THE SALT MILLERS OR SALT MILLERS IN THE MEDIEVAL SOCIETY OF VILLAFÁFILA

HISTORY OF THE SALT EXPLOITATIONS IN THE LAGOONS OF VILLAFÁFILA

We have little specific news of the men who are dedicated in one way or another to obtaining and marketing Villafáfila salt. As mentioned in the document of the agreement between the council of Villafáfila and the bishop of Astorga on the tithes of salt of 1235, three classes of situations of possession or exploitation of the cabins are distinguished: the main owners of the cabins, those who make the salt and the tenants:

“ domini principals torvarum teneantur et nichilominus ipsi qui faciunt salem et qui leasing ”,

In addition, servants and waiters intervened in the production process, possibly hired temporarily for jobs such as carrying firewood. In addition, there had to be residents of the town and outsiders who dedicated themselves to transporting the salt produced to the consumer centers.

I will try to make a general approximation to the social groups that acted in the medieval Villafáfila, detailing the references to the saltmen.

Social groups

The social groups established in the medieval towns can be known by the references to them in the preserved charters. In the case of Villafáfila, the lack of a foral text makes it difficult for us to understand the different social groups in the town and the dependency relationships that could exist between them and with respect to the feudal powers. But from the 1229 donation letter of the town by Alfonso IX to the Order of Santiago, we know that there were three legal situations within the neighbors:

1- Vassals who until then were vassals of the king and become vassals of the order, to which they must make the forum that they previously made to the monarch.

2- Children of something

3- Benefacturiis de mare ad mare

In addition to these, there were the clerics as a well-defined and better-documented social group, religious minorities such as the Jews, and the poor or marginalized.

The naughty neighbors

Its main characteristic was the obligation to make a "forum" , that is, to give the feudal income to the lord of the town: before 1229 to the king and later to the maestre or commander. They could be peasants or other neighbors dedicated to craft activities, trade or salt exploitation.

Before the organization of the royal towns, the residents of Lampreana were vassals of the king who disposed of their houses and estates, and who could donate these vassals to other owners or feudal lords, such as the one granted to the cathedral of León in 1073 Alfonso VI:

 “ Insuper adicimus unum hominem quem decimus excusetum per huius manum tota illa decima colligatur ... et ipso homine supredicto cum suo solare e sua hereditate ”.

In the foundation of the royal towns, the neighbors who came to the population of the same received lots of land from the king that they cultivated in exchange for a rent or forum, but they could not freely dispose of it. From the XIV - XV century this provision was exercised freely. If the neighbors were going to live in another place:

" they lose the possessions and estates they had in those towns and you dispose of their estates ", as explained in the donation letter of 1229.

In the Courts of Valladolid in 1325, the vassals of the military orders were allowed to live in the king's towns and cities without losing their ancestral estates, with the only obligation to pay the foreros rights [1] , which represents a great change in the possibility of movement of the residents of the villas, but that is surely limited to legalizing a situation that would have been taking place for some time.

Some of these pecheros neighbors had an economic position that made them stand out from the rest. You were the so-called "boni homines" or good men, who in all the towns and cities exercised the monopoly of council positions together with the hidalgos. Patency between both groups was common.

These good men have been mentioned since 1147, in the donation of the monastery of Santa María de Villafáfila to San Pedro de Eslonza:

“ so that you may possess it, Juan Spora, during your life and after your death, the abbot of San Pedro with the council of Santa María and other good men of the monastery of San Pedro ”.

In 1165 they are documented as tenants of monasteries, confirming documents and as landowners. This condition will be transmitted to descendants as long as they maintain the economic position:

“ Et si filio vel filia remanserit de suis que bono homo fuerit, et facere que fecit suo pater...”

Sometimes in the dates of the documents they are cited with this appellation and their name preceded by the treatment of don, thus in 1199 they confirm a donation to Eslonza: "Qui presents fuerunt homines bono" and confirm 17 neighbors, of which five are preceded by don and three of whom are cited as sons of doña, possibly widows who maintained the socioeconomic position of their husbands.

As an example of these good men, some stand out who own land in several towns, participate in the government of the town or receive prestige goods from ecclesiastical institutions:

Miguel Salgado, is mayor in 1176 and in 1182, and appears included among the good men who confirm a donation to the monastery of Eslonza. We find him ratifying various documents of this monastery and those of Vega, Gradefes, Sahagún and Moreruela between 1174 and 1207.

He has certain rights over the church of San Clemente de Fortiñuelas, for which he has received three moyos of wheat for life since 1185; and his family owns half of the church of Santiago de Villafáfila, and his son donates half of this church to the Eslonza monastery in 1201.

