Castile

Castilla is a historical region of Spain with imprecise boundaries located in the center of the Iberian Peninsula.

It refers its construction as an idea to various previous territorial entities with medieval roots, such as the County of Castilla, the Kingdom of Castilla and the Crown of Castilla. After the construction of the State of Autonomies in 1978, two autonomous communities approved in 1983 kept the name Castilla in their official names: Castilla y León and Castilla-La Mancha. abstractly associated with the geographic region of the Meseta Central.

The variable articulation of the idea of «Castilla», placed by the noventayochismo as the essence of Spain, has been developed both in terms of identity by political Castilianism as well as in terms of otherness by peripheral nationalisms. Among other axes, the different contemporary visions of Castile vary depending on the specific importance that each one grants to the role of Castile and "the Castilian" in the construction of Spain. For this reason, it is also considered a recurring term in the Spanish imaginary contemporary.

Etymology

Landscape of CastileAureliano de Beruete.

Castilla (named in the first documents in Old Castilian as Castella or Castiella) means, according to its etymology, «land of castles». Arab historians called it Qashtāla قشتالة and its name is justified as land dotted with castles. The term comes from the Latin castellum, a diminutive of the term castrum, castro, fortification of pre-Roman Iberia. The first mention of the term "Castilla" was on September 15, 800, in an apocryphal document from the now-defunct monastery of San Emeterio de Taranco de Mena, located in the Mena valley, in the north of the current province of Burgos. The name of Castilla appears in the notarial document by which Abbot Vitulo donated some land. In that document it appears written «Bardulia quae nunc vocatur Castella» (Bardulia that is now called Castilla).

Monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla

The notarial document by which Abbot Vitulo donated some land, included in the Galicano Calf of the monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla, reads as follows:

Ego Vitulus abba, quamuis indignus omnium seruorum dei seruus, una cum graspmano meo Erbigio presbytero, cum domnos et patronos meos sanctos Emeteri et Celedoni, cuius basilica extirpe manibus nostris construximus ego Vitulus abba et frater meus Erbigius ]

In the same book there is another founding document dated July 4, 852, by which the construction of the monastery of San Martín de Herrán is ordered:

Bill scriptura sub era octogessima nonagessima, tertia feria, quarto nonas iulias, regnante Rodericus comite in Castella.

The name of Castile is given by the abundance of these constructions in the first so-called territory. In the image, the Castle of Olmillos of Sasamon, of the s.XV.

The toponymic name of Castile refers, still in the year 853, to a very small territory in the north of Burgos differentiated from the Burgos valleys of Mena and Losa: Et presmus presuras in Castella, in Lausa et in Mena, which did not border Álava, and which had no known castles, so we must also take into account other possible origins for the toponymic name of Castilla other than "los castillos", as is the origin of another Castile, a great city of al-Andalus that Abderramán I conquered in 759 and made it the capital of the Cora de Elvira, and which later became known as Medina Elvira. This place name would be taken to the north of Burgos by some of the settlers of the "Bardulia" (which would later be known as & # 34; Castilla & # 34;) in the time of Alfonso I and his son Fruela I.

Historical context

Origins

Sculpture of Fernán González in the Arc de Santa María de Burgos.

Castilla County (850-1065) over the year 1000 when it was a dependency of the Lion Kingdom.

In addition to the first mention of Castile in the document of Abbot Vitulo, we must also take into account the very old documentation of the bishopric of Valpuesta, a monastery in the province of Burgos (804-1087), which is considered by some to be philologists as the cradle of the Spanish language. There is a consensus among specialists that the name of Castile comes from the large number of castles or fortresses that were in these lands.

Years later, the county of Castilla was consolidated as an autonomous political entity, although it remained a vassal county of the Kingdom of León. In the year 960 the county of Castilla became de facto independent from León with Count Fernán González. In the year 1037, Bermudo III, King of León, died without issue in the battle of Tamarón, while fighting against his brother-in-law, Fernando I. He considered that he was the legitimate successor and, therefore, It came to govern both kingdoms, although currently various authors refute that Fernando I created the kingdom of Castile. In the year 1054 Fernando I fought against his brother, García Sánchez III de Nájera, King of Navarra, in the Battle of Atapuerca, the Navarrese monarch also dying and annexing, among others, the region of Montes de Oca, near the city. from Burgos.

