known personalities of the Leonese court or of a field of property that transcends the regional

- The interest of the main Leonese ecclesiastical institutions (monasteries and cathedrals) in acquiring ownership interests or income from the salt mines through purchases or donations since the beginning of the 10th century.

We know of the existence of small local owners from the documents in which they sell their possessions or part of them to different monasteries. These sales are usually caused by the technological needs for the performance of agricultural tasks such as draft cattle or seed and supply, and this is stated in the letters:

“et acepimus de vos Iº asino ... et VIex modios de triigo...” ; “Damus uobis ipsam hereditatem pro una uaca cum filio suo de el et pro X ouibus et pane et uino” ,

“ vendimus vobis a court with three houses et sua terra conclusa... et dedistis nobis una pelle agnina et III folles zumaques” or “una saia carmez et uno tapete” ;

In addition to the need for spiritual security of salvation that is revealed by some donations that read:

“pro anime mee remedy” or “ ... pro animas nostras” [1] ; but most of the time, transactions are made with money [2] .

The currency that is usually used in transactions is the silver salary, but the use of gold salaries cannot be ruled out, when the metal is not mentioned, or in a case in which three posadas are paid: “XVI solidos et duos argenteos” , from which we can deduce the late use of Visigothic currency that would have remained residual [3] .

These small owners are better documented in the surroundings of the Salina Grande, where, in the first half of the 10th century, between 930 and 937, we know from sales or donation letters the existence of at least 54 small owners ( calculating that those mentioned with the same name in more than one document correspond to the same person) and in the area of Revellinos, at least another 14 between 945 and 946, including mentions of estates or vineyards, although in most of the cases are owners of salt inns.

The form of property is often shared by the family group: wives, parents, children or siblings are cited and other times several owners without mention of kinship ties, in the year 996:

“damus uobis ipsam hereditatem quantam habemus inter nostros germanos atque heredes” [4] .

As for the entity of the property, it is very diverse, ranging from half a vineyard to three vineyards or a court with three houses. The value of the properties is very unequal depending on their disparity, thus one pausing can be worth 20 argenteos while three pausings are sold for a crimson skirt and a rug.

Although since the 10th century there has been a tendency towards the concentration of property in the hands of ecclesiastical institutions or lords, in the 12th century there are still many small neighboring owners of Villafáfila, Revellinos, Otero or Muélledes who sell or donate their pauses or salt pans, estates that Many times they have received from their parents, as stated in the purchase letters, so it can be said that the small property never disappeared from the area.

Sometimes differences arise due to the possession of the salt mines, such as the one that existed in 1156 between Pedro Vélaz, Martín Cid and Pedro Velídez, residents of Villafáfila who said that the Posada de Madornil salt mine was theirs, in contradiction with the Castañeda monastery who claimed that they had received it in the donation of the infanta Sancha in 1153. The judges ruled in favor of the monks, but the existence of this controversy shows that those neighbors had exploited the salt mine since ancient times and claimed effective possession.

The process indicated by Pastor de Togneri, of absorption of the small owners by the large property, in the case of the Villafáfila salt mines, goes back to the 13th century, and it is possible that some persisted throughout the Middle Ages producing salt on their own farms, because in the fifteenth and sixteenth century some private owners of pauses and salt cabins are documented.

Many of these small owners become usufructuaries of the same and of the others previously owned by the new owners at the time of dispossessing the property of their salt mines. Thus, in 1182, Benedicto Miguélez and Oro Mª Pérez gave the monastery of Eslonza its pauses in exchange for using them for life together with the salt mine of the monastery that they already had in operation:

“Benedictus Michaeli et uxor mea Oro Maria Petri…damus et concedimus supradicto monastery sancti Petri et supranominate ecclesie sancte Merie illas pousadas quas habemus iuxta pousadam donni Ioanis Spora ad Sancta Eolaliam. Et ego Ioannis Spora do et concedo illam salinam quam de me tenetis ut omnibus diebus uite uestre teneatis” [5]

In 1200 Antonino received the salt mine of this monastery in Villafáfila from the abbess of San Pedro de las Dueñas for life:

"Et post obitum tuum salinas quam tu habes in loco permanato del Rodezno tota remaneat ad nostro monastery" .

Pedro Fernández de Cerecinos and Teresa Fernández, his wife, received in 1283 the usufruct during their lifetime of several properties of the Order of Santiago, among them:

“the new inheritance that you had from us in Pobradura that I finished in Villafáfila and the salt pan that you had from the horde” in exchange for everything returning to the Order upon the death of both of you plus “a salt pan that you and aviades from Santa Marina la qual salina was your father and your mother Pero Fernández” , in the same document the children of both agree not to claim these properties at the death of their parents [6] .

Along with small property, large property, both secular and ecclesiastical, coexisted and developed at its expense. These great owners do not have their great patrimonies only in the area of Villafáfila, but they have them distributed throughout various regions of the kingdom and their assets in this region are often a small part of their patrimony.

They may have been obtained by haste or appropriation of lands that were without an owner at the end of the 9th century and the beginning of the 10th century. This case is documented in the environment of Revellinos with the Abbot Proficio:

For royal concessions to nobles or monasteries of towns and lands. We know of several examples: Villa Travessa, San Martín y Pautas or Montenegro made by Ramiro II and Ordoño III at the Sahagún monastery in the 10th century.

Illegal appropriations such as the one made by Count Fernando Muñiz in Sahagún's assets before 1049 [8] .

The existence of large landowners in the area has been known since 917 and is almost always related to their donation to different monasteries in León throughout the 10th and 11th centuries, so it can be said that the large lay property of the area is ceding its possessions to various Leonese religious centers, with the cathedral of León and the monastery of Sahagún being the main beneficiaries of this property transfer process.

From the thirteenth century, the ecclesiastical institutions remain as the only representatives of this great property, or at least as the only ones documented. Since the twelfth century, the phenomenon of delivery has also been observed, given the difficulties of direct exploitation of these ecclesiastical properties, in lease or prestige or perpetual forum to wealthy residents of Villafáfila and surroundings who in many cases were able to take over the effective ownership of ecclesiastical estates.

It is possible that from the fifteenth century or earlier, the local owners of the salt mines had effective ownership of them, in exchange for paying a small forum to the nominal owner. Even that they inherit the salt flats in exchange for continuing to pay for the same forum.

- Iquila, abbot of San Cipriano de Porma in León, among many assets that he endows the monastery of nuns in Santiago de León are five paupers in Lampreana

- The Abbot Proficio owns an estate of land in Revellinos and several paupers in Arcello that he sells to the Eslonza monastery for 164 salaries. Adjacent owners include Carlo abba . Both abbots, we do not know from which monasteries, had to be important personalities whose scope of ownership would necessarily transcend the county limits.

- Count Piloti Gebúldiz, a Leonese nobleman of Mozarabic descent, nephew of the Bishop of León, Fruminio, courtier of Ramiro II and Ordoño III, endowed the monastery of San Martín de Valdepueblo near Castrobol (Valladolid) with important assets, including:

“palacios obtimos cum suas hereditatem” in Villafáfila and seven inns in Terrones.

- In 962 Fortunio García, a character documented in the confirmations of the cathedral of León and Sahagún as you eat and as a royal cubiclerio , donates a piece of land in Lampreana, possibly related to the production of salt, since it is located next to the salt pans and of the term of Sahagún, to this monastery.

- Ansur, mayor of the palace during the reign of Ramiro III, receives a pause in Madornil in 964 from the Sahagún monastery.

We know of other great owners who lived at the end of the 10th century because of the donations made by their children or grandchildren in the following century of the properties that had belonged to their ancestors.

- Count Pelayo Rodríguez lived at the end of the 10th century and participated in the noble revolt of 991, although he soon returned to royal favor. His estates were extensive throughout the kingdom. He must have owned a hacienda with salt mines in Villarrín since we know several of his descendants who make donations with the portion of the hacienda that corresponded to them from his grandfather. Thus, in the year 1042, his daughter Flonilde, married to Ordoño, son of King Vermudo III, donated half to León's cathedral in a court and in three inns in Villarrín. Their son, Count Sancho Ordóñez donates to the cathedral of León the fifth part that corresponds to him in the "pausatas ubi sal operantur " that belonged to his grandfather in Villarrín. Two years earlier, his niece Marina Peláez had donated another fifth to that same venue.

- Another nobleman who followed a path parallel to the previous one was his contemporary Count Munio Fernández. Her daughter, Sancha, together with her husband, Count Rodrigo Galindi, endowed the monastery of San Antolín, near Coyanza with various properties in 1036, among others, half of what belonged to him in Villarrín. The other half had been donated by his brother Count Juan Muñiz to the monastery of San Juan and Santo Tomás de León, a donation confirmed by his widow in 1044 [9] . I suppose that among the properties it included salt pans, since the interests of the large landowners in the region were related to the possession of salt pans.

- In 1025 a certain Abiub and his cousins made a donation from Villa Ordoño with land, sernas and salt mines to the monastery of Santiago de Moreruela. Being a shared property, it makes us deduce that it would belong to the common grandfather whose name we do not know and that he would be a contemporary of the previous ones.

- Before the year 1049, Count Fernando Muñoz tenente de Campo de Toro y Zamora had appropriated assets, among them cabins and pavilions, from Sahagún in Lampreana, which he had to return at the request of King Fernando I [10] . In the year 1060, Munio Fernández, who seems to be his son, inherited property from Osorio Fernández and Dª Visclavara in Villarrín [11] .

- Before the year 1050, Abbot Félix de San Miguel de la Vega de Besnerga had received several pauses in Lampreana from Munio Rodríguez and his wife Doña Adosinda [12] .

-Count Gutier Alfonso must also have had possessions in the surroundings of Villarrín, since his daughter Flonilde donated them to his grandson Pelayo Vermúdez in 1078, who in turn in 1084 gave them to Sahagún, adding in 1104 the part that it had corresponded from his father Vermudo Fernández, in turn a descendant of the aforementioned Count Pelayo Rodríguez [13] .