His land properties are distributed throughout the region, since in 1202 his land was cited in Santa Elena, a village in the alfoz de Benavente, and in 1203 he donated land in Villaveza to the monastery of Sobrado de los Monjes.

This social consideration and economic situation is applicable to his family, since his wife Marina Domínguez is known as Doña Marina. If we look at the etymology of his surname Salgado de el, we can find a certain relationship with the production of salt.

Fernando Gutiérrez , was a wealthy resident of the town, who in 1197 donated an estate in Villafáfila to the Arbás Hospital, in 1200 he received in usufruct the assets that the Order of Saint John owned in Cerecinos and Villafáfila in exchange for the estate that his wife Marina Pérez had in Villalobos. In 1201 he received the entire estate that the Sahagún monastery had in Villafáfila and Bretó, which included the salt pans and the wood mountains, in exchange for a certain annual rent of, among other things, 15 loads of salt, but if he entered religion he had to return the estate unless he took Sahagun's habit, where he would be well received. On an uncertain date, but at the beginning of the 13th century, he receives some houses in Benavente that belonged to Count Roderici by the community of monks of Malucanum.

The good pecheros men were those who supported the royal and stately breasts and services, through spills or distribution of the same among them. For this reason, the passage of some bidders to exempt status provoked protests from the others who saw the amount that they received in the distributions increase. In 1417 the neighbors complained to the maestre's visitors of:

“ They said that in the said town and their land there were some time people who had chests and fixed chests that because they had weapons and horses and bibir with gentlemen who say they should be excused from chests and trebutos that between hells happen what they said that It was never in the said town or on their land in which they said that they were offended and that they asked us to provide them with a remedy with the right and on this chapter they want our information, we failed the said council to be aggrieved, therefore we send from the said gentleman master that all those who were not fixed on something should bear all the chests and trebutes that come to the said council in any way ”.

 The problem of toilets by the powerful, in the case of Villafáfila the Pimentel family, both the Count of Benavente and Don Pedro, was maintained at the end of the fifteenth century:

“Others and we were sued by the pecheros who live in that town many who defend themselves by hidalgos servants of the count and Don Pedro who are thirty neighbors and from above and are very rich and they buy the farms of the pecheros and do not contribute for They do not take away the said hidalgos from their quantia to the pecheros in such a way that in ten years from now the pecheros will be left without haciendas and they will pay as if they had them so that the town would be considered lost if it is not remedied by ordering that the hidalgo that I conpre of pechero that peche for it and so they beg their highnesses ”.

In the cast of the royal chests of 1462 including:

“ the order and currency and forera monera ” touch “the council of Villafáfila XIIII.DCCCLXXII mrs., the council of Sant Agostin IXXIII mrs, the council of Revellinos I.CCCCXVII ” [2] .

The amount paid by the town is one of the largest of the towns included in the saccade of the bishopric of Zamora, and in relation to the villages, it is 10:1 with Revellinos and 14:1 with San Agustín.

The Sondalgos

These are privileged neighbors, who are exempt from breasts "in possession of free and frank fixed omes and are exempt and do not charge or pay in breasts any real or councils, or in orders or in coins" and their services are restricted to the military field.

The origin of these knights must have been:

-by evolution of secondary branches of noble families

-by ascension in the social scale of former ancestral vassals enriched and protected from nobles.

-by royal concessions of the nobility.

Many of them must have settled in the royal towns at the time of their foundation or a little later and would receive the corresponding plots of land (in 1165 one of the principals' vicars was Petro Infanzón, a surname that is related to nobility). Thus, in the donation of Villafáfila of 1229, the filiis of something are cited as a separate group, who were not made vassals of the Order of Santiago and did not have to do the forum that the rest of the neighbors were obliged to do. The way of life of these gentlemen used to be the militia, which is why they are mentioned in the documents as "milites"and the possession of a horse and weapons was an indispensable condition for belonging to this social group. In the confirmation of the concert of tithes of salt signed in 1235, fifteen "milites" appear among the confirming ones, who are knights, but not necessarily of the habit of Santiago, but residents of the town, since in Villafáfila there was never a convent of the Order . Some bear the name of Donno in front and others do not, so that treatment that later served to distinguish hidalgos from pecheros seems to initially indicate social respectability, perhaps derived from their economic situation. And many of the Boni Homesof the town, with a comfortable economic position, were able to keep a horse and weapons and form part of the villainous knights, mentioned in other places, who, although they can obtain their income from agriculture and livestock, their resources distanced them from the common farming neighbors who made up the population of the villas. This tax exemption was the privilege defended by the hidalgos in 1481 against inclusion in the registers by the council:

"because being in possession velcasy possession of not charging or contributing in chests and trebuts some real or council or personal, being registered and taking pledges against all reason and justice by the council and justice and good omes of the town of Villafáfila" ,

One way to be considered a hidalgo and be exempted from paying the fees was to put oneself at the service of some noble in the area, mainly the Count of Benavente and his family or the commander of Castrotorafe. So in 1417 the council complained to the Maestre's visitors about this situation:

"That in the said town and its land there are some time people who have chests and fixed chests that, because they have harnesses and horses and bibir with gentlemen, who say they should be excused from the chests and trebuttos that occur between hellos, which qual they said that it was never in the said town nyn on their land... another yes... he said that it was true that the said commander who had the said merino and that he excused him from all breasts”.

