On the third centenary of the
Chapel of San Fermín (1717-2017)
IDENTITY, ART AND DEVOTION

September 13, 2017

protocol and ceremonial around San Fermín
D. Alejandro Aranda Ruiz. Chair of Heritage and Art of Navarre.
 

1. San Fermín as a festive landmark and image of the city of Pamplona  

San Fermín was the center around which the main public celebrations in Pamplona took place during the Ancien Régime. Even today, the festivities of San Fermín constitute the great festive landmark of the capital of Navarre. In the past, this fact was even more striking since the San Fermín festival was just one of the many festivities and ceremonies promoted by the different urban institutions throughout the year.

In addition to the significant weight that San Fermín had among all the ordinary festive and ceremonial events of the City, it is worth mentioning the special link that this feast had with the Pamplona City Council. In fact, until 1656 the Regiment was the only institution that officially celebrated San Fermín, evidently leaving aside the Cathedral Chapter, in whose oldest liturgical books, such as the breviaries of 1332, 1349-54 and 1383, the official document of the saint already appears. There are several reasons behind the prominence of the feast of San Fermín and its close link with the Pamplona Regiment.

The Modern Age was the time when the figure of San Fermín was developed and consolidated not only as patron saint of Navarra but also as the image of the City of Pamplona. Although the first existing news of San Fermin date back to the ninth century and his cult in Navarra is documented at least since the twelfth century, the real growth and consolidation of devotion to the saint and his feast did not occur until the Modern Age. quotation San Fermín had all those features appreciated by the society of the XVI and XVII centuries: saint of the first centuries of the Church, if not of apostolic times, and local saint and of noble birth. In addition, he was a bishop and a martyr, two particularly significant conditions in the midst of the Counter-Reformation.

Likewise, it was in the modern centuries, especially in the XVII and XVIII centuries, when the history and identity of the Kingdom and its capital were constructed. In the 17th century, the Annals of the Kingdom of Navarre were written by the Jesuit Moret, whose cover is decorated with images of San Fermín and San Francisco Javier and whose pages contain long paragraphs dedicated to the life of the first bishop of Pamplona. San Fermín becomes an argument to demonstrate and emphasize the primacy and antiquity of Pamplona over the other cities of Navarra and even Spain. In the Ancien Régime the prestige of a city was measured in parameters of religion and antiquity. Thus, with San Fermín Pamplona demonstrated that it was ancient and one of the first cities of the Hispanic Monarchy to convert to the faith.
 

2. protocol and ceremonial for a feast, a patron saint and a city: the "Castilian invariants" of the festival

It is for all these reasons that the City Hall was the main protagonist of the feast of San Fermín along with the patron saint. For reasons of time, of the three commemorations with which San Fermín was honored annually in Pamplona throughout the Modern Age (invention of the relics, around January 13; entrance of San Fermín in Amiens, on October 10 and since 1590 on July 7; martyrdom of San Fermín, on September 25) the feast that will be discussed in this discussion paper will be that of July 7.

Many authors have talked about this festival and contributed numerous data and curiosities. Names such as Núñez de Cepeda, Arazuri, Martinena, Valentín Redín, Jesús Arraiza or Fermín Garralda appear linked to issues related to Pamplona, its protocol and its festivities and constitute an unavoidable starting point for anyone interested in this topic. Likewise, the documentation of the Municipal file as the ceremonial of the City of the XVIII century or the books of municipal conference proceedings provide some clues of how was the feast of San Fermin and the protocol and ceremonial linked to it in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The feast, as belonging to the category of the main solemnities, had first vespers on the evening of July 6 and the octave celebration eight days later. However, the most interesting moment from the ceremonial point of view were the acts of the morning of July 7.

These acts of the day of San Fermín were developed and consolidated over the years. This allows us to speak, borrowing Chueca Goitia's term, of "invariantes castizos" of the fiesta, since they are the elements that define and characterize the fiesta and procession of San Fermín. In fact, almost all of these festive "ingredients" have survived to the present day, although some of them have undergone changes with the passage of time. Among these invariants are the schedule of the festivity, the seasonal character of the procession, the processional route, the presence of sound and visual stimuli such as gunpowder, music, the giants, the dances, the bells and the ornamentation or the presence of civil and ecclesiastical authorities.