Kingdom of Castile

The kingdom of Castile (1065-1230), in pink, in the center of the Iberian peninsula in the year 1210.

On the death of Ferdinand I, which occurred in 1065, the kingdoms were divided among his sons, with Sancho II being that of Castile and Alfonso VI that of León. Sancho II is assassinated in 1072 and his brother accedes to the throne of Castile. The fact that the same person ruled in both kingdoms is a fact that would be maintained for several generations. On his death, his daughter, Urraca, succeeded to the throne. This she married, in second nuptials, with Alfonso I of Aragon, but failing to govern both kingdoms, and due to the great class conflicts between them, Alfonso I repudiated Urraca in 1114, which intensified the confrontations. Although Pope Paschal II annulled the marriage earlier, they remained together until that date. Urraca, Countess of Galicia also had to confront her son, King Alfonso VII of Galicia, to assert her rights over that kingdom. Two years later Alfonso VII is also crowned King of León as Alfonso VII, the result of his first marriage. Alfonso VII managed to annex lands from the kingdoms of Navarra and Aragon (due to the weakness of these kingdoms caused by their secession at the death of Alfonso I of Aragon). He renounced his right to conquer the Mediterranean coast in favor of the new union of Aragon with the County of Barcelona, through the marriage of Petronila de Aragón and Ramón Berenguer IV).

In his will he returned the royal tradition of different monarchs for each kingdom. Fernando II was proclaimed King of León, and Sancho III, King of Castile

Crown of Castile

The Crown of Castile (1230-1715) towards 1400. The Kingdom of Castile occupies the fourth northeast of the territory.

Execution of the community of Castile in Villalar on April 24, 1521, in the framework of the War of the Communities of Castile.

In 1217 Ferdinand III the Saint received from his mother Berenguela the Kingdom of Castile and from his father Alfonso IX in 1230 that of León. Likewise, he took advantage of the decline of the Almohad empire to conquer the Guadalquivir valley while his son Alfonso took over the Kingdom of Murcia. The Cortes of León and Castilla were merged, at which time the Crown of Castile is considered to have arisen, made up of the kingdoms of Castilla, León, Toledo and the rest of the Taifa kingdoms and lordships conquered from the Arabs. These kingdoms preserved institutions and differentiated legislation. For example, in the kingdoms of Galicia, León and Toledo, a Roman-Visigothic root law was applied, different from the legislation based mainly on custom that existed in the Kingdom of Castile.

In 1520 the War of the Communities of Castile took place, which was the armed uprising of the so-called comuneros, which took place in the Crown of Castile from the year 1520 to 1522, that is, at the beginning of the reign of Carlos I. The leading cities were those of the Castilian interior, with Toledo and Valladolid standing at the head of them. The fiscal demands, coinciding with the departure of the king for the imperial election in the Holy Roman Empire (Cortes de Santiago and La Coruña of 1520), produced a series of urban revolts that were coordinated and institutionalized. After practically a year of rebellion, the supporters of the emperor had reorganized (particularly the high nobility and the peripheral Castilian territories, such as Andalusia) and the imperial troops dealt an almost definitive blow to the comuneras in the Battle of Villalar, on April 23, 1521. Right there, the next day, the community leaders (Juan de Padilla, Juan Bravo and Francisco Maldonado) were beheaded. The communal army was in disarray. Only Toledo kept his rebellion alive, until its final surrender in February 1522.

The fundamental consequences of the War of the Communities were the loss of the political elite of the Castilian cities, in terms of real repression; and in state revenue. The royal power was forced to compensate those who lost goods or suffered damage to their possessions during the revolt. The largest indemnities corresponded to the Admiral of Castilla, for the damage suffered in Torrelobatón and the expenses incurred in the defense of Medina de Rioseco. They were followed by the Constable and the Bishop of Segovia.

The form of payment of these indemnities was solved by means of a special tax for the entire population of each of the communal cities. These taxes depleted the local economies of the cities for a period of approximately twenty years, due to the rise in prices. Similarly, the textile industry in central Castilla lost all its opportunities to become a dynamic industry.

