23 September

Global Seminars & Invited Speaker Series

VIANA IN ITS VIII CENTENARY: CULTURE AND HERITAGE
History of the stories of Viana

Román Felones Morrás
classroom of Experience, UPNA

There are few cities that have such an exact date of birth as Viana. The date and royal sign are unequivocal: "And for greater confirmation and firmness of this regional law, this is my sign that follows below, I place and confirm in the present letter. Sign of Don Sancho (Eagle), King of Navarre. This letter was written at Tudela, in the month of April, in the year one thousand two hundred and fifty-seven. Reigning I don Sancho, King of Navarre. Being Don Guillermo Bishop of Pamplona".

Eagle Privilege.

The foundation of Viana must be placed in the preceding historical context, that is, the loss of the territories of Alava, Duranguesado and Guipúzcoa in the year 1200, after which the Navarrese king tried to strengthen the southwestern border of Navarre by means of a set of fortified nuclei, with a clear defensive intention, thus avoiding new losses of territory. To this must be added economic reasons, since the promotion of new urban centers, especially those located on the route to Santiago, was one of the objectives pursued to reactivate socially and economically the kingdom.

This privilege meant the economic, social and legal transformation of the existing status , as well as a transcendental change in the condition of its inhabitants. The regional law was later confirmed and increased by Theobald II, Henry I, Charles II and Charles III. The latter, on January 20, 1426, erected the Principality of Viana, with the degree scroll falling to the firstborn of the royal family.

Two centuries later, on May 14, 1630, Philip IV granted Viana the degree scroll of city.

Viana has had, throughout its history, five texts that deserve to be called histories in the strict sense of the word. The inaugural lecture of the cycle was dedicated to studying in some detail the details of each one.

Ioan de Amiax, Ramillete de Nuestra Señora de Codes, Pamplona, Carlos de Labayen, 1608. Facsimile edition, Pamplona, Sancho el Fuerte Publicaciones, 2015.

Juan de Amiax was born in 1564 and died in 1642. He was the first-born son of the Biscayan stonemason of the same name, who arrived in the then town of Viana in the middle of the 16th century to work on the Renaissance façade that was to be erected in the church of Santa María. He followed the religious life so frequent at the time and, after being ordained a priest, he served for a few years as chaplain of the Royal Navy, traveled to the Indies and, upon his return to Viana, was one of the 37 beneficiaries who attended the two parishes of Viana, in his case in the parish of San Pedro.

The volume was published in 1608 and is divided into four "books". The third describes the saints who were born or lived in the diocese of Calahorra and offers the list of its bishops since the year 465. It is here where, in one of his digressions, he dwells at length on the history of Viana. This occupies pages 102 to 122 and is degree scroll "speech second, how by the preaching of St. Paul, the noble town of Viana was founded; and how it came to be the head of the Principality, and head of the Clymata of Navarre".

The summary of this text leaves no room for doubt: it responds to an uncritical, apologetic history, little concerned with the historical facts themselves and inserted in a text of purely religious content.

Eduardo Gancedo, Recuerdos de Viana o Apuntes históricos de esta Muy Noble y Muy Leal Ciudad del Reino de Navarra, Gráficas Halar, Madrid, 1933.

In 1933, Eduardo Gancedo, a Paul born in Viana, published Recuerdos de Viana or Apuntes históricos (Memories of Viana or Historical Notes) in a Madrid printing house. Gancedo is aware of his limitations. He is not a professional historian, he has been 23 years in the Philippines and has not been able to consult the documents or books he would have liked, but, about to edit the work, he has taken advantage of his stays in Viana for several months, after returning from the Philippines, to browse the parish and municipal archives and fill in the Apuntes written in the distance.

The 169-page book consists of an Introduction and 23 chapters, 19 of which are devoted to the history itself, to which is added one of conclusions, another with the chronology of the kings of Navarre since the foundation of the city, another of bibliography, and a final one, graduate Memorandum, in which some significant dates in the history of the city are collected.

Written with a good pen, although in the somewhat pompous and rhetorical style of its time, the result, as was to be expected, is irregular, discontinuous in time and in the subjects studied, with preferential attention to the medieval period and to the art and history of the parishes and convents of Viana. But, in my opinion, in front of the shadows, the lights prevail: Eduardo Gancedo is the author of what can be called, with all its limitations, the first history of Viana. Incomplete, irregular, slanted if you will, but history at the end of the day, with the desire to place the document as source of all legitimacy.