- Sancha Rodríguez, daughter of Rodrigo Fernández de la Valduerna, possessed an abundant patrimony distributed throughout the current province of León and Zamora, when she signed the agreement with the Master of Santiago for which she received the usufruct of:

"Villafáfila with all its villages and with all its terms and rights that we have there" ,

In exchange, Sancha agrees to hand over to his death everything he has in Valderas, Valdejamuz, Valduerna, Páramo, Benavente, “and how much and how much in Salinas and how much in Villafáfila” [14] .

In the late Middle Ages we have evidence that the emerging nobility such as the Enríquez family owned salt mines in Villafáfila, since in 1426 D. Alonso Enríquez and Dª. Juana de Mendoza in favor of her second-born son Enrique, and among other assets they attribute to her:

“and the salt pans that are near Villafáfila” [15] , which more than some specific salt pans, seems to be the village of Salinas.

At the beginning of the 16th century, in addition to the persistence of many small owners, the estates of the Pautas were very scattered, including those of the large owners such as the Comendador or the Moreruela Monastery.

The references to the properties of the kings and their families of salt mines, demonstrate their interest in the patrimonial possession of the same as a source of resources. In 1075 Alfonso VI clearly distinguishes the rents from tollage, from those obtained from his own salt mines, which he had received as an inheritance from his ancestors:

The royal ownership of some salt flats has been documented since the 10th century, in 945 King Ramiro II donated the villas of San Martín and Villa Travessa and twelve “cum suis adiacenzis” to the monastery of Sahagún , that is, with all their attachments. , in exchange for three mills in Olivares. Although the document appears to be false, these villas must have been donated at some time to the Cea monastery.

Shortly after, in 951, Ordoño III granted the Montenegrin mountains to the Leonese monastery, which should have been part of the crown's heritage, so that they could use them to obtain firewood for their Lampreana estates. Almost a century later Fernando I grants Villa Travessa, along with a meadow, a salt pan, “ipsa salina ruviosella” , and a serna, so the old donation must have had no effect or had been revoked. We know that in 1073 Alfonso VI owned it in Lampreana:

“That ad partem regis pertinent, tam de portatico quam de salinis ipsius regis...in ipsa uilla de nostro regali”,

that is to say, the town that belonged to the royal family, and to the king also belonged the toll of salt, in addition to his own salt flats:

Within the town its neighbors were subject to the feudal rents that belonged to the king, in addition to owning houses and estates, since in the donation he adds

“unum hominem quem decimus excusetum.... cum suo solare e sua hereditate” [16] .

The character of patrimonial property is deduced from the possession of salt mines not only by the kings, but also those owned by their children are documented, such as the infanta Doña Sancha, daughter of Queen Urraca I, who in 1153 delivered to the Castañeda monastery two salt pans among other assets. Alfonso IX in the thirteenth century refers several times to "salinis meis de Villafáfila" , which he must have inherited, apart from the one he obtained by confiscation from the Templar friars in Muelledes, San Feliz and Lampreana, and which he returned to them in 1211 [ 17] . With the donation to the Order of Santiago of the town in 1229, he gave it all the goods and income that belonged to the king, which would include the salt mines that are documented as belonging to the Order since the 13th century.

Haste, because the king had the right to possession of abandoned or vacant land.

In the middle of the 12th century, the royal heritage of Lampreana was subjected to various donations and concessions. The Emperor donates Santo Tirso and San Pedro to the monastery of Santa Mª de Sar in La Coruña in 1152 “cum omnibus suis salinis” ; and in 1155 to the Eslonza monastery of an estate and two churches in Villafáfila. The Infanta Doña Sancha, her sister, had made a donation to the monastery of Marcigny sur Loire in France of an estate in Villafáfila in 1131, and in 1153 an estate in Bamba and some salt pans in Madornil, to the monastery of San Martín de Castañeda. In 1158 King Ferdinand II donated an estate in San Pedro, Oterino and Villa Ordoño to the Moreruela monastery, which surely included salt flats.

After the organization of the Puebla Real, the monarchs continued to have assets in Lampreana, both from salt mines "de me salinas de Villafáfila" , as well as other estates, from which they donated to different monasteries: Roncesvalles in 1207, to the Cister in 1211. Some of these salt pans had been expropriated from the order of the Temple to which they returned their Lampreana, San Feliz and Muélledes salt pans in 1211. In 1214 Alfonso IX delivered the "hereditatem of Bretocino et de Villa Fafila quas habeat de meo rregalengo" [18], with which the real patrimony would be diminished. Finally, in 1229 the same king donated to the Order of Santiago Villafáfila with all his rights and belongings, among which, in addition to feudal rents, various lands, orchard and salt hut. Previously, Alfonso IX must have donated the town of Villarrín to his granddaughter Dª Mencía and the village of Fortiñuela to the monastery of Santa María de la Puente.

It is the best known because the archives of the cathedrals or monasteries have been preserved in better condition than those of other institutions or individuals.

Since the beginning of the 10th century, the interest of some Leonese monasteries in the acquisition of properties in the Lampreana region, whether land, houses, vineyards or salt mines, has been documented. The case of the Sahagún monastery stands out, which through purchases or donations from individuals or royals managed to form an important heritage in the area. It seems that the final years of the 10th century and the beginning of the 9th, coinciding with the time of Almanzor's action in the Christian kingdoms, there was a setback in the acquisition of assets, but from 1025 and throughout that century we observe the phenomenon of donations by nobles of a series of assets in the region to different Leonese monasteries that are emerging now, on the occasion of their founding endowment or donations of large assets scattered throughout the kingdom.

From the middle of the 12th century, the entry of the new institutions in the participation of the property in the area, either patrimonial, or churches or rents, coincides with the moment of foundation of the town and its boom. and the exploitation of the salt mines in this century. Along with old acquaintances such as Sahagún, the cathedral of León, which takes over the heritage of the small Leonese monasteries, or Eslonza, which significantly expands its heritage in Villafáfila, the Cistercians of Moreruela, Castañeda or Sobrado appear, mainly, and the Orders Military.

The administration of assets has two modalities. The great ecclesiastical owners of salt mines exploited them directly, such as Sahagún in the 10th and 11th centuries, under the responsibility of a monk who lived in Lampreana, or from the 12th century governing centers were established in the town, made up of priories or churches, heads of the heritage administration, which directly control operations, acquisitions or leases, as in the case of the church of Santa María for the monastery of Eslonza, or that of San Juan for the cathedral of Astorga or Santo Tomé de Bamba for the monastery of San Martín de Castañeda, and especially the Cistercian farms such as Santo Tirso de Sobrado or those of Villafáfila, Villa Ordoño and Oterino de Moreruela, but from the 13th century, monasteries, especially in the monastic centers with fewer assets or those furthest from Villafáfila, hand over their salt pans and their other properties on lease or life usufructs to various individuals who assure them of returns, perhaps lower, but safer and more constant. An example is the performance of the Monastery of Vega, when in 1165 the family of Pedro Ferro delivered his estate in Villafáfila to the monastery."cum salinas in IIIIor parts" in exchange they receive that inheritance and the one that the monastery previously had in Villafáfila on lease "et demos de nostro e de suo renda que solent dare ad Monasterio de Vega" during his life and the life of any of his children under the same condition “ et si filio vel filia remanserit de suis que bono homo fuerit, et fecere que fecit suo pater ”. If the tenants did not comply with the contracts, the properties reverted to the monastery, as happened in 1176, when Justa Petriz, daughter of the preceding and her husband Pedro Vidas, must definitively hand over the aforementioned property due to the debt contracted that they cannot pay:

“pro debito quod devimus dare ad priorisa et non potuimus habere” ; the debt amounted to “XVI modios de sal et una vacaca et uno asino et tota bona de illa casa ” [19] .

During the 15th century there were also frequent apportionments or delivery of salt huts by monasteries to residents of Villafáfila who exploited them directly, but these were not perpetual forums but rather temporary leases, which are called forums:

“when this witness got married it may have been sixty years [1468], then he gauged a salt shack from the monastery of Moreruela in the said town of Villafáfila and had it gauged for more than twenty years” [20] .

Ecclesiastical institutions with properties of salt mines or salt income in Villafáfila and region

Female monastery of the capital of the kingdom, is the first owner of pauses mentioned in 917, when Abbot Iquila, mentioned above, donates a series of properties including five pauses in Lampreana. In 954, Justa, talks, makes another donation that includes another pause [21] .

This monastery became part of the patrimony of the Leonese cathedral and its assets, which are not mentioned again, would become part of its assets.

According to a document dated 922, King Ordoño II grants the church of Santa María de León two days' toll of salt in Lampreana. This document is forged in the late 11th or early 12th century. What is certain is that in the year 1073 King Alfonso VI gave the canons and ministers of the Leonese headquarters a tenth of the toll of the salt and the king's salt pans in the town of Lampreana, in addition to adding an excused man with his house and inheritance in charge of collecting him and defending his rights.

In the years 1075 and 1077, the descendants of Count Pelayo Rodríguez donated various portions of estates to him, including inns where salt was worked.

These revenues from salt must have been substantial since the bishops made various grants with parts of them. Thus, in 1084, Bishop Pelayo endowed the hospital he founded near the cathedral with a tenth of the salt that the king had granted him, and another tenth was donated by Bishop Don Pedro to the monastery of San Marcelo in 1096.

From a list of assets of the Leonese cathedral from the year 1116, we know that he had possessions in Lampreana, in Villarrín, in Muélledes, in Carragosa, in Otero and in Terrones, which he would have been acquiring through undocumented donations or purchases or would have come from monasteries that in the 11th century they came to depend directly on the Leonese seat and their assets would increase its heritage. Some of these monasteries, such as Santiago de León, San Antolín de Coyanza, San Juan Bautista, San Vicente and San Martín de Valdepueblo, owned assets in Lampreana as we will see later.

The last reference to the property of the Leonese cathedral is found in a document from c. 1240 in which a list is made of some revenues that belonged to the council "of the Villafáfila salt mines reditus quator annos". This rent "reditus" would be the tithe of the portazgo granted by Alfonso VI [22] .