After the War of the Spanish Succession (1700-1715), the victor, King Bourbon Felipe V, issued the Nueva Planta Decrees in 1715. With these documents, the territorial organization of the Hispanic Kingdoms was changed and the right to public, its own institutions and all kinds of privileges and regulations of both the Crown of Castile and the Crown of Aragon. With this, he sought the political-legal unification of all his domains.

Reformism and territorial divisions

Spain's territorial division in 1833 carried out by the Secretary of State of Fomento Javier de Burgos.

The Bourbon reformism meant the abolition of all kinds of autonomy of the different kingdoms that formed the Hispanic Monarchy of the Habsburgs, and an absolute centralization of the administrations. The house of Bourbon built an absolute centralist and uniformitarian monarchy, however, Ferdinand VI reordered the territorial limits called intendancies and created by his father Felipe V, making them coincide with the provinces of the Habsburgs and the former kingdoms of Spain.

During the Napoleonic invasion and the reign of Joseph I Bonaparte, 28 French-style prefectures or provinces were established, ignoring historical conditions and receiving names after geographical features.

In 1833, during the reign of Isabel II, the Secretary of State for Development Javier de Burgos carried out the division of Spain into provinces and regions that was maintained unofficially until the arrival of the autonomies. The historical region of Castilla was divided into two new demarcations: Castilla la Vieja (made up of the provinces of Santander, Burgos, Logroño, Soria, Segovia, Ávila, Valladolid and Palencia) and Castilla la Nueva, which included Ciudad Real, Cuenca, Guadalajara, Madrid and Toledo.

States proposed in the Federal Constitution of 1873 (First Spanish Republic)

On June 15, 1869, the Castilian Federal Pact was signed in Valladolid by the Federal Republican Party, which constituted the "State of Castilla la Vieja" with the provinces of Ávila, Burgos, León, Logroño, Palencia, Santander, Salamanca, Segovia, Soria, Valladolid and Zamora, with capital in Valladolid, and the "State of Castilla la Nueva" with the provinces of Albacete, Ciudad Real, Cuenca, Guadalajara, Madrid and Toledo, with capital in Madrid. This division is considered in the Constitution of the First Spanish Republic of 1873, whose first article says:

Componen la Nación Española los Estados de Andalucía Alta, Andalucía Baja, Aragón, Asturias, Baleares, Canarias, Castilla la Nueva, Castilla la Vieja, Cataluña, Cuba, Extremadura, Galicia, Murcia, Navarra, Puerto Rico, Valencia, Regions Vascongadas.

Geographic context

Map of Spain and Portugal of 1770 in which Castile appears in a single division, although it is specified "Castilla la Vieja" for the northern part and "Castilla la Nueva" for the southern zone, although without drawing any division between the two.

The city of Valladolid, considered in some times the capital of Castillawhere the Federal Pact Castellano was signed in 1869.

The geographical configuration is one of the most controversial aspects of the concept of Castile. The idea of two castillas was normalized between the XV and XVI, when the concept of "New Castilla" became popular to refer to what was known as the Kingdom of Toledo (incorporated into the Crown of Castile around 1085) to differentiate it from "Castilla la Vieja", identified with the old Kingdom of Castile.

According to the book Geographia historica, de Castilla la Vieja, Aragon, Cataluña, Navarra, Portugal, y otras provincias, from 1752, when Castilla was named In general, Castilla la Vieja is understood by this, although in this publication Castilla la Vieja is called not only what was formerly Castile, but also a large part of the kingdom of León.

It was not until 1833 that the division of Spain into provinces and regions was established which, although it did not have a jurisdictional nature, laid the foundations for the territorial organization of the State. This project now officially classifies Castilla as Old Castile and Castile the New.

According to the Espasa Encyclopedia, the Little Larousse, and the Britannica Encyclopedia, the historical region of Castilla would be made up of the former regions of Castilla la Vieja (Santander, Burgos, Logroño, Soria, Segovia, Ávila, Valladolid and Palencia) and Castilla la Nueva (Ciudad Real, Cuenca, Guadalajara, Madrid and Toledo).

