Tag: population

Santo Domingo de la Calzada

the popular town of Santo Domingo de la Calzada takes its name from Domingo García, an 11th century hermit who improved conditions on the Camino for peregrinos. he repeatedly tried to join the Benedictines, spending time studying at two different monasteries, but he proved so inept in his studies they refused to let him continue. still determined to live a religious life, he became a hermit and, following a dream, went to work with San Gregorio Ostiense (who’d been sent by papal envoy to to address a locust plague affecting Navarra and Rioja) improving the Camino in Rioja. when Gregorio died, Domingo returned to the region of the rio Oja (where he’d been a hermit) to continue their work.

his first project was building a stone causeway (calzada), leading to the wooden bridge he’d helped Gregorio construct. it served served as an alternative to the Roman route between Burgos and Leon. that done, he used a sickle to cut 37 kilometers of road through forests to improve the route between Nájera and Redecilla del Camino (on the way to Belorado). as this route became more popular, he replaced the wooden bridge with one of stone. soon thereafter, García Sánchez III granted Domingo permission to convert an old fort into un hospital de peregrinos; around this hospice a larger village grew.

peregrino statue/fountain

when King Alfonso VI of Castilla captured the area in 1076, he enlisted Domingo’s help in civic works projects like those he’d already undertaken. (Alfonso VI was the first to officially refer to the region as “La Rioja” after the river that is the region’s focal point. I felt silly for not noting this fact earlier.) together with a disciple (San Juan de Ortega), Domingo devoted the remainder of his live to improving the Camino — rebuilding bridges, clearing more roadway, anything that bolstered his vision. he devoted his last few years to constructing a church in the village, where he was buried upon his death in 1109. though his church burned in the mid-12th century, the replacement (a colegiata) was much larger and sufficiently impressive to warrant the transfer of the bishopric from Calahorra there in 1227.

as with all saints, miracles are attributed to Santo Domingo de la Calzada, about which you can read more here. suffice it to say that, in honor of Domingo’s miracles, a rooster and a chicken (with white feathers) are kept on the cathedral grounds and peregrinos used to gather feathers from the birds and affix them to their hats. it was said that if one of the chickens ate directly from the hand of a particular peregrino it meant he (or she) would make it to Santiago de Compostela safely.

again, the village location on the Navarra-Castilla frontier meant it changed hands more often than residents enjoyed — six times between 1076 and 1143 (with Castilla ultimately victorious). two centuries later it was also the focal point of Pedro the Cruel’s ill-fated war against his brother; leading up to 1364, Pedro had 38 towers and 7 gates built along a 1.6 kilometer wall that enclosed the city. those walls remained largely intact until 1886; today only the fragments of 8 towers, 2 gates, and 300 meters of wall remain.

unlike many of the other small towns that we passed through on our way to Santo Domingo de la Calzada, this town has grown fairly steadily since the 1850s. as of 2010 the population stands at just under 7,000 inhabitants.

Castillo de Villamayor de Monjardin

Sierra Urbasa to the north of the Camino

the castle of San Esteban de Deyo watches over the town of Villamayor du Monjardin, which was likely established by Sancho el Fuerte at the end of the 12th century. the base of the castle is likely Roman, though it’s been reconstructed many times over the centuries — and was host to some kind of construction work when we saw it — and was one of the last strongholds of the Banu Qasi Muslims in the region, who were ultimately defeated in the 10th century. one version of events contends that Sancho Garces (of whom there was a statue near where we stopped for our mid-morning snack) captured the castle and town from the Moors in 914; another (a propaganda vehicle for French interests in Iberia, apparently) holds that Charlemagne defeated a Navarran prince who was holed up in the castle before going on to Najera to fight Ferragut.

the area was under Moorish control towards the end of the first millennium and there’s a fountain and/or cistern just outside the town to whom the Moors are said to have constructed. it’s been rebuilt and is rather picturesque, if not entirely enticing as a source to refill one’s water pack.

Fuente de Moros outside Villamayor

there are a surprising number of “Villamayors” in Spain (we stayed in another 20 days after this segment) and so, to mitigate the understandable confusion, in 1908 the Spanish government amended the names of all the Villamayors — often with the name of a nearby geographical feature, such as the hill upon which the castillo sits here.

interestingly, after a steady decline throughout the twentieth century, in the last thirty years the town’s population has grown. granted, that growth took it from 113 inhabitants in 1981 to 139 inhabitants in 2011.