Frias (Burgos)

Frías is a municipality and city in Spain north of the province of Burgos, in the autonomous community of Castilla y León. The city is the head of the municipality, framed in the region of Las Merindades, judicial district of Villarcayo.

On the hill of La Muela, and close to the wide and mighty river Ebro, a strategic enclave of passage of said river was established, since Roman times and especially in medieval times, which linked the Cantabrian coast and the plateau, giving rise to the notable prosperity of Frías and its monumental complex.

It maintains a medieval urban structure that crowns the castle of the Velasco family and the church of San Vicente. The buildings maintain a constructive system in which they are attached to each other. The sunroom on the upper floor uses tuff and a wooden framework.

Together with the municipalities of Oña and Poza de la Sal, it forms the Raíces de Castilla community.

Toponymy

The town's name was originally Aguas Fridas. In Old Spanish frida (frido) meant cold.

Geography

Location

Air view of Frías.

It is about 80 km northeast of Burgos capital, on the banks of the Ebro river, with 29.37 km² of municipal area.

Northwest: Cillaperlata	North: Tobalina Valley	Northeast: Tobalina Valley
West: Oña		This: Sierra Party in Tobalina
Southwest Oña	South: Sierra Party in Tobalina	Sureste: Oña

Map of the municipality

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Interactive map — Frías (Burgos) and its municipality

History

Frías is located in a strategic location to cross the Ebro River, which has been used at least since Roman times. The first historical reference dates back to the year 867, in the midst of the repopulation of these lands after their conquest from the Muslims. In the XI century, Count Sancho García, known by the nickname of "he of the good privileges ", acquire the city. On his death, Frías became part of the kingdom of Pamplona Nájera (predecessor of the kingdom of Navarre) under the reign of Sancho Garcés III the Greater.

In 1202, King Alfonso VIII granted it the Fuero de Logroño to give it greater well-being and independence, favoring the economic development of the population, which came to have a Jewish quarter. He becomes dependent on Castilla and extends his influence throughout the Tobalina Valley. In the XIV century, a tower was built on the bridge with the aim of collecting the pontazgo more efficiently.

In 1435, King Juan II of Castile granted the town the title of city with the aim of exchanging it to Pedro Fernández de Velasco, Count of Haro, for Peñafiel. The population of Frías refused to accept the Count of Haro as their lord, which led to the confrontation and siege of the square, which had to surrender after a long time, and abide by the rules of the new lord.

In 1492 the Catholic Monarchs created the Duchy of Frías, which they granted to the Velascos.

In the Floridablanca gazetteer (1789), the city of Frías appears, together «with its neighborhoods of Quintanaseca and Tovera», within the district of Castilla la Vieja in Burgos, listed among the "single peoples" As such, it is a secular lordship, exercised by the Duke of Frías, with a mayor of the Lordship and another ordinary one.

After the fall of the Old Regime, it was constituted as a constitutional council of the same name in the Briviesca district, in the region of Castilla la Vieja; It then had 790 inhabitants.

Description in the Madoz Dictionary

This is how Frías is described in volume VIII of the Geographical-statistical-historical dictionary of Spain and its overseas possessions, a work promoted by Pascual Madoz in the middle of the century XIX:

FRIES: city with city council in the province, diocese, territorial audience and general captainship of Burgos (11 leagues), judicial party of Briviesca (6); Located in an eminence on the right of the Ebro about 1,000 steps on a steep 600-foot-high rock. It has 300 houses, most of a floor, which form the body of population; its streets are generally steeped, but narrow, torturous and pending; a square of regular extension; house of town, and in it not very good prison; a hospital quite capable, but so badly managed, that it does not admit to the sick, nor facilitates relief in spite of having some resources; a parish church (San Vicente Mártir) Confine the term N Santocildes and others, 3⁄4 league; E Valderrama, 3⁄4, S Ranera, 5/4, and O Cillaperlata, 5/4. The land is part of the mountain and plain; it is stony and of first, second, third and fourth class, having by points N, E and S the mountains that form mountain range with the Pancorbo, called Corral de los Bueyes, Val de Vacas, Val de Modoyo, San Vicente, Alvilla, Maloyar and Umión that has a considerable elevation; in them there are only vines, oaks, Roads: the premises that are of horseshoe for the slack of the land. Posts: The correspondence is received from Briviesca by a broker, Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays, leaving on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Productions: cereals of all kinds, corn, linen, legumes, chacoli wine, apples, cherries, pavias, walnuts and some figs and apricots; cattle and goat; hunt for perdices, hares, foxes and wolves though few, and fishing of eels, barbos, trouts and fish. Industry: the agricultural, and also 9 flour mills of one and two stones, 2 of flaxseed oil, 3 batanes, a carteria in which lana is carved is enough for bleachers, several canvas looms and a tan factory in the expressed Molinar river. Trade: the import of wine, olive oil, flaxseed and some ultramarine genres, and the export of white, flaxseed oil, few tans and grains; there are two fairs on 1 and 30 November, and a weekly market that is held on Saturdays; the items that are presented in those are quincalla, cloths, and flocks, in the grain market, and during the months of winter expressed. Population: 201 neighbors, 790 souls. Productive capital: actual 1,987,900. Impossible: 148,444. Contribution: actual 43,988 21 maravedis. The municipal budget amounts to 10,000 reais, and is covered by the arbitrians and neighborhood distribution.