Among the arguments of the council to oppose the hidalguía in 1481:

"If they stopped paying it would be because they had some trades or because they lived with some gentlemen or because they were close to a powerful person who would defend them from the said chests and begged the council to excuse them for some time . "

 In the nobility lawsuits of the 16th century, in the usual reasons of the council to oppose the recognition of nobility, it is said that:

“His father and grandfather were servants of the Count of Benavente, who was commander of Castrotorafe and escusarçia and escusó de la breasts”, or in other cases: “Don Pedro Pimentel had exempted him because he had weapons and a horse and was a surgeon”.

Thus we know the link to the Pimentel family as servants or squires of some 15th century noblemen such as Fernando de Robles, Ivan de Collantes or Francisco Rodríguez de la Mezquita who were wardens of the Villafáfila fortress by the said count or by his brother; or Martín de Barrio who was a squire to Count Don Rodrigo Pimentel. This situation continued to provoke complaints from the council in 1494:

“Others and we were sued by the pecheros who live in that town many who defend themselves as hidalgos, servants of the count and of Don Pedro, who are thirty neighbors and from above and are very rich” .

Another way of gaining nobility was the royal concession for going to war when requested and serving the king with horse and weapons, when they had them, and on foot when they did not.

We know the case of Juan del Prado, a resident of Villafáfila, who received the letter of noblemanship of privilege with the same prerogatives as noblemen of known land, for him and his successors, by Enrique II in 1465, for going with his horse at the service of the king when required and pay a certain amount of money to the senior accountants. Possibly other rich residents of Villafáfila and other nearby towns would attend, such as the brother of the previous one, Pero Alonso del Prado, since the captain of such people, who attended the call of the king, to the royal of the town of Simancas, was Pedro de Porras neighbor of Villafáfila. Later, King Enrique II, pressured by the nobles, revoked these privileges in the courts of Ocaña and Santa María de Nieva. The Catholic Monarchs, at the request of the city and town attorneys, They ordered that they could not enjoy these nobility, except for those who went to war against the King of Portugal in 1475, for two months and delivered a certain amount of silver in cash. What Juan del Prado fulfilled. When he obtained the privilege, the first thing he did was present it to the council:"I showed it in the public square of it" , so as not to be included in the registers as a breastplate. The money that he had to give twice and the economic relief that allowed him to go to war with his weapons and horse, he obtained from the production of salt, since we know that he had a cabin to make salt: "Gómez's father de Prado (Juan del Prado) and Salvador Façera's father had a cabin in the salt flats that were close to each other and they met and talked”, an activity that had previously granted him a certain degree of social respectability : “Juan del Prado and Ynes Domingues they were married in the church of Mr. San Martin with honors and entertainment as people of good fame” [3]. In addition to a way to have access to the condition of sons of a son, attending the wars and commandments of the kings was one of his obligations. In 1481, Pº Xuárez de Valdés, nobleman from Villafáfila, recalled his participation and that of other noblemen in the campaign of the Vega de Granada by Juan I in 1431: “this witness and the father of Juan de León went to the war in Granada in the service of Mr. King D. Juan, for more than forty years...” , and Pedro de la Cámara that “ the said Juan de León and Álvaro de Villagómez went to war in the service of Mr. King D. Enrique to war The royal of Simancas knows it because this witness saw them come to this war and then they have come here in our service (of the Catholic Monarchs)to the royal wars of Toro and Zamora against the king of Portugal and they were serving in these wars as fixed omes” . This participation in the war campaigns of the Reconquest allowed the hidalgos to participate in the loot, as in the case of Juan de León who, returning from King Juan's campaign to the Vega de Granada in 1431: "it is well remembered that the said Juan de León brought a prisoner Moor " , in order to obtain a later ransom or to use him as a servant.

The participation of the noblemen of Villafáfila in the civil wars of the fifteenth century was not made on the same side, because while some went to the Simancas royal to defend the legitimate king Don Enrique IV, others went, under the patronage of the count of Benavente, in support of the infante Don Alfonso, pretender to the throne:

 “When this witness was fifteen years old, more or less, he went to the war as a squire with a Martín de Barrio, the old man, to Symancas, when the Lord King Don Alonso was there when there were differences between the Lord King Don Enrique and King Don Alonso ” [4] .