For the Salvat Encyclopedia and the Pequeño Espasa Ilustrado, it would be made up of the territories that currently make up those of the autonomous communities of Castilla y León, Castilla-La Mancha, Cantabria, La Rioja and Madrid. This definition would include Albacete and the three provinces of the Leon Region (León, Zamora and Salamanca), which are not included in the previous version.

Faced with these definitions is the context established by the construction of the State of Autonomies in 1978. On the one hand, with the division of the former provinces of Santander, Logroño and Madrid (which were constituted into single-province autonomous communities) and on the other another with the union of the Leon region to Castilla la Vieja and of the province of Albacete to Castilla la Nueva to give rise to two other communities: Castilla y León and Castilla-La Mancha.

Political implications

Reclaimive flag of leftist chaplainism (nationalist or independentist).

Flags at the Villalar celebration.

Castilianists

Certain nationalist political movements such as the Castilian Party, sovereignists such as Izquierda Castellana, or independentistas such as Yesca, advocate the political union of Gran Castilla, understanding this as the sum of the seventeen provinces of the autonomous communities of Castilla y León, Castilla-La Mancha, La Rioja, Cantabria and the Community of Madrid, together with the region of Requena-Utiel, administratively Valencian since the XIX. There are also associations such as the Asociación Socio-Cultural Castilla or groups of social networks that do not include the provinces of Leon (Zamora, Salamanca and León) as Castilian. Likewise, there are other groups that do not include the provinces of Cantabria and La Rioja and others that only include the three autonomies considered Castilian, betting on their union.

Divergent

There is a diversity of opinions about the territories that should be part of Castile. Some uniprovincial communities detached from the old Castilla la Vieja have their own regionalism that is well established.

In Cantabria there is currently no political force or group that defends integration in Castilla. The Regionalist Party of Cantabria opposes said integration. There were some movements prone to union with Castilla, such as the now-defunct Asociación Cantabria en Castilla (ACECA), a pro-Castilian collective active in Cantabria during the autonomic process, and its successor Association for the Integration of Cantabria in Castilla y León (AICC), active in the first five years of the XXI century. The La Unión party emerged from the latter, which incorporated cooperation and collaboration with Castilla y León as a complementary region into its first electoral program. Position that ended up abandoning and betting on a Cantabrian autonomy with recentralization of certain powers and collaboration with the neighboring autonomous communities.

In La Rioja, the Rioja Party, with a Rioja regionalist tendency, does not consider the integration of the Rioja territory into the Castilian orbit. On the other hand, there is no party or society in the community that seeks such annexation. La Rioja regionalism, which defends both belonging to the autonomy of La Rioja and to Spain, is from the identity point of view the majority in the community, according to surveys and sociological studies.

Apart from Castilianism, there are Castilian-Leon parties that defend the current autonomy of Castilla y León; This is the case of the Regionalist Unit of Castilla y León. Similarly, there are regionalist parties in Castilla-La Mancha that defend said autonomy, such as the Partido Regionalista Manchego or the missing Regionalist Party of Castilla-La Mancha. Regionalist parties at the provincial level deserve special mention, such as the Initiative for the Development of Soria, the Regionalist Party of Guadalajara or Independientes por Cuenca.

The Carreterist thesis defends a smaller version of Castilla, with the inclusion of Cantabria and the exclusion of much of the provinces of Valladolid and Palencia.

Parties with a Leonist ideology oppose -usually- proposals for integration with Castilla, denying the supposed Castilian identity of the provinces of León, Zamora and Salamanca (which they call País Leonés), and claim for the provincial trio the autonomous secession, based -in terms of differentiated political historiography- on the strong personality of the territory in the Early Middle Ages, from which -politically- Castilla itself arose, in addition to the 150 years of existence of the Region of León, between 1833 and 1983, merely nominal entity, and not administrative.

For their part, the carretistas defend that the provinces that are part of the current autonomous communities of Castilla y León, and Castilla-La Mancha, should form uniprovincial autonomous communities, establishing -later- relations with the rest of the Castilian provinces. In this way, it is considered that the decentralization tradition of Castile is better respected, using a much larger territorial unit than the pre-nineteenth century ones, but which has had a happy implantation since 1833 in this territory.

Modern conceptualization

Nineties version. Beginning of the s. xx

Nineteenth-century liberalism promoted a national construction project for Spain; one of its pivots, together with that of the historical action of the State, was the cultural expression symbolized by Castilla.

