Belorado

Belorado is a Spanish municipality and town in the province of Burgos, in the autonomous community of Castilla y León. Located to the east of the province, close to La Rioja and at the foot of the Sierra de la Demanda, at the foot of the Ayago mountains. It is located in the Montes de Oca region, Briviesca judicial district, 47.3 kilometers from Burgos. Its main river channel is the Tirón river (a tributary of the Ebro), which rises in the Sierra de la Demanda in Burgos. It is the capital of the subregion called La Riojilla Burgalesa. It has a population of 1787 inhabitants (INE 2022).

According to popular tradition, and it seems that the archaeological remains confirm it, the primitive town, of Roman foundation, was located on the nearby plateau on the left bank of the Tirón River that they call La Mesa, moving to the current location for unknown reasons. From that plateau, the Celtic settlement could be seen perfectly, also the germ of present-day Belorado, located in the term known as La Muela, on top of the mountain that the locals call Cara del Indio . In the Middle Ages it became an important square to which Alfonso I of Aragon granted privileges. On the first weekend of June, the Alfonsina fair is held in the town where, among many other activities, the representation of the Delivery of the Jurisdiction is carried out.

In 2015, in the approval by Unesco of the expansion of the Camino de Santiago in Spain to «Caminos de Santiago de Compostela: French Camino and Caminos del Norte de España», Spain sent as documentation a «Retrospective Inventory - Associated Elements » (Retrospective Inventory - Associated Components) in which the town of Belorado appears at no. 1233, with a range of associated elements.

Geography

Population centers

• Eternal
• Puras de Villafranca: It has become a tourist claim for three singular elements. These are the Beech Dehesa, a natural park with centuries-old trees and a strong ecological value; the Cave of Fuentemolinos, with four kilometres of development, the sixth in the world for its characteristics, prepared for the speleology that presents a calcareous conglomerate with elastic formations of 35 million years ago; and the last tourist attraction, the manganese mines that were exploited between 1844 and 1968
• Quintanaloranco: Located in the province of Burgos, 12 kilometres from Briviesca. He celebrates his patron saint's festivities on August 7th, San Mamés Day, and the popular festivals on the last weekend of August.
• Avellanosa de Rioja
• Loranquillo
• San Miguel de Pedroso: Until the middle of the centuryXIXWhen he joined the municipality of Puras de Villafranca, he was an independent town. Later, already in the 1970s, the municipality of Puras joins the municipal term of Belorado and San Miguel becomes a pedanía of this last Town Hall. The River Tirón waters the lands of San Miguel.

The first three were independent municipalities until the 1970s. The next three were districts of the former respectively and in turn had been independent until the century XIX. In the 1990s, the municipality of Castil de Carrias also joined, which remained depopulated.

Climate

Belorado has a Cfb climate (mild summer temperate climate with no dry season) because, although it does experience some summer drought, it is not pronounced enough to have a Csb climate. i> (Mediterranean mild summer climate) according to the modified Köppen climate classification, which would require that the rainiest month of winter be at least three times as rainy as the driest month of summer.

Belorado's average climate parameters in the period 1961-2000
Month	Ene.	Feb.	Mar.	Open up.	May.	Jun.	Jul.	Ago.	Sep.	Oct.	Nov.	Dec.	Annual
Average temperature (°C)	4.2	5.4	7.4	9.9	13.9	18.0	21.5	20.9	17.8	12.9	7.7	4.9	12.0
Total precipitation (mm)	42.7	40.5	42.6	64.2	62.7	50.8	31.4	27.0	37.7	38.6	59.7	48.1	545.90
Source: Ministry of Agriculture, Food and the Environment. Precipitation data for the period 1961-2000 and temperature for the period 1961-1991 in Belorado October 4, 2012

History

The origin of Belorado is Celtic, probably Autrigon, as shown by archeology and epigraphy (steles, hospital tiles, coins), although it was configured as a town in the Middle Ages, being the border between the kingdoms of Castile and Navarra.

It was the natural passage from the Ebro Valley to the Meseta and to control it, at the beginning of the Reconquest, the Castle was built on a hill at the foot of which the population that originated on the other side of the river moved in Roman times.