The hidalgos used to go to the campaigns framed in the retinues of the great nobles, such as the Pimentel. We know of the case of a nobleman from the late fifteenth century, Martín de Barrio, who came from San Pedro de la Viña, married in Villafáfila, participated in the dispute between the Count of Benavente and the Count of Lemos in Bierzo and Galicia, and later accompanied to don Pedro Pimentel to the War of Granada, in the capture of Vélez Málaga:

“When this guy was twenty years old, a little more or less [1464] , he began to meet Aº de Cabañas, the elder of the contending father of said father, who was married and lived in Sant Pº de Çeque, who belongs to the count de Benavente,...was a fidalgo man who had arms and a horse and served the Count of Benavente in the case of a fixed wife of Doña Blanca, Mrs. de Uña,  (Beatriz Núñe), and had Martín de Barrio as his son, who He went with the Count of Benavente to a war in Galisya and there the said Count took from the Count of Lemos a fortress called Santdianes and left the said Aº de Cabañas as alcayde and there he died and I did not see this guy anymore, and the said Martín de Barrio bolvyo later here and got married in Villafáfila and there he saw and then I did not see him but once in V [him]ez Malaga who went to war with the said count " " who may have been fifty years old [1474] a little more or less than when he began to know the said Martín de Barrio, father of the one who contends that he was in Villafáfila with a Martín de Barrio brother of his mother and he married the said his uncle with a daughter of one of his mistress "it may be fifty years ago that he began to know Martín de Barrio who drank with Don Pedro Pimentel" .

 In 1482, D. Pedro Pimentel, who at that time had the town of Villafáfila, went to war against the Moors in the city of Alhama [5] , and must have been accompanied by other noblemen from the town.

Some hidalgos, such as another Martín de Barrio, uncle of the previous one and originally from the land of Sanabria, came to live in Villafáfila in the mid-15th century, where he married before 1453. In 1463 he received in perpetuity all the estates that the monastery of San Martín de Castañeda had in Bamba and San Pelayo. He was always held in the town by the Count of Benavente's man, under whose service he participated in the different disputes of his time, such as supporting the infante Don Alfonso in his rebellion against King Enrique IV. He died in Sanabria in 1473 and ordered to be buried in the church of San Martín:

“ in a tomb to the main altar towards the Gospel, which has three sculpted coats of arms that seem to have a cross and carved pine trees and on top of the tomb a painted and carved man's bundle of plaster stone in the form of alabaster in the figure of a man with his sword in his hands and his plaster stone pillows with a sign around them that seems to read Here lies Martín de Barrio. that aya Stª Gloria son of Lope Núñez de Barrio, died in Sanabria, ordered to be buried here. On the twenty-second of September, 1478 years” .

We know that his children had cattle, land and salt flats in Villafáfila and were linked to the Pimentel family throughout the 16th century, as pages of the count, renters of income from the Castro encomienda, participants in war events or holding positions of mayors, or corregidores in Villafáfila and Alija by Don Bernaldino Pimentel.

In a nominal register of the town and land of Villafáfila that was made on calle hita, by order of Queen Isabella in 1497, the distribution of states was as follows:

Representing the hidalgos of the town more than 18% of the neighbors, 13% in San Agustín and 5% in Revellinos, higher percentages than in Benavente, Toro or Zamora for that time [6] .

The hidalgos, in addition to participating in the wars, had a livelihood like other residents of the town. They owned land or vineyards, cattle or salt pans, they even participated in the bids for the royal income from the Villafáfila salt pans, as is the case of Juan Marbán in 1455, who was in the town of Medina del Campo and The income from the Villafáfila salt flats was awarded to him in the first auction. We also know of his participation in ecclesiastical revenues as late as 1481 " I saw him having ninths in the church of Santa María del Templo, which is in the place of Pajares”, in the case of Juan de Villagómez, who also had the right to present a chaplain from the chaplaincy of Santa María and Santa Marina, located in the church of San Martín, founded before 1475; and in the case of Juan de Toranzo he was the collector of the tithes of San Marcos “ that he should have good bread because the tithes of them brought out this witness and his father-in-law ” [7] .

The Benefacturii from sea to sea

In 1229, the benefacturiis de mare ad mare are cited as a differentiated group from the hidalgos and from the common residents of Villafáfila . The men of behetrería or benefactoría were vassals with personal dependence and their properties on a lord. It was a situation of typical feudal dependency. The benefactories from sea to sea or ancient, had a greater degree of freedom than other situations because they could choose and, theoretically, change their lord whenever they wanted among any noble of the kingdom.