Castilla was appealed at the turn of the century by the Institución Libre de Enseñanza as well as by the authors of the generation of 98 as a spiritual refuge for Spain, establishing after the disaster the bases of a new Spanish nationalism in historiography. A common place is the extension of the landscape and nature to the character of its people. The evocation of its landscapes was a constant among the members of the Institución Libre de Enseñanza.

Giner de los Ríos placed the Guadarrama mountain range as an expression of Castile. Landscape of the Guadarramaof Martin Rico, representing the mountains of Valsaín.

In this context, Giner de los Ríos found in this Castilian landscape attributes such as a "robust inner strength, severe grandeur, nobility, dignity, lordship, indomitable effort, gravity, austerity, character and poetic way of being". The institutionalist conception of Castilla is linked and connected with the ideation of this by the generation of '98, who would find in the region a vehicle through which to materialize their concerns. Giner de los Ríos established the Sierra de Guadarrama in his writings as a particular expression of the Castilian landscape, and Peñalara as a symbol, in turn finding the writer Enrique de Mesa the ascent to said summit as a key to understanding both Old Castilla ("ennobled by sane hidalgos") and New Castilla ("sublimated by the crazy hidalgo").

Maeztu identified Castile with the treeless plateau. In the image, fields of cultivation in Montealegre de Campos (Valladolid).

Among the noventayochistas who contributed to the definition of this Castilian landscape is the poet Antonio Machado, with his Campos de Castilla, as well as Azorín, who is especially akin to the Institution's approaches in relation to with Castilla, who would have found in the population of the region «the type of the traditional, historical Castilian peasant: noble, austere, grave and elegant in gesture; short, sententious and sharp in his reasons". Joaquín Costa identified Spain with Castile with his "Centuries passed, Castilla became Spain". In Miguel de Unamuno, initially with critical positions, a progressive identification with the idea of Castilla. Decades later, in the debates during the Second Republic on the constitutional text of 1931, he would denounce that "we have already heard that Castilla does not know the periphery, and I tell you that the periphery knows Castilla much worse". de Maeztu identifies it with the plateau.

Ortega y Gasset reflected in his writings the influence of Giner de los Ríos's symbolic association of Spain in Castilla and Castilla in "un esseniero de españolía". In 1921 he wrote in his Invertebrate Spain «Castilla has made Spain and Castilla has undone it».

Castilla would appear in a complex love-hate relationship, as a recurring motif in the work of the regenerationist Julio Senador, characterized by his anthropological pessimism. In Castilla en descombros (1915) he came to maintain that "Saying Castile is nothing more than articulating a meaningless word, because there is no real Castile here anymore."

Carreterism incited in the identification of Castile with the mountains. Peñalara. Sierra de Guadarrama. Oil on canvas by Jaime Morera and Galicia.

From a Castilian regionalist perspective, Luis Carretero Nieva recognized Castile in 1918 in the provinces of Ávila, Burgos, Logroño, Santander, Segovia and Soria, and, opposing «Castilla» with «León» and distrusting the city of Valladolid, shaped the idea that Castile was not associated with the plain of the plateau, but with the "mountains"; His ideas and those of his son Anselmo, who would later extend the idea of Castilla to the New Castilian provinces of Madrid, Guadalajara and Cuenca, would have a certain echo in the development of the pre-autonomous process in Castilla y León, which took place between the 1970s and 1980s.

Opposition to peripheral regionalisms

Regarding La Montaña, authors such as Clarín and Amador de los Ríos advocated the idea of Cantabria in Castilla, opposing the possibility of justifying a mountain regionalism that in any case was locally frequently associated to a large extent with Castilla; the liberal account of the conception of Cantabria as the origin of Castile and Spain spread throughout the 19th and xx. On the other hand, some intellectuals in the region, among them Marcelino Menéndez and Pelayo, dedicated themselves in their writings to regional exaltation, or else affirmed the indissoluble unity of physical and moral characteristics that the provinces of Asturias and Santander always had, in publications such as the Almanac de las Dos Asturias or the Revista Cántabro-Asturiana. During the Second Republic and, around the statutory debates in particular, Cantabrism, of any political color, was always attached to the area of Castile, the position closest to a Cantabrian particularism being the formulation of a "Cantabrian-Castilian" statute. » in a federal context.