The streets of the old town, narrow and tortuous, with typical passageways denote the large population that lived within its walls. It was the Cid's stronghold, as a dowry for Fernando (first Castilian count and later King of León), when he married Jimena. Today, there is hardly an earthy wall left of the castle from which a beautiful panoramic view can be seen.

Belorado's economic heyday came early as a crossroads between the agricultural valley and the cattle range, between different kingdoms that favored the town to attract it.

In the X century, the first independent Castilian count, as thanks to the fact that in Belorado they freed him from irons with that the King of Navarra was holding him prisoner (as the poem by Fernán González says), granted the town the privilege of holding a market on Mondays, a custom that still animates the porticoed Plaza Mayor.

In 1116, Alfonso I the Battler (King of Navarre-Aragonese), granted him the charter and among the privileges it includes, allows him to celebrate a fair that is the oldest documented in the history of Spain; by then the Jewish quarter at the foot of the Castle was already important, whose neighborhood "El Corro" retains a picturesque air.

Its development was increasing and at the beginning of the XIII century, in the reign of Alfonso VIII, by royal privilege the Town Council to use a stamp that legitimizes their documents. He predicted his heyday throughout the XIII century, especially promoted by Alfonso X the Wise who in his stays in the Villa made important donations to him.

Pedro I of Castilla, called the Cruel by his detractors and the Justiciero by his supporters, thanked the inhabitants of the town for their support in the war but after his death the new dynasty punished the town, which lost its royal character and especially to the Jewry who was burdened with taxes and increasingly humiliating jobs causing their diaspora to the decline of Belorado.

The Catholic Monarchs are their decree of expulsion ended up ruining it. However, wealthy families of converts remained, as Simón Ruiz Embito, banker to Felipe II, was born here.

Map of the town published in 1868 by Francisco Coello

If the Kings empowered the town in the Middle Ages, in the Modern Age, Belorado belonged to the Lordship of the Constables of Castilla, with important noble families that stood out in expeditions to America, in letters (Beliforano was the preceptor of the daughters of Felipe II), and in the sciences (in the XVIII century, Hipólito Ruiz López led a scientific expedition to study the flora American).

Demographics

At the fall of the Old Regime, it was constituted as a constitutional council of the same name in the Belorado party, region of Castilla la Vieja, then had 1807 inhabitants.

Between the 1981 Census and the previous one, Eterna (09126), Puras de Villafranca (09278) and Quintanaloranco (09285) were included. Between the 1991 Census and the previous one, it incorporates Castil de Carrias (09080).

The capital of the municipality is Belorado, although the rest of the municipality includes three Minor Local Entities: Eterna, Puras de Villafranca and Quintanaloranco and four towns: Avellanosa de Rioja, Castil de Carrias, Loranquillo and San Miguel de Pedroso.

Graphic of demographic evolution of Belorado between 1857 and 2021

Population of law (1857-1991) or resident population (2001) according to population censuses of the INE.Population according to the 2011-2021 municipal standards of the INE.

Economy

The economic structure of the town presents a low industrial activity, with a great dependence on the primary sector, public administration and, to a lesser extent, construction. At a general level, the primary sector employed an important part of the workers. In recent years, the importance of the service sector has grown exponentially, all linked to rural tourism on the Camino de Santiago that runs through the town.

Primary sector

Agriculture

The region of La Riojilla Burgalesa and consequently, Belorado, are located in an area of high cereal production, being wheat and straw its almost exclusive crop, together with others with a lower presence of legumes and sunflower to promote crop rotation.

Livestock

In practice, there are no farms in the town.

Secondary sector

There are two fur factories in the town.

Tertiary sector

The service sector is the most important in the local economy as a whole. Cultural tourism has a great weight within the service sector of the town due to being a place of passage of the Camino de Santiago. Thus, in March 2023, the town had a municipal hostel, which is open all year, five private hostels, two hotels and a pension. It has four bars-restaurants and eight bars.

Transportation and communications

Urban traffic regulation

Article 7 of the Law on Traffic, Circulation and Road Safety attributes to the municipalities sufficient powers to allow, among others, the immobilization of vehicles, the management and control of traffic and the regulation of its uses.

Road network

On the other hand, the National 120 goes directly through the town.

Vehicle technical inspection

The municipality has a Technical Vehicle Inspection (ITV) that serves the town of Belorado and nearby towns.