In the case of Villafáfila they may have been redoubts of the primitive inhabitants of the place who remained in the town since before its repopulation in the 12th century.

clerics

According to Martínez Sopena: "Although perhaps the various territorial administrators of the monastic property could be considered members of the local clergy, there is no doubt that this term refers mainly to the parish clergy, the exercise of whose ministry is in close contact with the community".

Thus, in Villafáfila, we can distinguish the local clergy in charge of the different parishes and who come from and form part of the community and the delegated administrators of the great ecclesiastical owners.

Villafáfila was the seat of the most southeast archpriesthood of the diocese of Astorga, where the archpriest lived, whose first mention is from 1156, and under his authority was the parish clergy. The archpriests were usually members of the local oligarchies and were more in tune with the local clerics and town authorities than with the episcopal power. Thus, in the lawsuit of 1156 over the ownership of a salt mine between the monks of Castañeda and some residents of Villafáfila, the archpriest Salvador Peláez is cited as part of the clergy and lay parishioners of Villafáfila who had to defend the rights of their neighbors.

The clerics represent a privileged group within the town, who, as Martínez Sopena says, "do not cease to have a pre-eminent position within the community. Their income derived from their participation in the tithes and the income from the assets of the churches they serve they provide them with more abundant resources than the common neighbors”.

In addition, local clergy enjoy exemptions from certain benefits. This makes them form a separate group; and in fact, in the confirmation of the agreement of 1235, they sign in a separate column, separated from the residents of the town and the episcopal clergy.

Sometimes the clerics are owners of churches, as is the case of Román Arias in 1165. Other times they own various episcopal assets in usufruct or rent, such as the Santa Marina salt mine that the cleric of San Salvador rented in 1310.

The number of members of the local clergy increases as the number of churches grows, thus in 1156 three are documented and in 1235 the clerics of the town confirm a document in a separate column from the other neighbors and sign ten.

The clergymen of the town and the villages had certain obligations with the Bishop of Astorga, among which were “concurring with your Excellency with the part of the procuration that corresponds to them, as the clergymen of that place and the archdeacon of that territory and the canons are obliged de Santa María faithfully pay their forums annually” according to the transaction and agreement signed between Bishop D Fernando and the abbot of San Claudio regarding the consecration of the church of San Clemente de Fortiñuela [8] ). In 1161 the monastery of Eslonza agrees to provide lodging for the archdeacon of the Páramo with 10 men and 6 beasts when he visits the town.

Failure to comply with these obligations by the monasteries owning churches in Villafáfila had given rise to several lawsuits. Around the year 1178, Pope Alexander III issued a brief in which he ordered the Bishop of Astorga, D Fernando, to re-consecrate the church that the monks of San Claudio had in Villafáfila, and which in the time of Bishop D Arnaldo had been consecrated by a heretic who called himself a bishop accompanied by his archdeacons. Despite the fact that the monks offered her the third of the tithes, the bishop had not wanted to go to consecrate her. The Pope urges him not to agree to receive or take anything by reason of the consecration.[9] .

The origin of the clerics had to be twofold:

-those who served monastic or episcopal churches would be appointed by the owners of the churches and would generally exercise the foreign benefits, although in the performance of their duties they would be integrated into the town. So in 1287 Pedro Domínguez, priest of San Martín, promises to make his house and room there and to be a vassal of the bishop of Astorga. Other times the cleric proposed for the curazgo is a resident of the town, but receives a plot of land from the owner of the church, as in 1291 Juan Domínguez commits himself to the monastery of Eslonza, so that in his house he receives the abbot, monks or vassals when they go to Villafáfila, as well as specifying the economic type of obligations contracted with the monastery. Still in 1332 the monastery of Sahagún presents Domingo Juan as priest of the church of San Miguel;

-those who served churches owned by the parishioners (San Pedro, San Andrés, San Salvador, Santa Marta) were to be presented by them and were generally elected parishioners or neighbors.

The increase in the number of clerics and their awareness of being a privileged or at least differentiated group led them to the constitution of brotherhoods or chapters of clerics, documented in Villalpando in 1198 and in Mayorga in 1251. In Villafáfila we know that the clerics were grouped in a chapter in 1241, which should not have been constituted much earlier, since on that date it still did not have a seal and they must use the seal of the archpriest to confirm an agreement. Thus, the clerics associated in the chapter, and with their archpriest at the head, are capable of suing against the convent of San Marcos de León over the distribution of tithes in 1241 and 1379.

In some places, such as Mayorga, the council was a closed association that only brought together a certain number of the town's clerics. In the case of Villafáfila we know that it was made up of the clerics of the town, distinguishing them from other clerics of the Villafáfila term. These councils served, in the case of Villalpando, to accumulate properties, although in Villafáfila the assets of the brotherhood of clerics of San Gervás are documented in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but the true accumulation of land and censuses did not occur until the end of the s.XVI, when a new council is constituted.