The fate of these goods cannot be traced. With the decay of salt production at the end of the Middle Ages, their interest would decrease and the possession of the land could pass into the hands of private individuals who, through perpetual forums, would take over effective ownership, as occurred in the case of some monasteries. However, still in the eighteenth century, the church of León owned in Villarrín 84 fanegas and a half of land [23] probably from the old salt flats.

The Sahagún monastery, founded at the end of the 9th century on the banks of the Cea, experienced rapid territorial expansion in the 10th century. In the Lampreana area, a systematic policy of almost serial acquisitions of land and salt flats is followed. Thus, in the year 930 we have news of the first donation and in the period 930-937 it acquires 17 and a half inns, 2 and 1/2 vineyards, 1 land and a court with three houses, land and herreñal and previously they had a term called " de Frates”, next to which they bought several possessions, which included the church of Santo Martino.

7 donations are documented, three of them real (although one possibly forged). There were also eight purchases and a donation of vineyards or vineyards whose limits include the "termo de frates" so that the policy of property concentration around La Salina Grande and Villa Travessa is clearly seen. This village, together with that of San Martín, appears in a donation made by Ramiro II together with 12 Pautas, although it seems that the document is a forgery made around the year 1100:

“concederemus ibiden deserbiendum Sancti Martini et Villa Travessa et duodezi posatas cum suis adiacenzis unde nobis ex inde portatico non preendant...et deincep omnis ipse populus qui in ipsa villa avitant” .

Mínguez maintains that these villas may have been donated to the monastery at some time; but the truth is that these acts have been totally redone with the aim of expanding the privileges and aggravating the subjection of the inhabitants of these towns [24] , and the number of twelve paupers they receive from the king seems to correspond to the number of them which appears in the title that appears on the calf of the acquisitions they made between 930-937:

“Vendicio de Pautas de Lampreana de duodecim homines” , which could serve as a reference for the forger.

Reviewing the previous and later documentation we see that at least the church of San Martín already belonged to the monastery since 934 "iuxta eclesia vestra de Sancto Martino in Lampreana" [25] , however, Villa Travessa seems to have been donated by Fernando I, in a context of restitution of the "honorable and portable goods" of Sahagún that had been seized by Count Fernando Muñiz, tenant of Campo de Toro and Zamora. In the preamble to this letter or "testamentum" it is related that, while the king was in the monastery of Sahagún to pray, the friars showed him and made him read the "testamentum" made by his predecessors, King Alfonso V and King Vermudo III, and of the "Princeps domnus Ranimirus", and he knew that the letters were true and legitimate, so he writes a restoration letter, so that from now on they do not harm his properties and you add Villa Travessa to his service:

“inquietationem in omnes vestras pausetas, neque in vestras cabannas, uel in omnes uillas de Lampredana seu de Campos…et adhuc adicimus ad seruiendum ibi Uilla Trauessa…et prato et serna”,

adding the exemption of own jurisdiction that already appeared in the 945 document:

“et non permittimus qui uobis ibidem disturbanceacionem faciat nec inmodice, non episcopus, non comes, neque rex qui post nos sucesserint in regno” .

The possession of Villa Travessa did not last long for the monastery, since in 1060 it was exchanged again with King Fernando II in exchange for Villela, which was closer to Sahagún.

“in Lampreana in villa que vocitant VillaRegi meam porcionem cum suas salinas” donation confirmed by his grandson Pelayo Vermúdez in 1104.

Other properties outside the territory of Lampreana, but closely related to those who owned it, were those acquired by the monastery on the banks of the Esla between Bretó and Moreruela. Thus, the donation of Matilla, Montenegro and the Juan Corva piélago by King Ordoño III in 951 is linked to the Lampreana pauses “Simili modo adicimus vobis ibidem deserviendum ad illas vestras Pautas de Lampreana illo monte Megro y amnis Estula cum suo Pelago that dicunt de Joanes Curbo” and Matilla, probably to use the firewood from these mountains in the manufacture of salt, since in addition to these mountains, he adds the donation of the Magretes mountain, which he specifies is for the grazing of his flocks or any other utility you want to give it“ad pastum pecoribus vestris vel ad operandum quidquid vobis necessarium fuerit”. Twenty years later they bought another mount in the same place of Magretes, in the current term of Bretó (Las Maragatas) and “Zacarias confirmed abidante in Lampriana conparavi illum montem” . In the confirmation of a donation of land in Villaveza appears "frate Belit in Lanpreana avitante" [27]. The mention of these friars who lived in Lampreana may lead us to think that they would be in charge of the administration of the Sahagún hacienda in the region, which, in addition to real estate: churches, vineyards, land, salt pans, would be made up of herds of cattle settled in Lampreana, to take advantage of those pastures, since it was more difficult to bring them from the vicinity of the monastery to graze on the mountains next to the Esla, unless they had nearby administrators.

The Madornil pause in 964 is subtracted from Sahagun's estate, in which the abbot sells it to Ansur, butler, for the price of a solid silver, a price that seems symbolic because it is reduced compared to its real value, and that would serve to make up for other favors.

As of the twelfth century, the monastery of Sahagún, which had consolidated its patrimony in the area, which had increased with the assets of the subsidiary monastery of San Salvador de Villacet, must have had difficulties in its exploitation and maintenance, and proceeded to a policy of detachment of estates, either with donations, exchanges or leases that would allow him to receive fixed income that would ensure the annual supply of salt or grain, better than proceeding with direct administration. Already in 1108 he donated the Villarrín estate to Jimena Fernández, but in order to obtain a donation from her upon her death [28] .

In 1182, due to differences with the monastery of Moreruela, they were forced to distribute Mount Magretes between the two monasteries, which the Cluniacians had bought in 971, and which was close to the Cistercian preserve. Four residents of Villafáfila acted as dividers, possibly the four mayors [29] .

In 1197, the abbot of Sahagún, together with the prior of Val de Villacet, hand over to Lupo, (a rich neighbor of Villafáfila) all the land they own in Muélledes, which would include salt pans, in exchange for 16 ochavas of salt. , a ram, twenty loaves, two pitchers of wine and with the charge of receiving the abbot or some monk in his house when they came to Villafáfila; furthermore, on his death Lupo has to deliver to the monastery a third of his own assets from him [30] .

In 1201 Abbot Pedro granted to another neighboring landowner, Fernando Gutiérrez, all the estates of Villafáfila and Bretó "totam illam nostram hereditatem quam habemus in Otero de Fradres scilicet ecclesiam Sancti Facundi, cum suis terris et uinies et salinis" , coming from the ancient 10th-century purchases and donations; "et ecclesiam Sacti Michaelis de Villafafila" , which would have been built in the town after the organization as Villa Real in the middle of the XII; “et hereditatem de Magretes” , the half that remained after its division with Moreruela; “Et hereditatem de La Pedrera et hereditatem de Matiela que est in Breto cum sua molinera”from the old donation of Ordoño III. In exchange, he agrees to give the monastery fifteen loads of salt and thirty gold coins every year and the obligation to rebuild the church, repopulate the village, and farm on his own account and deliver to the monastery half of the movable and semi-movable property. that he has in those estates at the time of his death. Fernando Gutiérrez promises to give the abbot a good supply of food every year and to receive the friars who are in transit through Villafáfila in his house, treating them well [31] .

In 1254 the abbot proceeded to exchange all the assets of the monastery in Montenegro and the estates of Muélledes, surely at the request of Moreruela and due to the little use he would make of them, since Villafáfila's cattle grazed on the mountains and his neighbors cut firewood, for other estates that Moreruela owned in Prado, Quintanilla and Villalpando [32] .

Regarding the fate of Sahagún's properties in Villafáfila, we know that in 1332 he still presented the priest of the church of San Miguel de Villafáfila [33] .

The heritage must have continued to be leased and perhaps to descendants of Fernando Gutiérrez. We only know that on his death in 1523, the archpriest of Villafáfila, Fernando Fernández, founded a Pious Memory of daily mass in the church of San Juan, which he endowed with various goods "the entire round term of San Fagundez and Monaster de Vega ” , which gives us an idea of the grouping of the properties, which formed a round term, as the neighbors assure us in 1530, in addition a large boundary surrounded the terms of San Fagunde, testimony of its differentiation from the rest of the terms of Villafáfila and indicative that they formed the end of an old village. The year before the death of the archpriest, a survey mentions “an inn of the archpriest that is from San Fagunde”, which confirms the fate of the properties of the Leonese monastery, including the salt flats.

As the Memory persisted until 1806, when his properties were sold, as a result of Godoy's confiscation of 1798, and there are surveys of the same by which we can know that Sahagún's properties were around the Prado de San Fagunde between the Salina Grande, Raya de Otero and Villafáfila.

Located between the fertile plains of Parma and Esla, it was one of the main monasteries of the kingdom of León, with a wide territorial domain. From the 10th century onwards, the acquisition of lands and estates began in the Revellinos area, possibly related to the supply of salt, but it was in the 12th century that a considerable patrimony was formed around Villafáfila.

In 945 they bought some land next to Revellinos for twenty salaries and in 946 they acquired new lands in Revellinos together with houses, courts and orchards and inns in Arcello for a price of 164 salaries, an important sum from which the quality of these properties can be deduced. With these antecedents in the middle of the 12th century the monastery, and in its name one of its friars , "Johanni Spore, obedenciali monasterii Sanct Petri Elisoncie" , proceeds to the acquisition of properties, houses, churches, pauses, lands and vineyards, from a systematic way, being some of them bordering. Some of the acquisitions are purchases but they also receive donations from individuals and real. Perhaps the most important property for the monastery was the church or monastery of Santa María.

In 1147 the council of Terrones with the priest Cipriano at the head proceed to the donation "dabimus isto monastery of Uillafafila Pernominata Sancta Maria" Perhaps the possession of this monastery was not effective, because in 1155 the emperor Alfonso VII, makes a new donation or confirmation of the same, together with an estate and half of another Santiago church in Villafáfila:

“facio kartam donacionis seu confirmacionis...de hereditary of Uilla Fafila that is mea own ereditas, et illa prenominata monastery Sancte Marie tota ab integra et medietati Sancti Iacobi” .