Field of poppy in Olga (Soria).

In the past, Catalonia has been interpreted as a territorial identity within Spain, as opposed to Catalonia, considering a duality between both regions. According to Enric Ucelay-Da Cal, Catalan historiography throughout the Modern Age did not reach develop a vision of Castile beyond that in relation to Catalonia itself, conceptualizing it merely as its neighbor along with France.

The story of a Castile guilty of the failure of the national development of Catalonia embraced by the authors of the Renaixença strongly permeated the discourse of Catalan nationalism, operating Castile as an Other that, effectively, consolidated the Catalan identity. The figure of Castile appears in the writings of the Catalan publicist Pompeyo Gener, standard-bearer of social Darwinism, who, to justify the supremacy of what is Catalan over what is Castilian i>, argued in 1887 that Castilla lacked scientific capacity due to «the lack of oxygen and the pressure of the atmosphere, the poor diet, the preponderance of a race in which the Semitic and pre-Semitic element predominates (the Andalusians), and the fact that the pen serves to climb power, have been causes that have produced a frivolous and empty character in Spanish literature».

The notion of an aging Castile that must pass the torch to Catalonia is recurring in Catalan thought at the beginning of the xx century; for Joan Maragall (1902): «Castilla, stuck in a center of African nature, without views of the sea, is refractory to European cosmopolitanism; […] Castilla has concluded her mission as her director and has to pass her scepter into other hands ».

Fried on pages The Queen of 1878 in which it is represented allegorically to the left to Castile as a tower, with the shield of Catalonia in the center joined to Castile by means of chains, and with an allegorical eagle of Catalonia on the right.

«The Segadors in Castile will not leave wheat with heads», by Joaquín Xauda White and Black.

Castilla and its relationship with Catalonia would be the object of various allegorical representations in the illustration and caricature of the periodical press of the XIX century and early XX.

In Galicia, the embodiment of an imagined Castile as a negation reference necessary to build the imagined Galicia, would have outstanding importance in the periods of regionalism and the first stage of Galician nationalism. In the context of historical Galician nationalism, Manuel Murguía would incorporate into his identity discourse of the codification of the difference between a superior "Celtic" culture and an inferior "Semitic" culture the dichotomous opposition "Galicia"-"Castilla"; likewise, in the identity imaginary of Castelao "Castilla" was would conform as an ethnic group of exclusion. For his part, Blas Infante, a hero of Andalusianism, moving away from traditionalism, also vindicated "Andalucía" against "Castilla", valuing Semitic and Islamic features that he found in the Andalusian genius, although in a slightly different way. principle not in a completely antagonistic sense. The Andalusian vision of Andalusian ethnic nationalism would face interpretations of it as product o of Castilla: the "Newest Castilla", embraced by authors such as Domínguez Ortiz and Sánchez Albornoz.

Angel Andrade drawing illustrating "By the land of Castile", article by Eugenio Sellés White and Black.

The work of the musician and folklorist Antonio José, who dedicated works such as Castilian Symphony, Danzas Burgos, Evocations, Suite ingenua and Himno a Castilla.

The Castile of Francoism

Castilla was also a central element of the palingenetic ultranationalism of the Falangist ideology, invoking Castilla when articulating his vision of the imagined community of Spain, repeatedly positioning himself as the quintessence of Spain in his political message. his militancy in the Falange, Onésimo Redondo, whose Castilianism became a key axis of his ideology and influenced Ramiro Ledesma Ramos in that aspect, advocated in "Castilla in Spain" as a space where the national essences contrary to the corruption of Spain would be sublimated. the capital and the cities for a «Castilian and rural Spain», opposed to Europeanism, cosmopolitanism and foreign influences from the West and East, for a rural Castile, «uncontaminated in its retirement», which would persist in its «genuine regenerative power». Other eminent Falangists, such as Eugenio Montes ("Castilla is the same age as Europe"), also later collected during the Franco regime the Castilian essentialism of Ramón Menéndez Pidal, a sort of Castilian volkgeist, and they used him as a battering ram to challenge liberal nationalism. spoke somewhat coldly in terms of "the great Castilla, base of the Spanish nation", Carrero Blanco treated Castilla as the "marrow of the homeland" and García Villoslada as the "root and marrow of Spain" while José Ibáñez Martín affectionately referred to Castilla as the "mother of Spain", attributing to the Castilla of Fernán González a series of qualities that according to the minister would have been transmitted to the Spaniards, configuring "the type, the character, the ideal of the Hispanic man".