With regard to the time, in the program of the fiestas of this past Sanfermines it is possible to verify that the appointed time for the procession is ten o'clock in the morning. However, this was not always the case. In the XVII century it can be seen that the schedule was not fixed, although almost every year the aldermen used to congregate in the Town Hall between ten and eleven o'clock in the morning. The tardiness of the Town Hall must have been proverbial, causing that, late in the XVIII century, the ten o'clock hour was established as fixed.

Another characteristic element of the day of San Fermín is the seasonal nature of the procession, which explains why the 7th of July is structured in three main movements: the transfer from the cathedral to San Lorenzo, the procession and mass of San Fermín and the return of San Lorenzo to the cathedral. These ceremonies, which are already documented in 1527, would not be fixed until 1626.

The third invariant is the processional route, which has remained practically unchanged over time, being almost the same as it is today.

On the other hand, essential elements of any fiesta are the sound and visual aspects. Gunpowder was a recurring element in the San Fermin festival, although today it has disappeared. The firing of salvos of honor or the burning of fires along the route of the procession must have been habitual. Along with gunpowder, music also played an important role. Nowadays the sound of the jotas, rondallas and music band is the predominant sound background of the procession, but this is very recent. Until not so many years ago, the procession's sonority was dominated by the antiphons related to the martyrdom. Also, since 1761 the procession concluded with an antiphon, some verses and the prayer of the saint, which until 2015, was the traditional prayer, attributed to Pope Benedict XIV, Deus qui per fidei praeconium.

To the music were added the giants, who from the XVII century, reached a growing prominence, the dances and the bells. To this was added the ornamentation that on the occasion of the celebration invaded all the spaces in which it took place: the Town Hall, the chapel of San Fermin and the processional route. The participants in the fiesta also adorned themselves with the goal to project their authority and position to the city. It is to be expected that, together with the choral habits of the Pamplona capitulars, the ecclesiastical presidency of the Cabildo would wear the cathedral's best incarnate vestments, which since 1786 consisted of the richly embroidered terno by the Aragonese Francisco Linzuáin. For their part, the aldermen wore their suits of golilla completed with the veera, the chain, the cordoncillo and the jewel. In addition to the costumes, the regidores were accompanied by the clarions and timbales adorned with rich embroidered cloths and the three silver maces. The presence of the standard-bearer with the banner of the city also emphasized the special solemnity of this day, since of the many occasions in which the City Hall went out to the street in Cuerpo de Ciudad, only in the processions of Corpus Christi and San Fermin was it used.

Finally, it can be mentioned as a typical invariant of the celebration the presence of different authorities together with the City and the Cabildo. The guilds began to participate with their banners in the procession by municipal decision in 1632. The attendance of the representatives of the trades of the city underlines the character of the procession of San Fermin as a ceremonial expression of the Baroque city. With them all the social strata were given quotation around the saint patron saint: the clergy through their canons, parishes and religious communities, the political authorities with the City Council and the people through their guilds and brotherhoods. In spite of its scarce attendance, the attendance of viceroys and bishops to this celebration also took place throughout the Modern Age using with them a complex ceremonial that sometimes aroused the misgivings of the municipal institution. On the contrary, the presence of the Royal Courts and the Diputación or the Cortes is not noted, which reinforces the idea of San Fermín as a saint of the city of Pamplona and its City Hall.
 

3. Conclusion

The festival of San Fermín ended up consolidating itself as the main annual celebration not only of the City Council of Pamplona, but also of the entire city of Pamplona. The festival of the patron saint of Navarra and the protocol and the ceremonial associated with it are a reflection of how Pamplona saw itself, how its elites saw it and what image they wanted to project. A festival made up of a series of elements forged over time, some of which remain despite the passing of the centuries. In fact, the festival has been preserved largely as our grandparents celebrated it (schedules, characters, costumes). The morning of July 7 opens to the eyes of the 21st century as if it were a small window to the past. However, the rapid and dizzying changes of the society of globalization and technology make today a very different context from that of the centuries of the Ancien Régime. Rampant secularization and the disappearance, transformation and appearance of multiple and diverse identities that have little or nothing to do with those of the past are some of the most evident changes. It is in this new context in which the future and meaning of the festival is posed.