Mozárbez

Mozárbez is a Spanish municipality and town in the province of Salamanca, in the autonomous community of Castilla y León. It is integrated within the region of Campo de Salamanca (Campo Charro). It belongs to the judicial district of Salamanca.

Its municipal area is made up of the towns of Alizaces, Cilleros el Hondo, La Dehesilla, Montellano, Mozárbez, San Cristóbal de Monte Agudo, Santo Tomé de Rozados, Turra and Ventorro de la Paloma, as well as the unpopulated areas of Allende del camino, Ariseos, Minas de Prado Viejo and Torrecilla, occupies a total area of 44.85 km² and according to the INE, in 2017 it had 493 inhabitants.

Demographics

Graphic of demographic evolution of Mozárbez between 1900 and 2021

Source: Spanish National Statistical Institute - Graphical development by Wikipedia.

Population centers

The municipality is divided into several population centers, which had the following population in 2017 according to the INE.

History

Church of St. Thomas Apostle.

The foundation of Mozárbez falls within the repopulation process undertaken in the Middle Ages by the kings of León, being integrated into the quarter of Peña del Rey in the jurisdiction of Salamanca, within the Kingdom of León, then called Moçaraves. As for the districts of the municipality, in the XIII century there was already Alizazes (Alizaces) and Sancto Thome de Roçados (Santo Tomé de Rozados). As for the name of Mozárbez, it derives from having been repopulated with Mozarabs. With the creation of the current provinces in 1833, Mozárbez was framed in the province of Salamanca, within the Leonese Region.

The information provided by the Madoz, partly historical -because, as is well known, it dates from the year 1843-, is current and acceptable with respect to the descriptive aspects of the municipal term. The only objection to Madoz's description is the attribution of the western limit of Mozárbez to Orejudos, which belongs to Arapiles, and is evidently to the north; while, at the time of composing the Madoz, said limit should have been attributed to Cilleros el Hondo, which is currently integrated into the Municipality of Mozárbez. In addition, to the description of Madoz it would be possible to add the existence in the municipal term of four significant elevations of the land, known as the Modorro, the Jejo, the Zigunal and the Cuesta Utrera.

The Cuesta Utrera had special popular significance, where, according to the archaeologist César Morán, there was in all probability an ancient Iberian castro and later a hermitage, from which a virgin came, in Romanesque style, which was kept, in the years forties and fifties of the last century, in a kind of storage room, existing in the Parish Church, as you enter, on the right. It should also be stated, with respect to the denominations mentioned above, that the word modorro, in local speech, was also used to describe the personalities and behaviors of the residents who were irreducibly stubborn in their decisions, behaviors or whims.

Madoz's assertion –exactly adjusted to reality- also deserves adequate comment, that the climate of Mozárbez

is healthy, being the catarrh and other breast conditions the most common diseases

. For this reason, the designation of San Blas, protector of human throats, as tutelary saint of the municipality is correct and very opportune; the designation of the day of San Blas -February 3-, as the date of the main festivals of the town; and additionally, the consecration of the chokers - ribbons of various colors and dimensions - once blessed, as protective amulets for the throats, around which they were ostensibly tied. Everyone bought them, put them on, showed off......and considered themselves -a bit humorously- safe from dangerous catarrhal conditions.

From the Geographical Dictionary of Spain, Volume 12, published in 1960, perhaps the most curious piece of information is that relating to the fluvial network of the municipality of Mozárbez, constituted by a gentle valley, in its central part, to which perpendicularly converge those that justly deserve no other name than that of regatos. Thus, adds the Geographical Dictionary of Spain, the municipal term is bathed by four temporary streams, which come together close to the town. The main one is that of Monte, which, judging by other descriptions and maps of the area, constitutes the origin -or one of the origins- of the Zurguén, which is considered a subtributary of the Tormes, opposite the city of Salamanca..