Another group of the clergy was made up of the administrators of the properties of the great ecclesiastical institutions that possessed property in Villafáfila and its land.

We have no evidence that the monastery of Sahagún had any type of administrator of its assets in Villafáfila from the 12th century, although in the 10th century we know of the existence of friars living in Lampreana, who confirm purchase documents, perhaps in charge of administering monastic property. From the 13th century, their policy was to lease their properties.

The cathedral of León had an exempt man in charge of collecting the tithe of the salt toll and defending the rights of the Leonese canons in the 11th century. We do not know if this situation would continue later.

The monastery of Moreruela had a farm in Villafáfila and a cellar in charge of which there had to be a magister grangiae in addition to other monks and converts who worked there.

In the farm that the monastery of Sobrado had in Santo Tirso, the magister grangiam is documented until 1222 and in 1215 two other friars are cited (Loscertales).

The best documented case is that of the monastery of San Pedro de Eslonza. We know that Juan Spora "obedencialis" of the aforementioned monastery was in charge of the finances of this monastery, buying, selling and exchanging real estate in Villafáfila and Revellinos with absolute power. He stayed in the town between 1143 and 1182, even going to León to attend a concert on the tithes of Santa María between the abbot and the bishop of Astorga. In 1202 in front of the house of Santa María del Moral, which represented a kind of priory of the monastery, there is a prior, as well as a monk and the chaplain priest in charge of the cult.

The archpriests used to be influential people in the community and used to come from the villainous oligarchies. Some at his death made some religious foundations such as the case of the archpriest Alonso Fernández, who died in 1495 who was buried in San Pedro where his grave still existed in 1903: Sepulchral slab, which was in the chapel on the north side, and It is made of sandstone, with a recumbent cleric figured in half-relief, and an epitaph around it in Gothic letters, which reads:

“ Here lies the honorable man Aº Fernandes acipste who was from this vª e cura de la villa d sant pº who passed away from this life in the year of a thousand CCCCXCV. The ql founded this chapel to sº de Dios e de Sant Ildefonso and gave XXVI loads of bread in Revellinos ” [10] .

In the fifteenth century we observe the hoarding of archpriest dignity in several members of the same family. Thus, Juan Fernández, archpriest since before 1453, and a cleric in Villafáfila since before 1436, brought his brother Alonso Fernández to this town when he was a boy and succeeded him in the archpriesthood when he died in 1475.

Of the formation of the clerics we have little news. We know that Salvador Facera, priest of San Andrés, who was born around 1480, the son of a salt shaker:

 "Two and a half years he was in the study outside the said village"

The Jews

The presence of Jewish communities in the towns and cities of Tierra de Campos is known; Jewish quarters existed in Mayorga, Benavente, Villalpando, etc.

In Villafáfila we have references to a Jewish merino named Abraam, who appears cited from 1177 to 1201. As we already know, the merino was the king's representative in the town, so he must have enjoyed the monarch's trust and had a privileged position. of a certain privilege.

Another indirect reference to this period is the sale in Muélledes of a salt mine in 1183 “ que fuet de Sol Daniele ” an anthroponym that seems to denote a Jewish character, and among the confirming ones are Salomon, Michael Meimon and Don Simon, all of them names that seem Jewish. .

The presence of Jews in the Late Middle Ages is also documented. Some were related to the lease of the salt mines, so from 1455 to 1460 they were leased to Benjamín Odara, a Jew from Torrelobatón.

In the repartimientos of the service to the Jews between 1472 and 1492, those from Villafáfila did not form aljama but were shared with the Jewish quarter of Benavente and the Jews of Alija and Castrocalbón.

We have little news of the activities of the Jews who lived in Villafáfila, except for the hint of 1492 when García de Matanza, a resident of Burgos, requested and obtained from the kings a provision for Amez and Volante, Jews from Villafáfila, to pay him the debts owed to him. they have contracted for the advance of money for the purchase of wool.

The Saltmen

The salt producers receive the denomination of “ los salmenteros de Villafáfila ”, in some references as a collective [11] , or of salineros in individual references in 1496: “ Alonso de Caramaçana salinero ” [12] or in 1508: “Juan Garçia Salinero ” [13] . It is usually a family activity transmitting the occupation from parents to children who lease or exploit different cabins, surely transferring the extractive techniques generationally. We are aware of some producers from the end of the 15th century, whose fathers, uncles or brothers were also saltmen or salineros. Thus, in 1528 they were appointed apeadores of the cabin and salt inns of the monastery of Moreruela:

 "Salbador Fazera the elder and Bernardo Ryvera who are old people and men who have had cabins and have treated and scratched them and may well know where the limits and milestones go."