Landscape of Campo de Gómara, in the province of Soria.

The concept of Castile has sometimes been identified only with the Central Plateau or the Land of Campos, despite also covering important mountainous areas. In the image, the Spit peak, in the Palentina Mountain.

Also during the Franco regime, the Catholic fundamentalist Rafael Calvo Serer found the concept of Castile as the essence of Spain as something abhorrent; Since the author was refractory to any type of essentialism of a non-Catholic character for Spain, he would place Catholicism as a mainstay in order to ensure the unity of the homeland. clearly provocative —"Spain is wider than Castile"— an apology for the Valencian Country and an attack on noventayochism.

The autonomic process

During the autonomic process, a revival of regionalist historical narratives took place, both anti-unitarian —the carretera of González Herrero or the leonesista (uniprovincial or in relation to the provinces of Salamanca, León and Zamora)—, such as that of the "Gran Castilla" of the Castilian Federal Pact, which would advocate the union in an autonomy of Castilla la Vieja, León and Castilla la Nueva. Also in democracy, the idyllic story of a "Castile councilor and comunera». Along these lines, a musicalization in 1976 of the romance Los comuneros (1972) by the musical group Nuevo Mester de Juglaría gave impetus to a particular theory of Castile.

Currently, two autonomous communities nominally share the name of Castilla; They are Castilla y León and Castilla-La Mancha, whose conformation was discussed from the point of view of historical foundation. Historians such as Julio Valdeón Baruque consider, on the contrary, the union of lands in the Duero basin as historically coherent, based on the strong imbrication between the territories of Castilla and León that would already occur at the end of the Middle Ages. With, however, geopolitical and socioeconomic arguments in favor, the population of the two autonomies, unlike that of other regions, has diluted their collective identity largely within the Spanish identity.

Ethnography

Language

Dialectos and accents of Spanish in Spain and Andorra.

Presence of Leism, Laism and Loism in Spain and Andorra, especially noticeable in the Castilian region.

The language of the territory is Spanish, the Romance language of the Iberian group, a language that had its birthplace in ancient Castile.

According to popular belief, Spanish originated as a dialect of Latin in the border areas between present-day Cantabria, Burgos, Álava and La Rioja, with possible Basque and German-Visigothic influences, making it the main popular language of the Kingdom of Castile (the official language was Latin). However, it is in Toledo, at the court of Alfonso X, where the first version of a standardized written Castilian was created, so there are diversity of opinions about the degree in that modern Castilian actually derives from the Mozarabic spoken in that city before and after the Castilian conquest.

It spread to the south of the peninsula thanks to the Reconquest, and to the other peninsular kingdoms through successive dynastic unifications: union with León and Galicia with Fernando III of Castile, introduction of the Castilian Trastámara dynasty in the Crown of Aragon and later union with the Catholic Monarchs. Although the most important reason for its expansion throughout the Iberian Peninsula, beyond the conquests and dynastic unions, was the prominent political and economic position of, first the Kingdom of Castile and later the Crown of Castile in the peninsular environment, with the cultural prestige that this entailed. The colonization and conquest of America carried out simultaneously expanded the language throughout most of the American continent.

In the historic region, the contemporary Spanish language itself has several dialects: the Northern Castilian dialect, which extends roughly over the area from the border with Cantabria and the Basque Country in the north to Cuenca in the south; the Manchego dialect in the provinces of Albacete, Ciudad Real, Toledo, most of Cuenca and the Community of Madrid; in the Madrid capital and its metropolitan area the Madrid or Spanish dialect of Madrid is common, considered the main source of linguistic innovations.

Folklore

Principal level: Folclore de Castilla

Dances

Dance group dancing a Castilian jota at the foot of Valladolid Cathedral on the occasion of the procession of the Virgin of San Lorenzo.

