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Abstract
Resumen: El estudio de la creación y consolidación de los dominios monásticos en época altomedieval resulta altamente interesante ya que nos permite ver cómo se van entretejiendo redes de poder económico, social y político en el marco de la monarquía astur-leonesa. En este trabajo pretendemos llamar la atención para un pequeño cenobio situado en la comarca de Senabria, el monasterio de San Martín de Castañeda, analizando el proceso de conformación de un dominio monástico y el tipo de relaciones que impregnan las relaciones sociales y económicas del espacio sanabrés en el que se desarrolla. Dicho proceso se relacionará con el resto de sociedades del Noroeste Peninsular, prestando especial atención a las analogías y diferencias con estos territorios, fundamentalmente León, Galicia y el Norte de Portugal.
Palabras clave: territorio, sociedad, economía, poder, dominio monástico, feudalismo, comunidad de aldea, Alto Medievo, San Martín de Castañeda, Senabria, León, Galicia, Norte de Portugal.
Abstract: The current piece of work focuses on the constitution of the monastic domain of San Martín de Castañeda in the Early Middle Ages. This monastery is located in the region of Senabria (province of Zamora, Spain), among the territories of León, Galicia and North Portugal. In this process, it is possible to see the way in which the monastery imposes its domain to the community villages as it is referred in the conflict for the possession of the fisheries of the Senabria Lake. They should be a good source of food in the period as it is showed by the fight of the monastery in assuring their control. The economic interest where revealed in both litigations in 927 and 952. The royal intervention of 921 was followed by some donations of the Kings of León, as the village of Vigo in 940 and its confirmation again in 952. From this date, individuals’ donations were the most important way due the monastery extended its domain to neighboring regions as Valdeorras and Cabreira too. The abbey also buys some possessions as the uilla of Coso de Senabria and a mill on the Trefacio River. The domain is completed with properties in San Ciprián, Trefacio and Murias, in the head-board of the region, giving place to the making of a little feudal domain in which the uilla is the basic unity of settlement. This will suppose a clear differentiation between the inhabited space and the cultivated one, imposing slowly in it the parochial organization. But this doesn’t mean a classless and stateless society because these communities were characterized by a social diversity in which it is possible to find big owners and small free peasants, besides dependent peasants from the moment in which this local powers began to be consolidated as in the case of San Martín de Castañeda, using different juridical instruments as the profiliatio and the presura. Finally, in this period it is possible to observe a clear hierarchical organization of the territory because of the existence of other feudal powers, like other monasteries, included in a widerer territory known as the Urbs Senabrie and intermediate territories like the Territorio Sampire. Nevertheless, Castañeda was consolidated as the most important local power in Senabria in these Early Middle Ages centuries, fact that will allow a later expansion.
Keywords: territory, society, economy, politic power, monastic domain, feudalism, community villages, Early Middle Ages, San Martín de Castañeda, Senabria, León, Galicia, North Portugal.