In this church of Santa María, a priory of the monastery is established, headed by a monk in charge of the administration of the heritage. From 1143 to 1182, the aforementioned Juan Spora, who lived in the dependencies of the same church that last year, is in charge of the monastery's heritage:

“et eclessie Sancte Marie in qua Iohanes Spora habitat” , next to which he must have other houses “iuxta suas domos de Iohannes Spora” .

“Dominicus Suuarez tenente domum sancte Marie. Martinus presbiter capellanus. Martinus Bartolomeus monacus” .

Some of the assets were leased or delivered to individuals under certain conditions. Thus, in 1174 he sold one of the lands that he owned for a low price, in exchange for the purchaser remaining with his children as parishioners of the church:

“Uendo unum solarem...ut tu et filii tuum...in eo morantes...aut prope semper sint feligreses illius ecclesie” .

In 1182 two families donated vineyards, lands and houses, but kept the usufruct during the days of their lives, along with the possession of another salt mine of San Pedro

“et ego Ioannis Spora do et concedo uobis illam salinam quam de me tenetis ut omnibus diebus uite uestre” .

It seems that the delivery of these goods is made as compensation for debts they had with the monastery of the third of the tithes that they had to pay to the church of Santa María where they were parishioners:

Sometimes lawsuits arose over some possessions. Already in 1160 they had to reach an agreement with the bishop of Astorga on the third of Santa María, in 1165 they signed an agreement to avoid disputes over the possession of the church of Santiago, half of which belonged to them, with the other owner, later In 1201, Eslonza would get the entire property. At the end of the 13th century, the monastery presented to the priest that he was obliged to pay fixed annual amounts for the Terce, among which "two dossenas of salt cheese" are mentioned [34] .

Regarding the fate of these properties, we cannot specify what it was. Those of Villafáfila could have followed a process similar to that of Sahagún, because in the eighteenth century in the list of ecclesiastics with assets in Villafáfila the Monastery of Eslonza did not appear, the rectory of Santa María only had one house, and the factory of the church had 14 bushels of land and 2,000 reals of principal in censuses, which could be old and founded on the old properties. On the boundaries of other owners, La Raviosa is cited as "a land of the friars of Eslonza".However, the possessions in Revellinos and San Agustín, coming from the acquisitions of the 10th century, and from other purchases in the 12th century, were maintained, thus in Revellinos they had 97 loads on various plots, one of them 50 steps from the town of 36 loads, and another to Los Granados with 12 loads, and several between 6 and 10 loads, surfaces that were not frequent at that time and give us an idea of the extent of medieval acquisitions. In San Agustín he owns two small plots in the Los Villares estate.

Located in the municipality of Mayorga, in the current province of Valladolid, but bordering on León, it owned since its foundation in the year 954 houses in Villafáfila and salt flats in Terrones:

“in Villafáfila we obtained palaces cum their hereditary, et in Terrones pousadas VIIem” .

that came from the heritage of its founder, the Mozarabic nobleman, Piloti Gebúldiz.

In the 11th century it was integrated into the cathedral of León to which its properties would pass.

In 979, this monastery in Zamora received a court in Villa Ordoño, and in 1115 part of an estate in Muélledes. Surely in both cases they included some saline. I have not traced the future of these properties by absence in the documentation handled.

I think it is an old monastery located in the Santo Tirso pago in Villarrín, because in the Sobrado tumbo, to which the village of Santo Tirso belonged, there is a document in two versions from 996 and 1000, of a sale What do Abiuve and his wife Aderela do to:

“Michaeli abbati, una cum fratibus tuis uel congregatione de Sancto Tirso et de Sancta Cruce et de Sancto Michaeli et de Sancto Saluatore de hederitate...in Lampreana i uilla que uocitatur Maladones...pro una uaca cum filio suo et pro X ouibus et pane e uino” [35] .

This dedication does not appear in any other document from Tumbo, so it is to be assumed that it was in the church of Santo Tirso when it passed to Sobrado in 1166, by donation from the countess Doña María, who received it that same day from the prior of Santa María de Sar, who in turn obtained it from Alfonso VII in 1152.

The Cistercian monastery of Moreruela had its origins in an old monastery founded by Atilano in the 10th century, under the patronage of Santiago.

Among the documentation of the cathedral of León is a letter of donation from 1025 to “congregationem de Sancti Iacobi apostoli, scita est in Campos territory, iuxta flumen Ceia, Moreirola monastery, qui fundauit illa patrem nostrum Ikilani abbati” [36] ; it is doubtful that it is the monastery of Moreruela, but the fact that the object of the donation is “illas nostras uillas in Lampreiana uilla Dordonio et fere in Sancto Petro...et uilla Aucteriolo ad integro ... cum suas Pautas, cum suas alinas, cum suas fontes, cum suos arugios qui discurrent de illas fontes y de illas salinas” , which were the object of a royal donation by Fernando II in 1158 to the monastery of Santiago de Moreruela:“illa villa mea que vocatur Villa Ordoni et est villa illa in Lampreana... et cum ecclesia sua Sancti Petri et Auterol” [37] ; and that the invocation of Santiago was the one maintained by the Moreruela monastery since the 11th century, makes me think that it refers to the nearby monastery. In the year 1042 Fernando I donated the town of Junciel to Keia Habze so that upon his death it would pass to the monastery of Santiago de Moreruela.

One of the first areas of expansion of the Cistercian monastery is that of Villafáfila and its surroundings. In 1160 they receive donation of estates in Falornia. In 1162 they had already established a farm, which was the formula for exploiting the heritage of the white monks, in VillaOrdoño and Oterino, in addition to owning vineyards in Villafáfila.

In 1182, by means of an agreement with the monastery of Sahagún, the Maguetes estate was shared between the two. 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. The participation of residents of Villafáfila as dividers of the estate and as witnesses can only be explained because their terms would include or be bordering on Maguetes.

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

“If by chance we could gain more from the waters and the terms.... but if we want to sue it, let us sue it... and you help us in good faith, without malice, with cartherizas and with testimonies like you have ” [38] .

This exchange was a source of conflict with the town of Villafáfila from then until today.

In Villafáfila, 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. 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 from the time of the Emperor in 1154, and it did not take long for a lawsuit to arise between the two 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 system of exploitation of the properties "grangiam de Villa Fafila et grangiam de Autero cum salinis et aliis pertinencis suis" , this farm de Autero must have been located in the village of Oterino, in Villarrín, where at the end of the Middle Ages they had several concentrated estates.

In addition to the Villafáfila farm, they had a cellarium in the town , which was a kind of warehouse that they had in the main towns (Salamanca, Zamora, Benavente, Toro, Villalpando and Tordehumos), as a center for collecting and distributing grain.

These assets are increased in 1214 by a donation made by Alfonso IX of the estate of his royal family in Villafáfila, perhaps as compensation for the loss of the aforementioned lawsuit.

The great conflicts between the monastery 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 former, since the cattle of the residents of Villafáfila grazed on those mountains. and cut firewood in them.

With the change of ownership, these practices should have been prohibited, which caused the Villafáfila council to restrict the use of the properties that the monastery had in Villafáfila:

“their herds, which are from the house of Villafáfila, and the waters and their poços for themselves and for their returns and they wanted to open a career for the xosa that there is and the monestario” antagonized them ;

The abbot appealed to King Alfonso X, who granted a privilege so that they could not seize cattle from the monastery, nor their vassals, nor other things. After two years of differences, in the year 1256 they made an agreement before three judges by which the monastery allows the residents of Villafáfila to graze and graze on part of the mountains that belonged to Sahagún, in exchange the council of Villafáfila allows that:

"The friars of the monastery who live in Villafáfila who live with the council in their terms and in waters... let them use them... and in the xosa that the monastery and dug the house...".

It follows that the monastery had a house, orchards, a josa and wells and waters, supposedly to make salt, in addition to having cattle, and that some friars lived in the town in charge of the hacienda. The relations between both institutions, council and monastery, prior to the exchange of the Montenegrin mountains 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 in the year 1311 the abbot complained to King Ferdinand III, that in Montenegro there were many forces and robberies and deaths, and the king granted him the mercy of not entering his preserve or advance, neither merino, nor mayor to do justice, without a doubt and, seen the antecedents, the causes of these forces must have been the residents of Villafáfila in the use or abuse of the rights to those mountains.

Given the dispute, the monastery managed to get Montenegro to be considered its preserve. In 1453, discord arose again over the pasture of La Tabla, which the monastery included within Montenegro, and the residents of Villafáfila seized several rams from the monastery, which the mayor later declared had been badly seized and forced to return them. This must have caused the council to again prohibit the use of salt water to the monastery, which was forced to move with their cattle to Villarrín to get them out:

“and going through the ravine to the end of Villarrín, place and jurisdiction of the Marquis of Astorga, to give water to the outlet where many other times and years with license and approval of the good names of the council of said place of Villarrín they used to yr and pass freely . "

Faced with these difficulties, the monastery must have left 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 was superior of the monastery. The hut to make salt that they 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” (Ceballos).

From a survey of 1528 we know that the Moreruela hut had 25 inns or ralladeros and two holes and several lands, but the hut 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 mines, Moreruela continued to maintain a house in Villafáfila with a cellar and probably an orchard 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 it was They cite the fences of Moreruela on the outskirts of the urban area, which would correspond to the ramparts of La Josa.

In the vicinity of Villarrín, the monastery had several salt pans, probably coming from the old estates of Villaordoño, Oterino and Muélledes, which they leased to the residents of Villarrín, according to the documentation kept in the monastery archive:

“Having informed us of several old residents of the said Billarrín if they had known or had heard if there had been salt pans in that term, they replied that in the archive of the Royal Monastery of Padres de Moreruela there were writings that some residents of Villarrín paid a certain portion of bushels of salt by rent, and that consisted of twenty-five salt mines” [39] .

