Cabanillas (Navarra)

Cabanillas is a Spanish town and municipality in the Foral Community of Navarra, located in the area of Tudela, in the Ribera de Navarra, in the region of Tudela (according to Navarra 2000 zoning) and 101 km from the capital of the community, Pamplona. The municipal area has a population of 1,370 inhabitants (INE 2022).

Geography

The municipality is located in the Ribera Navarra, located at the end of the N-232 Zaragoza-Pamplona highway, 8 km from Tudela, 101 km from the capital of the community, Pamplona, and 70 km from Zaragoza.

Its territory is unevenly divided between the terraced alluvial plain, next to the Ebro River, and a clay-calcareous mountain that culminates in Mount Olivete.

History

It is known that Alfonso I the Battler granted its inhabitants the jurisdiction of Cornago around 1127. King García Ramírez donated the town to the Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem (1142), which transformed it into the headquarters of one of its parcels of Navarra.

Once the area was conquered from the Muslims, the Aragonese king Alfonso I El Batallador granted the "Fuero de Cornago" to those who came to settle the "place of Cabanillas." For the first time the name of Cabanillas appears in a document. There probably already existed some settlement prior to this concession, with people dedicated to livestock exploitation and the cultivation of the most fertile lands in the area. In 1142, King García Ramírez donated the towns of Cabanillas and Fustiñana to the Hospitaller Order of the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem and in 1197, given the rise of the encomienda formed by said towns, they were split, forming two independent encomiendas ever since.

At the end of the 12th century the construction of the Sanjuanista Romanesque church began, considered one of the southernmost Romanesque jewels of Navarra, restored a few years ago by the Príncipe de Viana institution.

In 1252, the king of Navarre, from the French house of Champagne, Teobald I, granted permission to the towns of Cabanillas and Fustiñana and the Hospitaller Order, to dam the Ebro River and open a ditch to irrigate their lands, as long as they made way for ships. The two towns and the military order built the first three leagues of irrigation canal, which was then called “Acequia del Ebro”. In 1444, the Prince of Viana granted that right to the town of Tauste, and from then on it began to be called Acequia de Tauste. In 1558, Felipe II granted participation in it to the town of Buñuel, seeing the four co-owner towns confirmed their rights, privileges and concessions by Kings Felipe III, Felipe IV and Felipe V. Seized by the crown (1781-1848) and added to the works of the Imperial Canal of Aragon, its modernization and the construction of a containment dam on the Ebro River, substantially improved the usefulness of the canal and the use of hitherto unproductive land.

Towards the middle of the 19th century, the place had a population of 350 inhabitants. The town is described in the fifth volume of the Geographical-statistical-historical dictionary of Spain and its overseas possessions by Pascual Madoz as follows:

CABANILLAS: v. con ayunt. en la prov., aud. terr. y c. g. de Navarra (á Pamplona 17 leg.), merind. y part. jud. de Tudela (1/2), dióc. de Tarazona (5): sit. a izq. of the r. Ebro, on an immediate height to the Taute channel, where it is mainly combated by the airs of the N., and enjoys climate healthy, the most common diseases are some terecianas: 65 houses distributed in 3 streets and one square; municipal house, panaderia, tavern, a grocery store, first-letter school equipped with 60 annual wheat thefts, to which 25 children attend; another frequented by 10 girls, whose teacher perceives 28 wheat thefts (yearly change); 1 parr. (the Nativity of Ntra. Ma'am), served by a vicar of second promotion, who presents and appoints the great prior of Navarre, and by a chaplain who performs the ministry parr. in the absence and diseases of the vicar, and celebrates the mass of alba; and a hermit dedicated to San Roque, held by the Vec. The cemetery is next to the igl. in parage that does not harm public health. Confine the Term. N. Tudela; E. Royal Bardenas; S. Fustiñana, and O. Bocal Real, holding a leg. from N. to S., and 1/2 from E. to O.; within this circumference there is the cas. of Belver, where there are two families dedicated to agriculture. The field is of the best quality: it includes some natural meadows formed from lands that are abandoned as a result of the salitrous matter that abounds its surface, since the construction of the Imperial Canal de Aragon. The mountains offer good grass herbs that use the harbors. Mancomunamente with those of other peoples; and the part for cultivation contains several pieces of orchard, which is watered with the waters of the aforementioned acequia or channel of Tauste, which also take advantage of for domestic consumption. Finally, he crosses through the people the way that from Tauste leads to Tudela, and the mail is received from this c. twice a week. prod.: wheat, barley, legumes, vegetables, linen, hemp and fruits; we breed wool and goats, with enough cavalry, and there are hunts of several classes. pobl.: 70 vec., 350 alm. cap. prod.: 178,589 rs. Ascende the municipal budget 6,740 rs, which are covered with the arrival of the store of abaceria, panaderia and tavern, with the prod. of the herds of the mountain and orchard, and with the wheat that the vec pay annually. by Canon that of this species was imposed on the lands that were distributed to them. La wealth of this v. could be increased considerably, if collecting the waters that descend through the bars of the Bardennes benefited a spacious plain that is made to the E., in it replenishing the farm and plant of vineyards that it had in the 14th century.