Geographic-statistic-historic dictionary of Spain and its possessions of Ultramar

Demographics

Popular Architecture of Market Street

The municipality, which has an area of 29.37 km², has 263 inhabitants and a density of 8.95 inhabitants/km² according to the municipal register for 2017 of the INE.

Graphic of demographic evolution of Frías (Burgos) between 1842 and 2017

Population of law according to population censuses of the INE.Population according to the 2017 municipal register.

Population by nuclei

Economy

The economy of the municipality is based on agriculture (vegetables and legumes), and tourism. Its banks bathed by the Ebro River are home to a large number of orchards and fruit and vegetable farms, highlighting the production of exquisite quality lettuce, potatoes, tomatoes and peppers. It also multiplies its inhabitants in summer due to vacationers and tourists who visit the whole of the city.

Evolution of outstanding debt

The concept of outstanding debt includes only debts with savings banks and banks related to financial credits, fixed-income securities and loans or credits transferred to third parties, excluding, therefore, commercial debt.

Graphic of evolution of the city council's living debt between 2008 and 2014

Living city council debt in thousands of Euros according to data from the Ministry of Finance and Ad. Public.

Administration and politics

House consistorial

Frías has been a socialist stronghold for most of the years of democracy. From 2007 to 2015 the mayor was the popular Luis Arranz. In 2007 reaching an agreement between PP and IU and since 2011 with an absolute majority. In the May 2015 elections, the PSOE clearly prevailed over the PP. In the 2019 elections, the PSOE revalidated its absolute majority.

2019 Election Result

• PSOE: 99 votes, 5 councilors
• PP: 43 votes, 2 councilors

Mayors since the 1979 elections

Period	Name	Party
1979-1983	Antonio Carpintero Fernández (1979) Jesús Arnaiz Fernández	UCD UCD
1983-1987	José María Martínez	PSOE
1987-1991	Second Bergado Tobalina	AP
1991-1995	Víctor González	P
1995-1999	José Luis Gómez Ortiz	PSOE
1999-2003	José Luis Gómez Ortiz	PSOE
2003-2007	José Luis Gómez Ortiz	PSOE
2007-2011	Luis Arranz López	P
2011-2015	Luis Arranz López	P
2015-2019	José Luis Gómez Ortiz	PSOE
2019-	José Luis Gómez Ortiz	PSOE

Culture

Heritage

View of Frías, with the castle, the church of Saint Vincent and the houses hung

View of hanging houses

The medieval urban nucleus of the city has been declared a Historic-Artistic Site and maintains its urban structure and construction characteristics.

Hanging houses

The houses, with a ground floor and two or three floors, some with a cellar due to the wine-producing activity that has been carried out in the area, lean on each other, forming the different streets on two floors. In some cases they hang from the rock. They have a wooden structure and half-timbered tuff walls. The upper part is a solana.

The buildings make up the streets that go up the cliff to the top of it, crowned by the castle of the Velascos and the church of San Vicente. A wall surrounds the urban complex, currently partially, and in it three gates were opened, of which two remain, the Puerta del Postigo and the Puerta de Medina.

Made of tuff and wood, they have taken advantage of the reduced space in such a way that they are built on the same rock, appearing to form part of the precipice. They have an entrance on Obdulio Fernández street and are perfectly visible from the streets: Antonio Carpintero street, Mayor de San Vítores street, Federico Keller street and Campa de las eras.

Casa Cuartel and palace of the Salazar family

Above the door of the house-barracks, at the entrance to the castle, stands out a beautiful shield with the thirteen stars of the Salazar family. It is traversed on the outside by the San Francisco cordon. It is located in the Plaza de Alfonso VIII. In this palace is the Tourist Office of the City of Frías.

Roman road

An important Roman road passes through Frías, a communication route between the Castilian plateau and the north of the Iberian Peninsula, which crossed the Ebro river by an existing ford about 500 meters downriver from the Romanesque bridge of Frías, to continue towards the north through the gorge of the Purón river and the port of Orduña. The Roman road that led to La Rioja also started from Frías. Its route is: La Canaleja street, Rueda street, Ronda street, Rincón de Soto street and Calzada street.