Public transport

Bus

There are two bus stops, one towards Burgos and the other towards Logroño.

Airport

The closest airports are the Logroño-Agoncillo airport and the Burgos airport.

Taxi Service

Belorado has four taxis.

Facilities and services

Education

The educational offer of the town was materialized, at the public level, in a center for infant and primary education. This school unit was managed by the Ministry of Education of the Junta de Castilla y León, through the Provincial Directorate of Education of Burgos. To carry out secondary education, students have the IES Hipólito Ruiz López located in the same town.

It also has a public library.

Health

The health system of the town is offered thanks to the benefits of the National Health System, managed by Sacyl (Health Castilla y León). It has a health center in which the Basic Health Zone of the same name is centralized and which also has an emergency service in the afternoons, nights and weekends.

The municipality also has a pharmacy and two dentists.

Citizen security

Belorado is within the scope of jurisdiction of the post that the Civil Guard has located in the town. This department is in charge of ensuring public safety, both in relation to crime and the maintenance of order.

CEAS

The Social Action Center is the basic care unit for the entire population in terms of Social Services and the Briviesca Center depends on the Hon. Provincial Council of Burgos since the municipality has less than 20,000 inhabitants.

The Ceas provides Information and Guidance services, Support Services for Family and Coexistence, and Community Animation services.

The Belorado Social Action Center is made up of the Basic Social Action team with two Social Workers and a Community Animation Technician, the Specific Social Action and Ceas support team, the Family Support team and the for the protection of minors at risk and/or vulnerability in order to preserve family integrity.

Culture

Heritage

• Church of Santa Maria, with interesting graves. It is worth highlighting the Jacobean chapel that has a good altarpiece of the centuryXVI.
• Church of Saint Peter, of the CenturyXVII.
• Hermitage of Our Lady of Bethlehem, the only remains of the former hospital of Peregrinos. It was rebuilt in the centuryXVIII.
• Hospital de San Lazaro de la Misericordia, which was ruined in the 1980s, to be replaced by dotations for the municipality.
• Convent of San Francisco, today converted into houses. It was founded in 1250. Here Saint Bernardino of Siena stopped on his pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.
• Convent of Our Lady of Bretonera, centuryXVI. The clairy nuns inhabit it.
• Plaza Mayor, typically Spanish, asopportalized.
• Remains of the old castle, which was an important frontier fortress with Navarre and the old town wall.
• Caves of San Caprasio. The legend says it was here that he retired to make life of hermit this saint.
• El Canto Bridge. Belorado also has a bridge, road to Burgos, new construction.

In ancient times, a few meters upstream from the current one, there was another one with some arches at the ends and where you can see the type of construction. It had an excise booth. According to tradition, Alfonso VI ordered Santo Domingo de la Calzada to rebuild it, who was helped by the holy builder par excellence, San Juan de Ortega. Its foundations may be from Roman times, although they are hardly visible today. It had eleven unequal arches and was demolished in its central part to make way for the current road.

• Mining group of Puras de Villafranca. Declared B.I.C. (Good for Cultural Interest) in February 2011. This is the only tourist visitable site in Spain. There are many manganese farms in Spain, there are also many mining sites that have been recovered for use and tourist but not manganese.
• Radiocommunication Museum Inocencio Bocanegra. It hosts one of the best public radio collections in Europe. We can take a walk along the second half of the centuryXX. and even previous periods such as the Second World War. We can go through the reconstruction of a trench of the First World War that has become, thanks to the Regiment number 1 of Castrillo del Val engineers, in the largest of Europe.

Theater

The municipality has a municipal theater inaugurated by S.M. Sofia on June 17, 1998. In it, theater performances are represented and on weekends and some holidays (carnival, new year, etc.) movies are shown.

Museum of Radio Communication

Located in the heart of the urban area, it is about the genre throughout the national territory. It houses a complete collection of radio communication machinery from various parts of the world. On December 14, 2013, the report was presented justifying that the luxury of the decorations that the Museum has, a recreation of a trench from the First World War, is the largest that exists in Europe. The building that houses it is also unique as it is the only fully restored silo in Spain. There are other storage spaces conditioned, transformed, rehabilitated, etc. but none that fully preserves all its mechanisms and its function can be interpreted in such detail.