That same year, in a lawsuit between the monastery of Moreruela and Doña Inés Pimentel over the right to barge in Quintos, we have their testimony:

“Bernardo de Ribera that at seventy-five years old, a little more or less... this witness being twelve years old, a little more or less [h.1465], while he was with his father in Villafáfila, he began to try and go to the mountains of Távara to fetch firewood for a salt-making cabin that said his father had in the said town, which he kept until he died, which could be forty years old, and said Pedro Ribera had his father when he died ninety years old, a little more or less”; he himself continued to dedicate himself to salt production after 1504 “and after the death of the said Mr. Don Pedro, he went to get firewood to make the salt” .

From the case of Salvador Facera we have more documentary references. He was born in the mid-fifteenth century and was the son of a salt shaker, a term they themselves use to name themselves:

“Salvador Fazera, from eighty-one to eighty-two years old, a little more or less, and he remembers being seventy years old here... and the father of this witness named Garçia de Caramaçana, who died, may have been sixty years old, who was steward of the commander of Castrotorafe He had a salt shack belonging to said Commander and he had been there for seven or eight years and this witness, while with his father, went to the mountains of Távara for firewood with his father's young men to make salt” .

He must have had some relationship with "Alonso de Caramaçana salinero" , who is cited in 1496. When he was a boy he attended the civil wars of the reign of Enrique IV as a squire of a nobleman from Villafáfila, a continuation of the Count of Benavente:

“When he was fifteen years old he went to war with a Martín de Barrio, the old man, to Symancas, when King Don Alonso was there, when there were differences between King Don Enrique and King Don Alonso”. In his early twenties he got married and dedicated himself to the salt activity: “when this witness got married he could have been 60 years old, then he calibrated a salt shack at the Moreruela monastery in the said town of Villafáfila and had it calibrated for more than 20 years” [14] . Of his known descendants, one became a cleric and was a priest of San Andrés and another, Lázaro Facera, dedicated himself to the salt activity and rented the commander's cabin between 1524 and 1526. This activity must not have been very profitable, since in 1544 He is one of the poor that a farmer from Villafáfila orders to dress in his will.

Juan del Prado had his own cabin, close to that of the commander that Salvador Facera's father had, with whom he was friends. In 1465 he went to the same civil war, to the real de Simancas, but on the opposite side, supporting King Enrique IV, with his horse and weapons, and for this service the king granted him a privilege of nobility, which he presented in the plaza from the town to the public council, for recognition. In 1475 he had to go to the battle of Toro in the service of the Catholic Monarchs and deliver a certain amount of money so that the privilege would be confirmed by his Highnesses. He married in San Martín with all the honor and one of his children, Gómez del Prado, continued with the cabin, although it is possible that other children continued with the activity:

“He knew Pedro Alonso and his brother, Gómez del Prado, neighbors of Villafáfila, deceased for more than twenty-five years and Juan Alonso, who had been a salt miner for a long time, and died more than twenty-eight years ago and would have been seventy years old” .

Other well-known salt shakers from the end of the 15th century were Pedro Suarez de Valdés, who in a testimony from 1481 declares himself a son of a dalgo and a resident of Villafáfila, who in the times of King Juan I went to war in the Vega de Granada in 1431; Peter Short:

“I heard Pedro Suarez and Pedro Curto say that they had already died for more than thirty years and that they would have been 90 years old when they died that they had had salt huts in the town of Villafáfila and had known to be the lord of the town of Távara at Diego de Almança who leased the said mountains and paid Diego de Almança's foreman the rent of the mountain and the boat, which was called the barca de Quintos”, and others: “Diego Aguado ya Calleja who would have been 90 years old when he died , it could be twelve years ago, a little more or less” .

Some of the owners or usufructuaries of inns were dedicated to transporting the manufactured salt to the markets of Zamora, as is the case of Juan de Aller, who owned several inns, and who in 1502 received permission from the Zamora aldermen so that he could remove wheat from the city because it carries loads of salt to it [15] .