Around the year 1030, the priest Justo donated several estates to this female monastery, among other vineyards:

In 1138 Countess Sancha Muñoz, daughter of Count Munio Fernández, endowed this monastery, located near Valencia de Don Juan, among many other assets, with half of her inheritance:

“...in Lampreana Villa Regine....Item in Rego Severi, who is in territory Ad Torabe prope monasterium Morairiola” .

Count Juan Muñiz, brother of the former, had donated the other half of his property and in 1044 his widow Countess Doña Utrozia confirmed it.

In the year 1050, Abbot Félix made a donation to this monastery of several pauses in Lampreana, one of them in Madornil:

The goods of these four monasteries became part of the patrimony of the cathedral of León.

This monastery was founded in 1042 by Oveco Muñoz and his wife Marina in what is now Belver de los Montes. Among the founding assets are:

In the 12th century, the monastery of San Salvador came to depend on that of Sahagún as a priory. In the year 1197, the abbot of Sahagún and the prior of Val de Villacet gave Lupo the estate of Molledes, which belongs to San Salvador, in exchange for 16 ochavas of salt, a ram, twenty loaves of bread and 2 pitchers of wine, lodging in his house to the abbot or some monk, and hand over a third of his assets upon his death [42] , which leads us to think that the inheritance would be made up of salt pans, land for bread and vineyards.

The territory of Lampreana belonged to the diocese of Astorga since ancient times, but we do not have documentary evidence of the participation of its cathedral in properties or rents in the area, until the 12th century, unlike that of León, which began its interests much earlier. in the area, although this perception may be biased by the scarcity of medieval documentation preserved in the Astorgan cathedral. In 1101 Bishop Pelayo de Astorga bought an estate in Muélledes [43] ; in 1117, the prelate donates his assets to the work of the cathedral, but excepts his property in Lampreana. The church of Astorga receives another estate in Muélledes in 1135.

When the participation of the church of Astorga in the income of the region really becomes important, it is with the donation by Alfonso VII of the tercias, that is to say, the third part of all the tithes, including those of salt, of Villafáfila and all the Lamprean land in 1154 [44] , which is completed with the donation of the third parties of Villarrín by the infanta Elvira in 1157 [45]. These decimal rights soon had to be defended against other ecclesiastical entities that refused to pay them or claimed rights over them. Thus in 1160 the monastery of Eslonza had to recognize and pay for the third of the church of Santa María, four modes of salt and a salary per year. In 1162 they owned, in addition to the thirds of all the churches of Villafáfila and Lampreana, the church of San Martín and two other churches [46] . The possession of churches was another way of participating in the distribution of income generated in the town, through tithes. In 1172 Bishop Fernando, in the distribution he made of the income from the church of Astorga between the council and the prelate, granted the canons the third of Lampreana salt.

The income from these churches must have been substantial and the bishop of Zamora tried to seize the churches of San Pedro de Muélledes and Villarrín in 1181, for which the bishop of Astorga had to resort to Rome [47] . The establishment of churches by some monasteries usually brings with it the dispute over the tithes that the bishop always wants to be given to him. Thus, in 1185 he reached an agreement with the monastery of San Claudio de León about his church of San Clemente de Fortiñuelas, with the obligation to pay half of the tithe. Again in 1207 the diocesan had to establish a lawsuit in Rome against the monastery of Moreruela that claimed half of the tithes of salt by donation of Alfonso IX.

In 1228 the local administrative center of the revenues of Astorga in Villafáfila is the church of San Juan:

“In Villa fafila et in Lampreana, ecclesiam Sancti Ioanis cum pertinenciis suis et vineas et hereditatem et pertinent tercias ad cellarium episcopi” [48] .

With the council of Villafáfila, lawsuits also arose over the amount of tithes and first fruits of salt that the neighbors had to pay to the bishop, and in the year 1235 they signed an agreement between the two, which had already been established years before, during the life of the king. Alfonso IX, and through his mediation, but then it had not been put in writing. In this agreement it is established that the bishop of Astorga will receive 5 salt mines from each salt dump, and that he may have in Villafáfila and its terminus by any purchase, donation or other procedure, up to four yokes of oxen and twenty aranzanas. of vines and four torvadas of salt [49] .

With the passing of time, he continued to receive donations: in 1287, the priest of San Martín donated half of his assets to him on his death, and in 1307 they received a garden with trees, a well and accessories in Villafáfila, which adjoins a vineyard belonging to to the bishop.

In 1310, the Chapter of the Cathedral of Astorga and Bishop Don Alfonso signed a contract with the Infante Don Juan, in which, in exchange for certain concessions from the Infante, they gave him for the days of his life:

“ours Cillero de Villafáfila with all those of our rights that belong to our Messa” ;

- half of the thirds of the churches of San Andrés, San Pedro, Santa Marta, San Salvador and Revellinos.

- two moyos of wheat, three of barley and two of salt from each of the churches of San Pedro del Otero, Sobradillo, Villarigo, Oter de Sirago, Sant Agostín and Videianes.

The heirs of the Infante D. Juan intend to keep these assets at his death, and the bishop obtains a confirmation privilege from King D. Enrique III:

“of the sentence in which the cellar of Villafáfila that the heirs of the infante D. Juan intended to enjoy was declared to belong to His Excellency” [50] .

Apart from these assets of the episcopal table, the council and the archdeacon of Páramo, where the archpriesthood of Villafáfila was integrated, owned assets such as the church of San Juan, which is not mentioned in the list of the episcopal table because its income belonged to the archdeacon.

In 1495 the Catholic Monarchs send a provision so that Don Pedro Pimentel and the council of Villafáfila give inns to the servants of the Bishop of Astorga at their fair prices, bread and wine and maintenance at reasonable prices and granaries to store bread from their income and tithes [51] .

In 1499 the lands had been leased and were brought by a hidalgo from Villafáfila:

The vineyards were also in 1507 given to jurisdiction for a period of three lives to the cleric of Villafáfila, Juan González:

“I have the vineyards of the bishop in the terms of this town, which I have for three lives with his jurisdiction” ,

and surely the hut to make salt that this clergyman had under jurisdiction could be that of the Bishop [52] . Several inns and the Bishop's hut, which must have been a piped artesian spring, are still cited from the bishop's cabin in 1522 and 1528, but in the Ensenada Cadastre of 1752 there are no properties belonging to the bishop of Astorga in the Villafáfila district, for what I suppose that the tenants and foreros would end up taking over the effective possession of the old properties.

In 1131, the infanta Dª. Sancha, daughter of Queen Dª Urraca and Raimundo de Borgoña, donated several estates to this French monastery, including an estate in Villafáfila [53] . We have no more news of the use or destination of this property but it was surely the same one that years later became available to the Castañeda Monastery, among whose documents the aforementioned donation is included.

In 1152 he received from Alfonso VII, the Emperor, an estate in Lampreana, which we know included salt mines:

“...eclessia de Sancto Tirsso cum omni hereditate sua, e eclessiam Sancti Petri cum omni sua hereditate et salinis” .

This estate is exchanged by the prior D. Pedro de Sar to the countess Dª María in exchange for other estates in Galicia [54] .

In 1153 the infanta Dº Sancha donated to the monastery of San Martín de Castañeda, still under the Benedictine rule "sub regulates Sancti Benedicti" as noted in the donation, an estate in Bamba, which included an inn in Salinas and others in Salina Grande. :

“My own hereditary quam habeo in Lampreana, scilicet de Bamba... et habet suam Pautam in Salinas et sua Patrimonio in Lacuna Maior et alia Pautata in Madornil” .

The ownership of this last pause was disputed to the monastery by certain residents of Villafáfila, about which there was a lawsuit in 1156 before a kind of court composed of Bishop D. Pedro de Astorga, the abbot of San Claudio de León, canons of Astorga and many other lay parishioners and clerics from Villafáfila who determined that the inn belonged to San Martin de Castañeda. Castañeda's interest in these payments continues and they acquire various vineyards, curtains or orchards in Bamba [55] .

In 1193, Pope Innocent III confirmed the possessions of San Martín de Castañeda, among which "ecclesiam Sancto Tome de Bamba" [56] is cited , from which we deduce that it belonged to the monastery and would probably serve as the administrative center of all its assets in the region as was the case with other monasteries. After the depopulation of Bamba, the direct administration of the properties would be more difficult and in 1463 the monks hand over these possessions and those of Villalpando and Cañizo to Martín de Barrio, a son of a neighbor of Villafáfila, originally from Sanabria and a client of the Count of Benavente, for 1,500 ms. a year placed in the monastery at the expense of the tenant, half for the day of San Andrés and the other for Santiago [57]. I cannot determine if a similar process would occur with the pauses or huts for making salt in Castañeda, what is certain is that the sons of the aforementioned Martín de Barrio had a salt hut at the end of the 15th century.

This monastery of Benedictine nuns founded on the banks of the Cea, between Sahagún and Mayorga, had an estate in Villafáfila since before 1165, the year in which they received a donation from Pedro Ferro and his wife, of a house in the town and an estate with houses, salt pans, land and vineyards in the village of Prado:

“a house cum suo exido in Villafafila, ad portam de Sancti Johannis, et in Prato uno corral cum suas houses e cum suas salinas in IIIº parts et cum terras et cum vineas”,

in exchange for the usufruct of these goods and of the aforementioned inheritance of the monastery and the payment of an annual rent by the donors, continuing some of their children, if they were "bono homo" , with the same obligation and contract. But the payment of the rent must have been burdensome for the descendants of Pedro Ferro, since his daughter and her son-in-law in 1176 had to deliver these estates to the monastery for not being able to pay the debt that amounted to:

"XVI modes of salt and a cow and one asino and all bona de illa casa quod non poutimos habere" [58] .