The two most deeply rooted traditional dances in Castile are the Castilian jota and the seguidilla.

The Castilian jota is one of the best-known subgenres of the jota, a genre widespread throughout most of Spain. Some sources believe that the Castilian jota is a variety of the Ebro jotas, where its origin is located, which entered Castile through the lands of Soria. The first written reference to the jota in Castile dates from 1789, in the work Adventures in verse and prose of the distinguished poet and his discreet companion, by [[Antonio Muñoz (writer of the century XVIII)|Antonio Muñoz]], where it is narrated as some women of Valladolid ask a poet to write some songs to dance to the jota. Aragonese.

The seguidilla is a dance with a special tradition throughout the region, especially in the area of La Mancha, where it is known by the subgenre of Manchegas. As of the 16th century their presence stands out in the rural environment as well as in the urban one. Some authors point out that they have their origin in Andalusia, taking letter of nature in Castilla, where it takes root in the peninsula. With a ternary rhythm and lively movement, it is danced to the accompaniment of castanets, guitars, bandurrias, lute, pestle and bottle of aniseed.

Geographical and population criteria have played a very important role in the development of this type of dance. The wide architectural space of the Castilian squares with hundreds of dancing couples has allowed choreographies that contrast with those of other areas of Spain, developing a characteristic tradition.

Other dances with important traditional roots are the dances of sticks, the fandango, the redondilla from Tierra de Campos and the rondón,

Many of these dances were carried out in a wheel formation, with the dancers standing in a circle, this formation being associated with the festive atmosphere. There are bibliographical and journalistic texts that describe this celebration in detail at the end of the xix century, when the popular festivals maintained all their splendor.

Gastronomy

Palentino roasted clamp, a variety of batch roast cooked only with water and salt.

A Castilian soup dish, a popular dish subjected to multiple variants.

Castilian cuisine is characterized by its austerity and by the search for pure and essential flavors. It is based on local products that are easily accessible, with simple and unsophisticated recipes. As it is a geographically large area, Castilian gastronomy it is very varied. Thus, in La Mancha and the old Castilla la Nueva, the influence of geographically neighboring Andalusian cuisine, and of the historical Andalusian cuisine, can be appreciated.

The fame of Castilian cuisine has to do with its livestock tradition, which has led to the Castilian roast being considered one of its most characteristic dishes. Within this technique, the most popular are roast lamb and Roast suckling pig, where Segovia suckling pig acquires special relevance. Traditionally these roasts are prepared in a wood-fired oven and without any additives, only water and salt.

Soups are also traditional. The Castilian soup, made with common and cheap ingredients, was once considered a remedy against cold and high energy value as food for shepherds.

Among sausages, Burgos black pudding is the most popular in Spain, and one of the most consumed varieties in the world. In 2018 it was recognized with the Protected Geographical Indication by the European Union. Manchego cheese It is considered the best-known Spanish cheese in Spain and in the world. It has a recognized protected designation of origin according to the European Commission regulation. Castilian cheese received in 2020 recognition as a Protected Geographical Indication.

Another typical traditional dish of Castilian gastronomy is the ratatouille from La Mancha, which originates from the peasants of La Mancha cooked in the open air with products from the garden. Madrid stew is considered an evolution of the rotten pot (another stew with Castilian roots, usually mentioned in the literature of the Golden Age). Despite appearing under the name madrileño at the end of the century XVII, its identification with the capital of Spain is made in a period that goes from the end of the century XIX to mid-XX century.

Symbols

Escudo de armas de Castilla

During the reign of Alfonso VIII of Castile, a gold castle began to be used, clarified with azure and masoned with sable, in a field of gules, as a symbol of the Kingdom of Castile, on shields and banners.

The arms of Castile have been used since then in the different versions of the coat of arms of Spain and of different autonomous communities. In heraldic terms, the coat of arms of Castilla is defined as follows:

on the field of gules, a three-warming gold castle, sable mamposted and azur clear.

Subsequent versions led to the purple color being applied to a legendary «Castilian banner», making the purple color to be identified as the color of Castile. One of the hypotheses raised in this regard is supported by the fact that, over time, many cloths that were originally crimson in color wore out and could have been confused with other shades, such as purple.