We know other neighbors who in the 16th century were dedicated to the salt industry. In 1508 a neighbor named Juan García Salinero [16] is mentioned ; in 1528 Gorjón, Chamorro, Francisco Sanchón and Juan del Canto dedicated themselves to this trade; and the tenants of the commander's cabin in the first half of the 16th century are Francisco Garzón, Francisco Riesco, Lázaro Fazera or Domingo Prieto. These tenants, as production decreased, lost social and economic status, as related in 1543:

“The cabin, if it were better dressed and repaired than it is now, could be worth two thousand more than what it is worth now, because those who currently rent it are poor people and do not have the power to repair and dress it, as it would be. whoever it was and could do it and dress the wells and dimples and put another peat, with which the said two thousand more each year would yield well " ,

and thus, the last tenant of the same cabin of the Marquis of Távara in 1560, Juan Gorjón, is listed in the 1586 register as an old day laborer; in contrast to what happened half a century before, when the salmenteros or salineros, as they belonged to the oligarchy of the town, if we could apply this name, had enough power in the council for it to lease Don Pedro Pimentel along with the alcabalas "the mount and alvalerias" . The use of the Mount of Quintos was done by the cattle and by the salt miners to obtain the necessary firewood for their cabins.

The clerics were also dedicated to the salt activity, such as the priest of San Salvador who in 1310 leased the Santa Marina salt mine that belonged to the bishop [17] , or Lope Ferrández, priest of San Pedro, from 1496, and chaplain of Santa María y Santa Marina, founded in San Martín before 1475, by Juan Álvarez and Aldara López, whose assets included several salt inns, which the priest operated through his servants:

“He made his servants pass through the boat with carts that brought firewood to make the salt” .

At the end of the 15th century, most of the cabins whose owners we know belong to well-to-do neighbors of the town, gentlemen or clerics, related to each other, although possession would be effective, the nominal property of the cabins could belong to some ecclesiastical institution, to which an annual forum was paid, which did not prevent it from being transmitted to his heirs. The clergyman Juan González owned a cabin in Villafáfila, which in 1507 he donated to his nephew Pedro de Almança, a hidalgo:

"I send Pedro de Almança, my nephew, my cabin that I have in the said town with his jurisdiction... which said cabin sent him with all his graters according to what I had and owned until now . "

Some of the inns documented in the 16th century as belonging to religious foundations or chaplaincies such as Santa María and Santa Marina, Santa Catalina, San Antón and San Ildefonso, which had been founded in the previous century by wealthy lay or clergy neighbors, would come from the dotal assets of the founders, confirming the social extraction of the owners of salt mines at the end of the Middle Ages, who used the surpluses that their activity allowed them in some cases to save their souls and in others to social elevation with obtaining the status of hidalguía.

One of the last cabin owners who maintained salt production on their own was Alonso González. Still in 1543 he paid the alcabala for the salt that produced 900 mrs. He is a notorious hidalgo, as he is called in the 1541 register, who was born around 1475. His father, who appears cited as a "squire" in 1494, was the aforementioned cleric brother, Juan González, and the archpriest Fernán Fernández, possessors both from cabins of ecclesiastical institutions. Likewise, he was related to other well-known cabin owners, such as Luis de Barrio, Alonso de Villacorta and Juan de Villagómez. His situation had to be accommodated, since he married Juana Vázquez de Losada, lady of Anta de Tera. In addition to the inns in his cabin, he leased or at least operated the inns in San Agustín and Santa Catalina.

The end of the salt exploitation

In the middle of the 16th century there were only three cabins left producing salt in Villafáfila, one belonging to the Order of Santiago that passed to Don Bernaldino Pimentel when he bought the lordship of the town in 1541, that of Alonso González, which would possibly be abandoned at his death, and another of which we do not know its owner.

The intentions of the new lord of the town included the maintenance and increase, if possible, of salt production, for which he acquired in 1558 “a hut to make salt with its spring and its oyuelos and its inns, which are understood to be they are salt raiaderos” to Juan de Villaturiel, a resident of Zamora for 100 reais [18] . Previously, this cabin had belonged to Mr. Figueroa, who had held the position of Mayor in Villafáfila at the beginning of the 16th century. But in 1560 he had not yet put it into service because it was found: “without rigging or roofing, all fallen and in disrepair” , unlike the other one that was found: “very well roofed and dressed ” [19] .

The royal provisions of those years such as the Royal Certificate of 1564 by which Philip II definitively incorporated all the salt mines of Castile into the crown, rewarding their owners:

"We incorporated into our Crown... the salt flats that some knights, councils and other private persons had... making them a just reward", prohibiting the manufacture of salt without a royal license: "we order and command... do not work neither salt be made in the salt pans, nor in the wells, but in those that by our command, order and hand and license will be worked and made " [20] ,

They caused the definitive abandonment of salt extraction from the Lagunas de Villafáfila.

Author-Text:

Elias Rodriguez Rodriguez:

The Salmenteros or Salineros in the medieval society of Villafáfila.

History of salt mines in the Villafáfila lagoons. P. 104 to 114.

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

Photography:

Elijah Rodriguez Rodriguez.

Jose Luis Dominguez Martinez.

Wow Camarena.

Translation and montage:

Jose Luis Dominguez Martinez.

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