Anthropology

The melon grove also had cultural significance, because it gave rise to linguistic derivations that enriched the local dialect: -When the women –the girls- rejected the amorous aspirations of their suitors, it was said that they gave them pumpkins; -Silly people were called sandios or watermelons; -And the stubborn people, who did not give in to their arguments or claims, or who, as was also said, did not get off the donkey, were called melons or melonas.

But, in the list of insults, there was also the derogatory adjective of little bitches. And it was taunted with the word Babieca, logically those who were in Babia or sucked their finger; although it is not very sure that the users From such a compliment they had no remote idea of the real existence of Babia in León, nor that the word Babieca had had the honor of naming the Cid's horse.

Logically, the roots of sheep in popular culture appeared, among other things, in the form of a proverb, applicable to those who were frustrated in their claims -especially if they were not very correct or adequate-, regarding which he said that they had gone for wool and left shorn.

Certainly, in popular culture and language, especially in matters related to sex, there was a sharp and insurmountable separation between what was related to the human species and what was related to animal species. They had nothing in common. Thus, for example, women never gave birth and sheep or cows never gave birth; and there was no name for the human sexual act, which was culturally non-existent, while there were various names for the copulations of other mammals. This separation of incommunicado strata seems to be the reason why the application to humans of a reflexive verb as accurate and expressive as love oneself, which incorporates the word love and which, on the other hand, was used to refer to the sheep at the time when they generally came into heat: they made love to each other

The municipal term raised scorpions –synonymous with scorpions-, which in local speech we called arranclanes, whose existence gave rise to a small cultural peculiarity, which consisted of the technique related to the need to raise carefully the small stones on the ground, under which one of these arthropods could shelter. The technique consisted of lifting the stones without inserting the fingers of the hand under them, which was the way to avoid the unpleasant surprise of putting the fingers at the mercy of the sting, through which the scorpion, in a kind of automatism, discharged its spherical container of terrible poison, with unpleasant and possibly tragic consequences. There must have been a lot of traditional collective experience about such events, because the preventive technique was taught and warned repeatedly and insistently to the children of Mozárbez

As a consequence of the scarcity of water –which gave rise to the aforementioned scarcity of trees and the poverty of horticultural production-, in spring, when we walked through the countryside, we sometimes ate sorrel leaves, which – as expressively indicates the name of the plant- were juicy acid; Well, although we lived in the country, it was post-war years and rationing, and we were short and eager for fruits and vegetables. However, the ingestion of sorrel must have its dangers, so it was necessary to take them with great prudence, since unpleasant gastric incidents should have occurred over time, as evidenced by the fact that they had left, as a reminder and warning, two warning sayings, merged into one: Sorrels in April, fevers to die for; and Sorrels in May, fevers for the whole year.

Apart from proverbs or traditional words, of daily use, some uses and customs, with special sauce and flavor, maintained a certain validity, although, to the extent that they were expressive of the good local humor, they were cushioned by the weight -or sorrow - of the war and the post-civil war. The charismatic, ill-treatment and Miguel Gila-style jokes were now rare, with which widowers who had the audacity to remarry were celebrated. But the inclination to expose songs to people who made mistakes or deviated acts from the usual uses or norms in the local context was in force, even if they did not constitute serious infractions.

Economy

Algarrobas

The town was mainly farmers and ranchers, although the milkmen's guild also had considerable economic significance and external importance; that traditionally they collected the milk from the cabriadas shelves in the peripheral meadows; that later they created important dairies of stabled Swiss; and that they were going to sell the milk, house by house, in Salamanca. Among the agricultural products, wheat and barley stood out, although carob beans -destined to feed cattle- and rye were also important. Complementarily, each farmer planted and harvested potatoes and chickpeas -the main basis of human nutrition-, for their own consumption; In addition, there were some family orchards in the vicinity of the town, where food products were obtained, also of a complementary nature, for family consumption. As can be seen, the character of autarky and self-sufficiency of agricultural production -also of livestock- was a preponderant characteristic note of the local economy.