Medieval bridge

Bridge of Frías

The medieval bridge of Frías, 143 m long and with 9 arches, is of Romanesque origin, later, in the XIVth century It was equipped with a defensive tower in the central part, with arrow slits, battlements and machicolations, and whose passage was prior payment (collection of the pontazgo). It connects Avenida del Salero and Avenida de Santa María del Puente.

Castle of the Dukes of Frías or of the Velasco family

Castle view from the urban backdrop

It crowns the Cerro de la Muela, achieving a privileged strategic position over the valley and the Ebro pass. It is one of the most spectacular rock castles in Castile.

The first mention of the fortress of Frías dates from the year 867. The factory that can be seen today dates from the end of the 12th century, early XIII, dates around the reign of Alfonso VIII. It has a marked defensive character. The whole of the keep is separated from the rest of the building maintaining its own defense system.

Its interior is accessed by means of a bridge (originally a drawbridge) over a ditch dug into the rock and an antegate that gives access to the main door protected by a steel fence that has now disappeared. The defense is based on a strategic location of a rock under the keep. The entire perimeter of the castle has high walls, with numerous arrow slits, topped by a crenellated body.

Around the large parade ground there are remains of its old dependencies such as granaries, cellars or service rooms.

From the top of the keep and from the three windows on its walls, topped by Romanesque capitals, the view of the city is excellent.

The keep of this castle has had three documented falls throughout history. The last of these, which occurred in 1830 and with 30 fatalities, had to do with the blowing up of one of the gates of the city walls by Napoleon's army during the war of independence.

Panoramic from the castle of Frías

Parish Church of San Vicente Mártir and San Sebastián

Church of Saint Vincent

It is the church that stands out the most from those that the city has and had. Located at one end of the rocky cliff, only a few remains of its primitive Romanesque construction remain, since after the fall of its tower in 1904 a new one was built. Its main cover is now on display at the Cloisters Museum in New York.

Between the 14th and XVI two chapels are added to the main nave, that of Santo Cristo de las Tentaciones and that of the Visitation. Inside you can admire altarpieces, altars, tombs, paintings, as well as a wide collection of religious imagery. It is located in the Plaza del Cardenal Benlloch.

It belongs to the Archpriesthood of Medina de Pomar, Archdiocese of Burgos. The following localities depend on:

Jewish Quarter

Church of San Vitores

Jewish quarter, almost completely unknown until the last decades of the last century, must have had some importance. In the cartulario of Santa María de Vadillo, Jews are mentioned from 1336 to the end of the century, although they already appear previously, at the end of the XIII century . In 1387 a certain Nahamías was named as a neighbor. Still in 1574 he was remembered in a testimony to the & # 34; collector of Frías & # 34; Jewish convert from the second half of the XV century, called Juan Sanz de la Ussa, who was doubted whether he had been burned or reconciled and his goods sold. He was a tax collector for the Velascos and is nothing less than the founder of the Chapel of the Visitation.

It is located on El Convenio, La Judería and Candonga streets.

Other monuments

• Convent of San Francisco: building of the centuryXIV that over time has been used for other uses, including housing. Interesting example of development.
• Convent of Santa María de Vadillo: founded in 1219 by Diego Faro was occupied by a community of regular Canons of San Agustín. He did the functions of Hospital. It has constructive parts of Gothic and Renaissance style, such as the church, well preserved. He was abandoned after the Mendizábal Fall in the centuryXIX. In recent years it has been partially restored and destined for housing, hosting business and the chapel has been converted into a museum room of musical theme.
• Church of San Vítores: Gothic style made between the centuries XIII and XIV. Throughout its history it has been hermitage, grain warehouse and, after a remodeling, again place of worship.
• Medieval laundry: preserved in good condition, is located next to the river Molinar, at the beginning of the road that goes to Tobera.

Parties

The most relevant festival in the city of Frías is the so-called Fiesta del Capitán. It is held on June 24 and it commemorates the rebellion of the people of Frías against feudal power and also commemorates the liberation of Napoleonic troops in the War of Independence. In this festival the town elects a captain who goes through the different streets accompanied by some dancers dancing with a flag.

In May the Cruz de Mayo is celebrated and in September the festival of Santo Cristo. At the agricultural and craft fair, at the end of August, everything from handmade objects made by the jewelry workshop school to local products, such as fruits and vegetables, among which the well-known lettuces stand out, are sold and exhibited.

On August 26, the festivity of San Vitores is celebrated in the neighborhood of the same name. During the morning a traditional mass is celebrated. Afterwards, they dance to the sound of dulzaineros while tasting different canapés washed down with all kinds of drinks. Already in the afternoon a popular sardine and chocolate is celebrated, to conclude with a festival.

Throughout the year different events are held, such as the medieval days, the WiM Music Festival and renowned competitions, especially those of painting, photography and poetry. On January 20 and 22, the patron saint festivities are celebrated in honor of San Sebastián and San Vicente.

Notable people