The heritage of this monastery must have been located to the south of the Villafáfila district, since in surveys of the 16th century it is cited "a do they say Monaster de Vega, at the line of Muélledes" , and one of its inns was to the south of the Salina Grande, towards Otero, and became part of the patrimony of Archpriest Fernán Fernández, along with Sahagún's old properties in Villafáfila, and on his death in 1523 he founded with them a Pious Memory of daily mass "La Memoria", which has remained in the minor toponymy of Villafáfila.

The same day that the Countess Dª María received the estate of Santo Tirso in Lampreana from the prior of the monastery of Sar in 1166, she donated it to the abbot of Sobrado, a Galician Cistercian monastery. They soon establish a farm on this estate, because a few years later, in 1179, it already confirms “In Sancto Tirso: Petrus Faber magistro cf., Rebote staleiro...” when the monastery buys a salt mine in Muélledes for 43 morabetinos. The acquisition of salt mines continues in those years: in 1183 they buy two more salt mines in the same place, being "magistro dum Garcia de Sancto Tirso" . In 1185, Pope Lucius III confirmed the properties of the Sobrado monastery, among which "...ecclesia Sancti Tyrsi in Campis..." is cited .

Territorial conflicts and disputes soon arose with other owners of the region; Specifically, in 1186 they substantiated, before King Ferdinand II with the royal curia in Ciudad Rodrigo, a dispute over the Villares estate "que iacet inter Sanctum Tyrsum et Moledes ", with the friars of the Order of Santiago who affirmed that " quod hereditas illa pertineret ad uillam de Castro Toraph ”, while the monks said “ hereditary de Villaribus illis erat et fuet ab antiquo ecclesie Sancti Tyrsi” . The dispute had been going on for years before, when Master Pedro Fernández and Abbot Egidio lived, and they negotiated an agreement. The exploitation of these properties follows the system of Cistercian farms, headed by a magister grangiam, who was a monk in charge of directing the farm and one or more other monks, in 1203 they quote “fratyer Petrus Cidade magister grangie Sancti Tirsi, frater Rodericus es, frater Martinus Cidade ts…”. and some convert and servants and servants.

During the 13th century they continued to acquire properties in the region, by donation such as that made by Miguel Salgado, a resident of Villafáfila, of land in Villaveza, or Pedro Fernández de Muélledes of a field in Villares together with another "agrum fratum Sancti Tirsi" .

The monks usually stay on the farm for a while because in 1215 “Petrus Civitas” continues to lead it, which is the same Petrus Cidade before, and “frater Rodericus and frater Ioannes Froiletes” are mentioned again . In 1222 a new master appeared on the farm: “Petro Fortunii magister Sancto Tirsso” , the last one documented [59] .

At the beginning of the 15th century, the monks of Sobrado surveyed their properties in various territories of the provinces of León, Valladolid and Zamora, and properties are cited in Villafáfila, which we do not know if they correspond to those previously described or others not documented within this village [60] .

In some surveys of the 16th century in Villarrín, the aramios of Santo Tirso are mentioned, so I suppose that their properties were no longer cultivated in the Late Middle Ages, and later they were integrated into the terms of Villarrín.

We only have news of a donation to this female Cistercian monastery located on the banks of the Esla, made by Pedro Ordóñez and his wife Elvira Juánez in 1178 [61] . They make a letter of donation of an estate located in Otero de Sariegos, to remedy their souls and those of their parents, of which they keep half in usufruct for life, and for which they receive a robra horse. Possibly it would be some property related to the salt mines, to obtain salt for the consumption of the monastery, as reflected in a later annotation in the document "within the descriptive terms of diplomatic formulary, exceptionally allusions are made in this document to "salinis" due to the enclave of the place object of the donation” [62] .

The interest or connection of this monastery with Villafáfila is prior to the documentary verification of its properties. In 1156, when its abbot, Don Fernando, was in Villafáfila, together with the bishop of Astorga, the archdeacon and other clerics and laymen, he formed part of a court in charge of settling a dispute between several residents of Villafáfila and the monastery of Castañeda over a salt mine.

We know that San Claudio had a church in Villafáfila since the time of Bishop Don Arnaldo (there were two with that name, one in the 1940s and another in 1174-1175), which was consecrated by a heretic, who pretended to be a bishop, with assistance of the archdeacons. Later, the monks of San Claudio asked his successor to consecrate the church and they would give him the Terce, but he did not want to agree to it. Pope Alexander III orders the bishop to consecrate the church free of charge without his trying to get anything from the monks [63] .

In 1185, an agreement was signed between the abbot and the bishop, by which the abbot was obliged to pay half of the tithes of the church of San Clemente de Fortiñuela [64] , a village integrated in the alfoz of Villafáfila, located at La Somadica . Therefore, this monastery participated in the income from the salt through the tithes it received.

In 1181 King Ferdinand II donated the town so that they could install the main house of the order in the kingdom of León. This donation does not become effective until 1229 when Alfonso IX makes final delivery of it. The friars took over the lordship of the town, which remained in their power in different guises until 1541, when it was sold by Emperor Carlos to Don Bernardino Pimentel, 1st Marquess of Távara. At the head of the fortress of the town and administering the estates of the Order, a commander is appointed.

When Alfonso IX handed over the town of Villafáfila to the Order of Santiago in 1229, he received jurisdiction and all the income and rights that the king had in Villafáfila, including leasehold rights. Likewise, the donation would include all the real estate that the royal family held in Villafáfila on those dates. In the first donation of 1181, which did not take effect, King Ferdinand I handed over to Master Pedro Fernández everything that belonged to the royal estate, as it had been at the death of his father, Emperor Alfonso VII, in the case of Villafáfila, and specifies: with all men with their estates, with the meadows, rivers, mountains, springs, cultivated and uncultivated lands and with all its terms.“de me salinas de Villafafila” to different monasteries: to Roncesvalles in 1207, to Císter in 1211 (some of these salt pans had been expropriated from the order of the Temple to which it returned its Lampreana, San Feliz and Muélledes salt pans in 1211 ), as well as of their inheritances. In 1214 Alfonso IX delivered the:

“hereditatem de Bretocino et de Villa Fafila quas habeat de meo rregalengo” [65] .

Despite these declines, the heritage of the order in Villafáfila was made up of estates of bread and vineyards in the town and the villages, by a salt hut with its inns and graters, by various herreñales and orchards, by houses in the town. In addition to what was received from the king, the maestres and commanders were in charge of increasing the patrimony, above all through prestige, that is, the delivery in usufructs of some goods in exchange for the fact that on the death of the usufructuary they would return to the order increased with others. own goods.

Thus, in 1277 they hand over the usufruct of Villafáfila to Sancha in exchange for other assets in Salinas and Villafáfila:

"with all its villages and with all its boundaries and how many rights we have and must see" .

The first specific reference to the salt pans we have in 1283 when the master gives Pedro Fernández some salt pans that belonged to the Order but that he considered to be his, and some houses in exchange for everything reverting to the Order on his death. .

In 1332 the order ceded to Juan Alfonso de Benavides the town and land of Villafáfila and the

“heredamientos e salinas e viñas e casa que vos e la verra abedes order ” and in the later reference they mention “ and that we will till the vineyards... let us leave for the vra order in the said town of Villafáfila six well-dressed yoke of oxen with all its gear and a hundred loads of bread sown” ;

From which the direct exploitation of the estates of the order by means of farm oxen and the cultivation of vineyards is deduced. The reference to planting one hundred loads of bread, wheat and barley is supposed to give us an idea of the extension of the properties that would approach two hundred loads, taking into account the alternation of the fallow.

Until the time of Commander Don Pedro de Ledesma in the mid-15th century, the Palace estate, as the lands of the Order were known, were exploited directly by the Commander's servants, by means of farm mules, since as late as 1494 the visitors trying to find out the goods of the parcel:

“We heard information about men who saw their house there and saw there the names of commander Pedro de Ledesma, who was commander of this said commandery of Castrotorafe and now of Peñausende and that inside said house they saw the farm mules of said commander and his father's".

From that same year dates back to 1494 the first detailed reference to the assets and income of the encomienda, carried by Don Pedro Pimentel by assignment from the Count of Benavente, among which are mentioned:

“We visited the vineyards of the encomienda and we saw that they were well repaired and that they gave Don Pedro Pimentel 5,500 mrs of rent every year. Others and in the visitation book of the prior Don Garçia Ramirez and in the report of the secretary Juan de la Parra it says that the vineyards of this town rented 800 jars of wine, we did not know such because we found them leased.

We visited the salt flats that belong to the said encomienda, which we saw and are good and they work the salt in them and rent 6,000 mrs each year, which the said Don Pedro also carries.

Others and we visit an orchard that is together with the village that belongs to the said encomienda which is well repaired and is made up of but and apple trees which rents 800 mrs every year. which the said Don Pedro wears.

Others have certain lands in this said town and in the villages that rent 48 loads of bread every year, which the said Don Pedro also carries.

In the most exhaustive investigation carried out in 1497, both regarding the neighborhood and the commander's income, it is known by the oath of various neighbors that the commander has:

- In this said town he has seven tenements that are leased this said year for ten thousand mrs.

-That the said commander has certain vineyards that are leased for three years and the said lease is fulfilled this present year and he rents four thousand mrs. in each year.

- rent the martynyega and yantar segund hears it desyr to other vesynos of this villa four mill mrs

- the land rents forty-eight loads of wheat and barley, half wheat and half barley”.

In 1499 the assets of the encomienda produced the same amounts, however, in 1501, with the mayordomo of the commander Don Enrique in charge of the hacienda, the income of the Palace estate is:

“The vineyards have the parcel in this town that rent four thousand and five hundred mrs.

He has certain lands in this town and villages that rent 48 loads of averaged bread”.