The Melonar

We cannot forget, in the same order of things, the existence of a spring-summer crop as interesting as melon groves, in which not only melons were harvested, as its name seems to suggest, but also watermelons and pumpkins, These are important as a fundamental ingredient of the farinatos that were made in family slaughters. In the hot months, the enjoyment of the refreshing watermelons -at mid-morning- and the tasty melons was very grateful, although the harvest of these, properly preserved, could supply fruit until well into winter. For this reason, the planting of the melon grove had required the implementation, as a mechanism of remembrance, of a kind of proverb, by means of which it was warned that by San Gregorio -whose name day seems to coincide with the 8th on May 9-, the pipe in the hole.

Livestock

In the field of livestock, a popular institution was the Corral de Concejo, located on the outskirts, in the highest part of the town; and where every morning the neighbors took their goats and their pigs, which, from there, roamed the fallow or stubble, grazed, respectively, by the communal goatherd and swineherd.

Old schools.

The sheep

There was also a more important and numerous herd of sheep in the town, belonging to the farmers in a proportional number to the total extension of the plots that each one cultivated, and that grazed, throughout the year, for the term municipal, cared for by a shepherd, equally communal. The ovine was a cattle very well adapted to the topography and the climatology of the municipality, and it was very productive, because the ewes gave good lambs and abundant and -in those times- valuable wool.

The Pizarras

In historical times, the gray-green slate quarries of Mozárbez must have been of some importance, of which there remained, in numerous contiguous holes, abundant remains of small slates in two fairly extensive areas on the outskirts of town, one between the roads from Calvarrasa de Arriba and from Arapiles; and the other to the right of the road to Miranda de Azán. It was believed to be known - and it was presumed - that some spaces in the Plaza Mayor and the new Cathedral of Salamanca were paved with slates from the Mozárbez quarries. And that the working of stone had a tradition in the municipality is demonstrated by the fact that still in the thirties and fifties of the XX lived in the town an old man nicknamed the stonemason. It is curious that, times after the exploitation of the quarries located on the side of the road to Miranda de Azán, but still in historical times, said quarries were converted into a vineyard, in which, in those years, only a few vines were greening in spring and summer; and spontaneously they produced, although scrawny, some bunches of grapes.

And no less curious is the fact that in those quarries, in those years, only three or four holm oaks remained standing, surely as witnesses of the ancestral and primitive occupation of that land; and, since then, after sixty or seventy years. Nature, returning to its rights, has performed the miracle of turning the space into a splendid and well-populated holm oak grove. In reality, the entire town sits on a slate; and, around fifty percent of the municipal term exhibits, or barely hides, the slate on the surface of the ground. And a kind of plaza existing in the center of the town, which was called El Toral, exhibited slate rocks, without any cover. Obviously, both the houses of the town and the walls of the corrals, as well as the fences of the meadows, are built with slate; all of which justifies by itself the fact of the existence and exploitation of slate quarries, without the hypothesis that Mozárbez, historically, could simply have been a town of stonecutters.

Consistorial house.

The Waters

The municipal term, surely as a consequence of its altitude and its slate basement, is quite scarce of water. And the traditional supply of drinking water was obtained, precariously, from a well, popularly called la fuente, located at the exit of the town along the road that leads to Torrecilla, Aldeanueva and Vallegrande. The area where the source was located was scarcely clean -because it was a passage for cattle- and it is assumed that traditionally there must have been contamination of the water from "the source", which would give rise to epidemics of typhoid fever or similar with morbid and even lethal effects.. For this reason, the people of Mozárbez were surprisingly reluctant to drink water; and even in the height of summer there were people who didn't even try it; substituting it for the abundant intake of wine, although it was not really alcoholic people. This is a phenomenon that we have sometimes felt inclined to describe as cultural hydrophobia.

Administration and politics

Municipal elections

Transportation

Mozárbez is very well connected by road, as it is crossed by the N-630 that connects Gijón with Seville and allows you to go both to Zamora and the north of the peninsula as well as to the provincial capital and the south of the country. It also has an exit from the Ruta de la Plata highway, with the same route as the national highway and built more recently, which substantially improved communication times.

There are no regular bus connections or rail services and the nearest airport is Salamanca Airport, 28km away.