Parties

The patron saint festivities of San Vitores are celebrated on August 26 and the Gracias festivities are the first weekend of September.

The feast of the patron saint, the Virgin of Bethlehem, is on January 25.

The first day of the festivities begins with the Chupinazo, a series of firecrackers that inaugurate the festivities of said year. Next, the peñas parade with the Belorado band throughout the town. On the 25th, the queen of the festivities, the ladies and the summer lady are proclaimed. During all the festivities, the nocturnal parades, animated by the municipal band, are well known and followed by young people. Throughout the festivities the ladies and the queen witness all the acts (masses, bullfights, futsal) accompanied by the corporation of the Town Hall.

It is also a tradition to celebrate the entrance of March in the Plaza Mayor, where men from the town gather to sing.

The dance

In 1616, the councilors of the city of Burgos agreed to bring dances from La Rioja to the capital's festivities, including those from Belorado. This is reflected in the Municipal Archive of Burgos:

Belarusian dancers from the beginning of the centuryXX.

“that you try to aya danças, ynvinciones in different ways and that ynbien for the danças to the Rioxa, Belorado, Santo Domingo, Çereço and other places and that some dancers and musicians drink; the quarto, that aya cachidiablo and that they see him nuebo. ”

Belorado and its region have a deep personality that is expressed through its dance. There is a deep reason, a kind of village honor, a pride in being a dancer. It feels in the town.

The dance of Belorado and its region has, in addition to a genuine aesthetic content, enough elements to consider it a “social fact”. In it is the best emblem of regional identity. For at least four hundred years, dance has been part of the festive rituals of Belorado. Its importance within the ceremonial life of the town is evidenced by the existence of a municipal position, the dance deputy, in charge of teaching the dance to the young dancers. One aspect of the question, by no means negligible, is the monetized estimate that the social group that has supported them has had of the dancers: the people.

Dance is manifested as the fundamental axis of the festivities from the very moment they begin. Until the years and after the festive notification, the gangs of young people interested in taking the dance went up to the meeting room of the town hall where its auction in public auction took place. Today the allocation method has been replaced by the usual and aseptic procedure of the sealed document. From that moment on, the winning group, generally a group of friends, begins training under the direction of a teacher, a former dancer. Between the protagonists of the dance and their audience, in principle the entire neighborhood, a pecuniary relationship is also established through the request for tips. Thus, on Friday, the big day of the festival, the girls are asked to enter the high mass and in the afternoon the men are asked at the door of the cafes. The collection aimed at the mothers of the house is reserved for Sunday morning when dancers and bagpipers dance through the streets of the town while in the afternoon they ask foreigners.

The processional dance of Belorado is staged exclusively during the Gracias festivities, the first weekend of September. At noon the day before, the presence of the pipers in the Plaza Mayor, under the balcony of the town hall, works by itself as a trigger for a different time. Exposed to the eyes of an audience of which they are a part, the dancers, if they are new, then live the decisive experience of their transformation into young men. Arranged in two facing lines of four dancers each, they wait expectantly for the signal from the cachibirrio to start the dance. The performance of the dancers begins on the eve of the festivities, a Thursday, with the Arranque: an emotional civil act that brings together the entire community of Belifora. At this time, the protocol for its declaration as a regional Asset of Cultural Interest (B.I.C.) has been initiated. Like all the other dances, it begins with a melody, the lead, which works as a call to attention for the dancers and materializes in a jump with the feet together.

Later, they continue with a rhythmic and uniform step turning alternately to one side and the other and simultaneously playing the whistles. The parade tunes, despite their variety, all have a clear military connotation.

“To show this Villa its Gratitude and recognition to the indicated victories that have received from the hand liveralisima of God by intercession of the Sovereign Reyna of the Angels, Mary Ssma of Velen, her Mother and our Protector and Counsel, particularly in having obtained this villa and her neighbors a decent harvest, freeing the fruits of all luck, and moving from other calamities So they agreed and signed that I give faith”

The parade and the troqueaos are similar to those in the nearby towns of the C.A. from La Rioja.