(Madoz, 1846, p. 17)

On the other hand, since medieval times, Cabanillas has been part along with Fustiñana, Tudela, Cortes, Buñuel, Carcastillo, Mélida, Caparroso, Villafranca, Cadreita, Valtierra, Arguedas, Santacara, Marcilla, Falces, Peralta, Funes, Milagro and Corella, the Monasterio de la Oliva and the Roncal and Salazar valleys, the community of Bardenas Reales de Navarra.

The Tauste canal and the Bardenas Reales have been the two fundamental pillars on which the survival of Cabanillas has been based, during its more than 800 years of existence, until recently.

Demography

Its population in 2017 was 1,366 inhabitants (INE).

Policy and administration

Economy

The municipality's economy is based mostly on the primary sector. The crops are irrigated by sprinkling with water raised from the Tauste canal and carried by pipes to more than 1000 stolen from various crops, this area was previously known as "old vineyards". The Tauste canal is at the base of all the improvements and expansions of irrigation, which today occupies almost 25% of the cultivated area. The municipality is mainly dedicated to the cultivation of corn and vegetables, among which tomatoes, artichokes, green peas, cauliflower and broccoli stand out.

Culture

Navarro-Aragonese folklore as well as expressions when speaking descendants of the ancient Navarrese-Aragonese romance and of which today the Aragonese fable remains in the province of Huesca.

Monuments

In the municipality, from one of its highest places and with views of the canal and the Cabanillera orchard, is the Church of San Juan de Jerusalem. This church belonged to the Military Order of San Juan de Jerusalem. Of the primitive Romanesque construction (from the second half of the XII century) only the semicircular apse covered with an oven vault and with semicircular windows, and the walls of the nave, which was covered at the end of the XV century with star-shaped ribbed vaults.. The Romanesque façade, which was moved at the beginning of this century from the foot to the end of the epistle side, has capitals decorated with vegetal and anomalistic motifs.

Another monument is the church of the Assumption. It houses a beautiful carving of the Immaculate Conception, from the school of Gregorio Fernández (first third of the XVII century) and an altarpiece painted on panel, dedicated to Saint Catherine, from the first half of the XVI century.

Parties

• Holy Week: Resurrection Sunday at 11.30 is celebrated the traditional "Meeting between the angel and the virgin", then it is the Mass and later the Judas is represented on the 13 hours in the Town Hall Square.
• May 15: San Isidro.
• Mid-May: Spring holidays. "The Fifths" place the traditional "greater" with which the gods are motivated to have good crops.
• From 15 to 21 August: Patrons.
• Last weekend of September: San Roque.

Sports

In Cabanillas there are several associations dedicated to promoting sports:

• AD Cabanillas
• Club de Cart Punta Jai Alai

Adventure

In the region there are several companies dedicated to adventure sports, and in Cabanillas there is a wide range of rural houses that allow the practice of these sports with greater comfort. Just 7 km from Cabanillas is Tudela and the Ebro River, which thanks to its great flow through the town allows you to go canoeing or observe the fauna of the region. An asset of the area are the routes through the Bardenas Reales.