The estates of the encomienda since the occupation of the town by the Count of Benavente, were leased to residents of Villafáfila. Not being exploited directly over the years, the adjoining owners were altering the boundaries, and certain lands could pass into the hands of private individuals. So in 1503:

“ someThe residents of Revellinos complained and made it known that, in the said place of Revellinos, the council of Villafáfila sold certain lands to people for vineyards and orchards, and they say that much harm comes to the council of Revellinos and much benefit to those who sell them. they bought, and they certified that lands in the area of Villafáfila and Revellinos were sold to private persons in the amount of four hundred thousand mrs....that some residents of the place of Revellinos in the past times without having a license from the order or from another person some sold certain pieces of land of the order for herreñales for certain amounts of mrs. that for this reason they gave them, and then to the possessors, Lorenço Benito and Pº de Belver and Juan Herrero, residents of said place and much damage to the other residents and the council, they gave their order and sent to the Revellinos council, under penalty of 10,000 mrs. for the camera of his highnesses, that within the first three days following they overthrow the said herreñales so that they are free and exempt ”.

But not only the lands of the encomienda were subject to appropriation or impairment in favor of other individuals, but also the inns of the Palace cabin suffered the interference of the salt miners with adjoining inns. In 1508 the visitors receive complaints:

He said it was true that it belonged to the said order, except that they had given it to him for a piece of dunghill, along with the order's hut, where he dumps the ash they take out of the said hut. The said visitors ordered the said Pº de Movilla to show the deed of barter to see if they had the power to do so, and this according to the capitulary law and the establishments of the order that in this case is required. The said Pº de Movilla said that he did not have any instrument except possession and witnesses and that he had arranged and moderated it that he may have been commander Fernando de Vega for a year and a half. The visitors said that, seeing the request for the pieces of inns and the said witnesses and their advice from said Pº de Movilla,.

During the first years of the encomienda of the Count of Benavente, the list of income from Villafáfila included those owned by the encomienda in Muélledes and San Pedro:

“He has an estate of bread land in the said town called the estate of Palaçio which rents him 86 bushels of wheat and 86 bushels of barley and rye, he has an estate of land in the San Pedro de Muélledes district that rent worth 110 fanegas of wheat and 110 of barley and rye each year, with the tithe that the said commander of the hermitage of San Pedro takes, which is nine parts both. He has another piece of land in Muelledes that rents him a year with another 20 bushels of wheat and 20 bushels of barley and rye.

He has another inheritance of land in the place of San Agustín, village of Villafáfila, which rents him 24 fanegas of wheat and 24 fanegas of barley, he rents certain herreñales in the said place 3 fanegas of barley, he rents a vineyard together with the said place 238 mrs.. In Revellinos another inheritance of bread land that rents one year with another 7 bushels of wheat and 7 bushels of barley.

From the rent of a cabin in Salinas 8000 mrs. From the rent of certain vineyards 3000 mrs. From the rent of a garden 1000 mrs. Of the rent of certain houses 450 mrs . ” .

A maintenance and even increase in income from bread is observed, and a decrease in income from vineyards and salt mines, due to their progressive deterioration and loss of productivity.

Despite the Count of Benavente being a powerful person, the estates were not spared from interference by the neighbors, during the performance of the same by Don Alonso Pimentel, and, after the civil war of the Communities, a survey is made of the assets of the encomienda in Villafáfila and its land due to:

“It has come to your notice that some of us from this town have entered and taken and occupied and have taken, entered and occupied many of the lands and vineyards that your Lordship of the said Lord Count as commander of this encomienda has in this town and its terms and others are lost without knowing about them because they haven't gotten off for a long time” .

"Some of the locals have taken over and alienated many of the posadas and ralladeros that the said cabin that the said Commander has in this town and many are lost without knowing or enjoying them . "

From these surveys we know the number, location and extent of the Palace estate at the beginning of the 16th century, which could have been slightly reduced but which, with the information taken from ancient men, can approximate the situation at the end of the 16th century. of the fifteenth century.

In summary, the inheritance of land is close to two hundred loads of sowing, since 191 loads plus two ochavas are counted, not counting two lands in Revellinos for which there is no room in the felling, for a total of 117 plots. The distribution by towns is 149 loads and 1 eighth in Villafáfila, 34 loads and 1 eighth in San Agustín and 8 loads plus two unmeasured lands in Revellinos. According to the qualities, 102 loads and 1 ochava were of wheat, 53 loads and a half of barley, 24 loads and 5 ochavas of rye, and almost 11 loads of herreñales to sow barley or rye to harvest it green. In addition, the area planted with vines amounted to 57 rooms, of which 51 were in Villafáfila, 5 in San Agustín and two in Revellinos, distributed in 18 vineyards and one field that had lost its hawthorn. An orchard in Villafáfila completed the estate, that they leased, and the charters over 3 houses, some threshing floors and the small town square and 1 charter over a house in Revellinos and a herreñal in San Agustín. In the distribution of the plots by the different payments we observe that the herreñales were located in the town and villages and in the old depopulated ones, almost always located next to or instead of the old churches. Thus, a herreña next to the door of the church of Villarigo, and reference to plots in San Clemente, Sobradillo or San Pedro del Yermo next to the towers of said places, of which the San Clemente tower was preserved. In the distribution of the plots by the different payments we observe that the herreñales were located in the town and villages and in the old depopulated ones, almost always located next to or instead of the old churches. Thus, a herreña next to the door of the church of Villarigo, and reference to plots in San Clemente, Sobradillo or San Pedro del Yermo next to the towers of said places, of which the San Clemente tower was preserved. In the distribution of the plots by the different payments we observe that the herreñales were located in the town and villages and in the old depopulated ones, almost always located next to or instead of the old churches. Thus, a herreña next to the door of the church of Villarigo, and reference to plots in San Clemente, Sobradillo or San Pedro del Yermo next to the towers of said places, of which the San Clemente tower was preserved.

The palace salt farm was made up of a cabin with its dressings (fountain, well, dunghill, etc.) and 26 inns and graters distributed around the lagoons.

In the time of Commander Pedro de Ledesma, in the mid-15th century, the butler he had in Villafáfila had leased the cabin to him to work on his own, through servants:

“The father of this witness, named Garçia de Caramaçana, who died at the age of fifty and may have been sixty years old, who was deceased, who was steward of the commander of Castrotorafe and had a salt shack of said commander and had it for seven or eight years ... and he would go for firewood with his father's boys to the mountains of Távara to make salt” [66] .

The fate of all these assets passed into the hands of Mr. Bernardino Pimentel, who kept the cabin active for some time, only to be abandoned in the 1660s.

Fernando Gutiérrez, one of the neighboring landowners of the town, donated an estate in Villafáfila and a vineyard on the road from Benavente to Toro (on the edge of La Vereda) in the year 1197 [67] to this hospital for pilgrims, founded in the heights of Puerto de Pajares.

In the 12th century, this monastery owned a salt mine in Lampreana territory, without specifying the specific location, and a bolonera, or fishing device in the Esla River, which they rent for ten ochavas of salt per year and 100 barbels and half of eels. to Antonino, in exchange for the salt mines that he had in the Rodezno [68] being for the monastery on his death . This was a common way of increasing the assets of the monasteries.

In the year 1200, the Military Order of San Juan granted Fernando Gutiérrez and his wife the property they had in Villafáfila and Cerecinos in usufruct, in exchange for the property they had in Villalobos [69] . We have no further news of the assets of these knights, who at some point in the Middle Ages received the town of Vidayanes, which was administered from the Rubiales parcel.

We know the situation of the estate of San Juan in Villafáfila from a demarcation of the term of Fortiñuela in 1530:

"The term that they say of Cantarilla is a joke and San Juan de Rodas de la Encomienda has certain estates there . "

In another part of that document, the term of Alcantarilla is cited as one of the round terms of Villafáfila and its land, in addition to that of San Fagunde and San Pedro de Eslonza, so it is to be assumed that it would be of a certain extension.

In 1627 the municipality of Alcantarilla was lowered in Revellinos, formed by a parcel of 12 loads and another eight smaller lands, reaching a surface of just over 27 loads [70] . The location in the small valley formed by the Riego stream leads one to conjecture that they would dedicate part of the estate to salt exploitation, since in 1560 a pause in Cantarilla [71] is mentioned , and some of the lands felled in 1627 are given the adjective of brackish

This monastery in the Navarrese Pyrenees obtained from Alfonso IX two hundred maravedís of annual income in the Villafáfila salt flats in 1207 [72] .

Likewise, this king granted in 1211 to the Cistercian abbey the annual rent of 300 mrs. in the salt mines of Villafáfila [73] .

Later, this income must have passed to the abbey of Las Huelgas in Burgos, since in its documentation there is confirmation of this donation by Alfonso X in 1255 [74] .

This military order owned salt mines in the region, possibly in Villafáfila, Muélledes and San Feliz:

“ Suas salinas quas habebant in Lampreana et in Sancto Felice et in Moladas” ,

which had been confiscated by Alfonso IX and were returned to him in 1211 [75] , but the subsequent fate of that estate is not traced.

The monastery of San Marcos, of the Order of Santiago, owned since before 1241 [76] , the third of the tithes of Villafáfila and its land by donation of the master Don Rodrigo Iñiguez:

“the teacher with his friars...the privilege they gave to the prior and the clerics of San Marcos...” .

Conflicts soon arose over the perception of decimal rents between the monastery and the clerics of Villafáfila and their land. They brought the dispute before the Bishop of Astorga, Don Nuño, and before the Archdeacon of Villafáfila, who determined the following agreement on the division of the tithes:

-1 / 3 of everything for the bishop of Astorga, who distributed it between himself and the canons.

-1/3 of bread and cattle and 1/6 of salt, wine and serondallas (zarandajas or late fruits) for the convent of San Marcos.

-1 / 3 of the bread and cattle and half of the salt, wine and serondallas for the clerics.

"That in this letter they saw to give by advice of the bishop don Nuño de Astorga, and by abtoridade of master Fernando, archidiano wish to achieve who to taste that for such they give, peace and love among themselves they possed for the pleasure of both the parts that, save the third part delivers these things of his dictates to the bishop of Astorga, that the friars of San Marcos mediate all the tithes of bread and cattle as dictated, and the clerics already dictated that they do the other mediate, and of wine, of salt and of serondallas and of the others ayan the clergymen that I dictate are of suso de Villafáfila and of its term, the three parts of the tenth and the freyres I dictate the fourth” [77] .