On a Friday afternoon in September, the dancers undertake the double task of celebrating the harvesting of the fruits on behalf of the community and commemorating the beginning of a new agricultural cycle. The dance thus combines the historical and human circumstances of each harvest with the temporality of the seasonal cycles. The procession begins with the departure of the images from the church of Santa María, at the foot of the ruins of the castle and the successive greetings, cheers, and dances to each one of them. Lastly, the Virgin of Bethlehem leaves the temple and her presence is greeted with the usual ringing of bells, rockets and triumphant marches. In a climate of great seriousness, the dancers dedicate two dances to the Virgin, one of them, invariably, the Bailada, and after its interpretation they are followed by the fritos of the cachiburrio: Long live the Virgin of Bethlehem, Long live the Panaderota running and jumping towards the image of the patroness. Obeying a signal from the cachiburrio and the immediate sound of the bagpipes, the endless procession begins, with the dancers dancing without interruption to the invariable, monotonous chords of the parade melody. The ritual also requires that the dancers pace their march to the slower pace of the bearers of the images, which is why, all too often, they are forced to return to look for them. When the procession passes through the squares of San Nicolás and Mayor, the previous sequence is repeated and when the hermitage arrives, outside the protective walls of the old wall, the complete catalog of dances is interpreted. Here the usual cheers for the saints are renewed in an apotheosis of jumps and runs. After two hours of procession and the staging of twenty dances, the Virgin is sheltered in her hermitage, perhaps favoring the arrival of a new spring.

It is interesting to note now that throughout the processional development dances of whistles are danced exclusively (the term could have its origin in the name "piteros", with which the drummers were known in the region) and that only at the end After the transfer, the choreographies of the three in which the dancers use sticks, the famous truquiaus, are put into practice.

We also know that throughout the long history of Belorado dance there has been a notable decrease in its festive performances. In this regard, we know that up to the XVIII century, dancers also danced during the days of the local patron saints, San Juan and San Vitores..

Meanwhile, in recent years the custom of dancing inside the church on the day before has been recovered. In this sense, and for once, the dangerous interventionism practiced on the most salable aspects of popular culture has been fortunate in returning to dance its own confusing sphere that mixed the profane and the sacred. The tradition disappeared as a consequence of the famous Royal Order of 1780 by which Carlos III prohibited the competition of dances inside the churches, although previously, in 1756, the abbot of San Millán had already disavowed dancing, playing and eating inside the church. church of the priory of San Miguel de Pedroso.

Beliforan dances are divided into two types: pitos and palos or troqueaos

• Pythotic dances

Los Brincos, El Pelele, Las Callejas, La Cascabelada and La Bailada i>.

• Trocate

Las Ovejitas, La Susana and El Herrador.

Although the choreographic models present notable similarities, it is easily verifiable that in the numbers of sticks the degree of theatricalization is greater, or at least more evident with the interpretive keys handled by modern spectators.

The dancer's costume has undergone a clear process of impoverishment, to the point that its clothing essentially coincides with that of any man dressed on Sunday in the forties: Sunday pants, the white shirt, the sash and the espadrilles of the designated days, and as the only distinctive elements the colored scarf on the head, the bands that cross the chest and the ties knotted on the arms. In the important towns, Cerezo and Belorado, already before the beginning of the XX century, the substitution of skirts for white pants and the colored bands were changed for the usual Mnaila shawls that the fifths brought from North African squares. Curiously, in Belorado the clothing still highlights the distinction between the eve and the other holidays since, on the previous day, the dancers dress, let's say, for the street.

In Belorado, the cachibirrio wears baggy pants in bright colors, red and yellow, a wool sash to keep money, and a beret crossed by a ribbon. In the 17th century, the Beliforan curmudgeon covered its head with a hood. His clothing clearly remains one of the aspects of his varied personality: that of a clown, that of a medieval jester. But he also carries the attribute of royalty, of characters capable of administering justice: the scepter, the leather strap whip, in other towns the stuffed tail of a bull.

Holy Week

In Belorado, Holy Week is celebrated every year with processions on Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday and Good Friday. On Holy Saturday there are Lauds and Easter Vigil.

Rock Onion

Cebolla Rock is a festival that takes place the first weekend of August.

Sports

In Belorado there is the Belorado Sports Club. Milita in the First Provincial of Burgos.

The town has a sports center, swimming pools and a gym.

Celebrity Belliforans