Eliseo Sáinz Ripa, Viana, Temas de Cultura Popular, n.º 48, Diputación Foral de Navarra, Pamplona, 1969.

The collection "Navarra. Temas de Cultura Popular" (Themes of Popular Culture) published nearly 400 titles on various subjects, mainly of a historical, cultural and ethnographic nature. The issue 48 of the collection, published in 1969, is the work of Eliseo Sáinz Ripa (1923-2005), canon, archivist and historian. Eliseo Sáinz Ripa's booklet is not negligible. Once again, and this is the third time, medieval Viana takes up most of the text. The modern and contemporary Viana is reduced to little more than thick strokes without novelties worthy of note. position A brief list of illustrious Vianeses closes the work, in which for the first time a woman appears: Inés de Múzquiz, who financed the arrival of the daughters of charity in Viana to take charge of the Education of the children and the care of the elderly. Among the positive aspects of the booklet we should highlight the clean prose of the historian of official document that Sáinz had; the chronological cadence of the story, and the presence of social and cultural elements in a history until now exclusively political and military. A booklet that, undoubtedly, adequately fulfilled its intended purpose.

Juan Cruz Labeaga Mendiola, Viana monumental y artística, Gobierno de Navarra y Ayuntamiento de Viana, Pamplona, 1984.

Juan Cruz Labeaga Mendiola was born in the city of Viana on January 16, 1939. Ordained priest, he was assigned as curate and organist to the parishes of the city of Sangüesa, where he remained for 37 years (from 1965 to 2002). During this time, he graduated in Geography and History at the University of Navarra, and in 1981 he received his doctorate in Art History with a thesis entitled "Viana monumental y artística", the specific object of our study.

When Labeaga published his doctoral thesis in 1981, the author was already 42 years old and was not a local scholar of merit, but a very well prepared historian, with a solid university programs of study and a brilliant curriculum in the most varied fields of the Humanities, something that does not happen frequently.

The dense 494-page volume consists of an introduction, five major chapters, an index of artists and a documentary appendix . In my opinion, the following are the most outstanding features of the study: the study is a perfect example of an academic monograph, perfectly resolved. It stands out for the knowledge and use of primary sources when addressing the relevant programs of study . It also stands out for its multifaceted vision of history. He knows how to combine with simplicity the specialized knowledge with accessible language. He is also a grateful and modest author, despite being, without a doubt, the most important historian of the history of his city. In final, although the artistic field is the preferred one, the text is much more than a history of the art of Viana itself, to constitute an approach to the history of the city, written by a historian who perfectly knows his official document.

Juan Cruz Labeaga Mendiola, Viana, Panorama Collection No. 37, Government of Navarra, Pamplona, 2006.

The 99 pages of text, magnificently illustrated with a series of black and white and color photos, are organized into eleven headings, unequal in breadth, but all of great interest.

In the academic world, this book of high knowledge dissemination may be considered a minor work. This is a serious mistake. Those of us who have approached similar works know the difficulty of these texts. It is the work of a historian of official document, a great first-hand connoisseur of the history of Viana, accustomed to dealing with very diverse aspects of the history of his city. It is, in short, a synthesis that allows us to approach the history of Viana and, after reading it without too much difficulty, to get an overall idea of its historical development.

In conclusion: Viana is one of the towns in Navarre that preserves a greater historical and artistic heritage. Its location on the border of the kingdom with Castile and its attachment to the bishopric of Calahorra-La Calzada will condition its historical, cultural and artistic development. Numerous partial programs of study have been dedicated to the town over the centuries, especially in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. And it also has 5 Histories of Viana, unequal in size and quality, but none lacking in interest: Amiax, in the 17th century, uncritical, apologetic and scarcely documented; Gancedo, in the first third of the 20th century, irregular, incomplete, but faithful to the written document; Sáinz Ripa, in the second third of the 20th century, little more than an informative pamphlet; Labeaga, in the last third of the 20th century, with the history final in the monumental and artistic fields; and Labeaga, in the first decade of the 21st century, with a history of high knowledge dissemination, brief, rigorous, documented and modern.