BRINGING HERITAGE CLOSER. CORELLA

25 August 2010

The holiday calendar
D. Francisco J. Alfaro Pérez. University of Zaragoza

The festive calendar of the city of Corella, until not so distant dates, is that of a Catholic place. It has been forged by the inheritance of the Roman culture (with its antecedents), the Christian tradition and the character emanated from the Counter-Reformation movement, as has happened in most of the former possessions of Hispanic Western Europe.

Among its celebrations, those of a more general nature alternate with others that are more specific or local, but not always exclusive, such as those of San Miguel, Nuestra Señora de la Merced, Nuestra Señora del Villar or Nuestra Señora de Araceli. However, the most important were certainly those of Corpus Christi and the Immaculate Conception, followed by those of Easter and Christmas.

Together with the festivities of religious character, in Corella, as in other places, they always coexisted with other civil or profane festivities less regular, predictable and solemn. Of these, we can highlight the visits of authorities to the city, such as that of Philip V or the receptions given to the viceroys of Navarre at entrance for the first time in the old kingdom; but there were more such as, for example, the fairs or markets (in June or September), the musical siestas in the palaces of the great local families, or the irreverent masquerades and cencerradas generating disturbances.

In general, the festive and religious calendar coexisted harmoniously with the natural calendar (basically with the agricultural chores). The festivals used to coincide, although not all of them, with the culmination of the harvesting of the fruits or in the moments immediately prior to it. As several scholars have already shown, the choice of holidays is not random, but is a consequence of multiple causes such as the eradication or adaptation of pagan festivities to Christianity or the aforementioned coordination with the annual economic work, among others, contributing with the stigma of the sacred to eradicate most of the time some unhealthy behaviors. However, when the natural calendar did not coincide with the religious calendar, the weight of the sacred was felt. Easily verifiable matter for the XVI, XVII and XVIII centuries when we observe in the quinque libri corellanos an accentuated decrease of the conceptions there by the month of April, in Holy Week, explainable only by the obedience of the parishioners to the sexual abstinence proposal by their cures of souls.

Thus, the knowledge of the festive calendar of Corella in past times is really useful to know better numerous cultural, religious, historical and even demographic aspects of a society of which we all are consciously or unconsciously heirs.