This composition was not definitive and a lawsuit was filed again between the convent of San Marcos and the clerics of Villafáfila, in the year 1379 before the bishop of Astorga:

“It was a thousand and four and ten and seven years old, Wednesday the nineteenth day of January before the honorable father, Frey Alfonso, by the grace of God and of the Holy Church of Rome, Bishop of Astorga, in the presence of my Diº Alvarez, noto approved by the church of Astorga in the said city, and from the written witnesses of yuso, this day, before the said bishop, they appeared in court, on the one hand, Pero Ferrandez, canon of the church of Astorga and procurator of Mr. Diego Alfonso, prior of the monastery of San Marcos de León and of the convent of said monastery, and on the other hand Juan Ferrandez de Cimanes, home of Don Pero Martínez, archdeacon of the Páramo in the church of Astorga and procurator who is from Gutierre Fernández, archpriest of Villafáfila, and of the clerics living in the said place of Villafáfila and its terminus..

The difference over the distribution of the tithes was the substance of the lawsuit:

“The lawsuit contained between the said prior and convent and between the said archpriest and clerics is due to the tithes that the said prior and convent demand from the said archpriest and clerics of Villafáfila” .

The sentence, having seen the evidence and the witnesses, was once again favorable to the convent of San Marcos:

" Save first the third part of all the tithes of the bread of the term of the said town of Villafáfila and of the cattle and of the wine and of the salt and of the serondallas of the orchards and of all the other things that belonged to us, of the other two parts that will finance the said tithes, to the said prior and convent of the said monastery, the amount of the tithe of the said bread and the amount of the tithe of the cattle that are raised in the houses of the parishioners that do not go to transyerra, must be paid, and the fourth part of the tithe of the wine and of the salt and of serondalla of the orchards” .

The decimal rents were substantial and subject to donations, barter and conflicts. In 1332, Don Juan Alfonso de Benavides and his wife, Doña Mayor Vázquez, received the villa of Villafáfila in usufruct from the master of the Order of Santiago, and the convent of San Marcos granted them the receipt of the corresponding tithes:

"Being in possession of the said monastery of Coxer and carrying the said tithes to Juan Alfonso de Benavides and Mrs. Mayor Vazquez, his wife, by our abtoryty and mandated . "

Upon the death of Juan Alfonso de Benavides ordered by King Pedro I in 1364, the town returned to the power of the Order of Santiago, but the tithes should not have been repaid to San Marcos, so the convent initiated the aforementioned lawsuit with the archpriest and the clerics of Villafáfila and his land, sentenced in 1379.

Then the Leonese convent filed a new lawsuit before the abbot of Santa Marta de Tera, as vicar of the master, with the commander of Villafáfila and Castrotorafe for the possession of the tithes of the first, ruling again in favor of the monastery.

A century later, once again the tithes of San Marcos were usurped by the new lord of the town, on this occasion Don Pedro Pimentel, who administered the lordship of the town by assignment from the Count of Benavente, his brother, who had occupied by force in 1467, having to resort to defending their rights again in 1482.

This monastery must have owned the church of San Martín de Villafáfila at some point, since in 1250 Inocencio IV took the monastery of Benevívere under his protection and confirmed its possessions, among which “Sancti Martini de Villafafila” is cited [78] . With the annexation of the abbey of Nuestra Señora de la Puente de Deustamben at the end of the Middle Ages, they took possession of the municipality of Fortiñuela.

Located on the banks of the River Esla, between Villaveza del Agua and Milles, next to an old Deustamben bridge , it was an abbey until the 15th century, when it became a Benevívere priory, by papal bull of 1415 [79] .

It owned the village of Fortiñuela since the Middle Ages, populated until the middle of the 15th century, whose terms reached the Riego stream, where pauses were surely found, and in Villafáfila, near the Salina de Barillos, a salt inn. At the end of the 15th century, to ensure income, since the priors did not reside in the priory and suffered its usurpation by Rodrigo Pimentel, son of the Count of Benavente in 1487, they leased Fortiñuela to the residents of San Agustín for:

This Franciscan monastery, located near San Román del Valle, had at least eight salt inns in Villafáfila at the beginning of the 16th century, probably belonging to an old salt exploitation [81] .

This Hieronymite monastery had a salt-making cabin in Villafáfila and fourteen inns, apart from other possessions in Muélledes and Villarrín near the lagoons, which could be old salt inns [82] .

The council of Villafáfila owned some inns in the 16th century, a possession that could date back to the Middle Ages, and could come from the allocation of inns during the process of organizing the town in the 12th century, or from properties abandoned or not exploited by their owners, of which the council took charge. Those documented in 1522 and 1528 were located at the Rebudiadero de la Salina de Barillos and Los Llamares [83] . We also have reference to an inn in San Agustín on the shore of the Salina Grande, which possibly belonged to the council of this village, and which was leased to a resident of Villafáfila [84] .

The council of Villafáfila did not produce salt directly, but leased the rayaderos to obtain income, and in 1543 the following are mentioned among the town's own:

“This said council had another thousand more or so of certain graters that they leased from salt pans to make salt ”; the product of these was not the same every year because other times they are mentioned: " certain inns that are called salt graters that rented and usually rented three or four ducats each year to the said town and some years less" [85] .

Zamora: Institute of Zamoran Studies "Florián de Ocampo", 2000. ISBN 84-86873-87-8.

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

[ 1] Minguez 1976 Doc. 36; Loscertales 1976 Doc.: II 46.

[2] We do not know what may correspond to “folles zumaques” but it seems to be something related to curtidos, either foles or tanned wineskins or sumac leaves used for tanning.

[3] Cabero 1987: 28.

[4] Loscertales 1976 II. Doc: 278.

[5] Vignau 1882: Doc. CV.

[6] AH.NOOMM carp. 88, no. 27.

[7] Vignau 1882. Doc. CCXI.

[8] Smith 1988: doc. 534.

[9] Ruiz Asensio doc. 970 and doc. 1010.

[10] Blacksmith: doc. 534.

[11] Ruiz Asensio 1989: doc. 1121.

[12] Ruiz Asensio 1989: Doc. 1074.

[13] Blacksmith 1988.

[14] OSUNA 2151 / 11.

[15] Gomez Rios, 1997.

[16] Ruiz Asensio 1989: Doc. 1190.

[17] González 1944: Doc. 274.

[18] Alfonso Antón: doc. 69.

[19] Serrano 1927: Doc. 59 and 70.

[20] ARCH.V. Ceballos f. Leg. 1321.

[21] Yanez: doc. 3 and 13.

[22] Ruiz Asensio 1989.

[23] Trancon 1990.

[24] Mínguez 1976: Doc.99 and p. 135

[25] Minguez 1976: Doc. 36.

[26] Herrero 1988: Doc. 534, 612 and 816.

[27] Mínguez 1976: doc. 132, 302, 264.

[28] Smith 1988: Doc 1162.

[29] Alfonso Antón, 1986: Doc. 25.

[30] Fernández Flórez 1991: Doc. 1511.

[31] Fernández Flórez 1991: Doc. 1511 and 1544.

[32] Alfonso Antón 1986: Doc. 132.

[33] Álvarez Palenzuela 1997: Doc. 2130.

[34] Vignau 1882: Doc. XIV, LXXVIII, XCIII, XCVI, CV and CXXV.

[35] Loscertales 1976 II: Doc. 278 and 46.

[36] Ruiz Asensio 1989: Doc. 824.

[37] Alfonso Antón 1986: doc. 10.

[38] Fernández Flórez 1991: doc. 1725.

[39] AGSDGR II 3401.

[40] Ruiz Asensio 1989: doc. 943, 970, 1010 and 1074.

[41] Fernández Herrero 1988: Doc. 473.

[42] Flórez 1991. Doc. 1511.

[43] Tumbo Negro fº 157.

[44] Flórez 1742: Appendix 29.

[45] Tumbo Negro fº 72 v.

[46] Quintana p. 682.

[47] Tumbo Negro de Astorga: fº 244 r.

[48] ADA Episcopal Chamber, perg. 2/40. Published by Cabero, 1989: 45.

[49] Cabero 1989: Doc. IV.

[50] ADA Index. Royals. No. 6.

[51] AGSRGS 1495-XI 3878.

[52] OO.MM. Lawsuits 21933.

[53] AHPZa. Disentailment. Box 159 -1.

[54] Loscertales II: Doc. 264 and 43.

[55] Rodríguez González 1966: Doc. 25, 28 and 33.

[56] Mansilla 1955.

[57] AHPZa. Confiscation 148.

[58] Serrano 1927: Doc. 59 and 70.

[59] Loscertales 1976: Doc. II. 19, 195, 265, 266, 267, 268, 269 and 277.

[60] Beceiro 1998: 228.

[61] Adule. Gradefes 131.

[62] Turino Burón 1998 I: Doc. 138.

[63] Tumbo Negro 244 v.

[64] ADA Individuals 572.

[65] Alfonso Antón: doc.69.

[66] ARCH.V. Ceballos f. Leg.66, 1321.

[67] Martínez Sopena Regesta nº 786.

[68] ADLe. S.Pº of the Dueñas 22.

[69] RAH Salazar Collection O-3 sheet 136.

[70] AHN OO.MM. Lg.7475-11.

[71] AHN Nobleza Osuna 2157-1.

[72] Martínez Sopena. Registry No. 836.

[73] Gonzalez 1944: 273.

[74] Lizoain Garrido, JM 1985.

[75] Gonzalez, 1944 274.

[76] ADLe.

[77] ADL San Marcos. File 4, No. 30.

[78] QUINTANA 1987 612.

[79] AHN Clergy C. 3570.

[80] ARCH.V. Moreno f 2794-1.

[81] AHPZa. Confiscation C 238.

[82] AHPZa. Confiscation C.238.

[83] AHN Nobility. Osuna 2152-16.

[84] AHPZa. Confiscation C. 238.

[85] ARCH.V. Perez Alonso f. 515-1.