Berceo is a biannual journal published by the Instituto de Estudios Riojanos. It publishes scholarly studies in the fields of Social Sciences, Philology, History, and Regional Heritage, with the aim of contributing relevant knowledge to research and to the cultural development of La Rioja. The journal is intended for the scholarly community, as well as for other readers interested in these subject areas at the regional, national, and international levels.
Los autores que publican en Berceo conservan los derechos de autor de sus trabajos y autorizan a la revista la primera publicación de los mismos. Los artículos se publican bajo la licencia Creative Commons Atribución–No Comercial–Compartir Igual (CC BY-NC-SA), que permite su uso, distribución y reproducción en cualquier medio, siempre que se cite adecuadamente la autoría original, no se realice un uso comercial y se mantenga la misma licencia.
El Congreso de Arnedo sobre monaca to rupestre (16 al 18 de abril de 2001). Importancia, derivaciones y actualidad
This article reflects the experience lived in Arnedo in the middle of April 2001, when we met in a scientific assembly to look into the history of the place. After an introduction in which we explain the role of Don Tomás Ramírez in the creation of the event, we move on to talk about it. We remember the call for the event in a section that dealt with the archaeological and tourist heritage of the place. Below we offer the documentation that we had as a call for the congress, at the same time we were aware of the intention to publish the minutes. And in a second part of the work we talk about the work that we simultaneously carried out in the tunnels that are currently part of the Arnedan complex, trying to show the different notes that adorn them and that explain their variety and raise the problem of their function. We close the exhibition by exposing some features of these themes in other parts of the Iberian Peninsula.
Copyright (c) 2023 Antonio González Blanco (Autor/a) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Colometría: Recurso didáctico, bálsamo ecdótico
The author explains how he came to discover this way of editing texts aimed to public declamation: colometry. He attempts to specify its meaning through etymology and its use in ancient oratory. He later states how this approach was recovered by Jerome’s Vulgate; it ended up falling into oblivion, though. But the “Lectura Fácil”(“Easy Reading”) Association has made it come to life again. The researcher compares colometry with another ancient ecdoctic system: stichometry. He also mentions the use that he is making of this resource in two didactic editions of the Gospels: a ‘vulgate’-Greco-Latin one (with the impressive translation of Sébastian Castellion; 1551); the other one being a Spanish-Greek-Castilian one, as support material for New Testament textual criticism, with the first Castilian version of the New Testament translated from Greek: that of the Renaissance scholar and humanist Francisco de Enzinas (Dryander; 1543).
Copyright (c) 2023 Jeremías Lera Barrientos (Autor/a) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Recepción del Concilio Vaticano II y realización de la Asamblea Conjunta: reforma de la Iglesia en España y en La Rioja
The councils have had three times for receiving their content. We are in the third period in a decade and Tomás Ramírez Pascual was a valuable protagonist and effective disseminator of the three receptions. This work presents the development of that ecclesial and social event from a historiographic and theological perspective. Trent was the council of the Counter-Reformation, Vatican II that of the Reformation. The fertile and difficult Joint Assembly held in Madrid in 1971 confirmed the irreversible new course in a turbulent political and ecclesial situation in Spain, despite the opposition of the reactionary and anti-reformist Spanish Priestly Brotherhood. With difficulties and successes, ecclesiastical renewal took place in La Rioja. The diocesan Church assumed social action as a method of evangelization. With that option, it resulted in the progress of justice and freedom in Rioja society, which was already accompanied by other social and political institutions.
Copyright (c) 2023 José Ramón Pascual García (Autor/a) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
La recuperación del Camino de Santiago y la atención a los peregrinos en Santo Domingo de la Calzada en el siglo XX
The Camino de Santiago experienced a revitalization in Spain in the 1960s linked to the promotion of tourism, within the political propaganda context of Franco’s regime. In Santo Domingo de la Calzada its rediscovery would begin to be observed with the conversion of the old Pilgrims Hospital into a Parador de Turismo. Regarding to the pilgrims, the Brotherhood of the Saint, whose function for centuries was exclusively devotional, began to host them on a testimonial basis, starting with the Compostela Holy Year of 1971. However, it was not until the Holy Year of 1982 that continued attention to pilgrims would begin.
Copyright (c) 2023 Francisco Javier Díez Morrás (Autor/a) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Noticias históricas sobre la presencia de la danza en Santo Domingo de la Calzada
The historical news of the dance in our town run in parallel to the history of the dance in Spain. In the Golden Centuries the processional dance adorns the Corpus Christi processions in our country. The first date in Santo Domingo is from the year 1575. From that date on, there are numerous references to the dance in our town. It is the golden age of the dance in Spain. Juan Blanco was the city’s dance teacher for more than thirty years. He also taught in other towns and organized a semi-professional group of dancers who were called to perform in cities as important as Burgos. Juan Blanco’s group came to perform a considerable variety of dances, but two types of dances which are currently the most common in La Rioja were already becoming popular in his time: the castanet dance and the stick dance. Professional Valencian dancers were very present in the town during the 18th century. At the end of this century and the beginning of the 19th century there were prohibitions from the bishops, and the kings as well as the wars against France. After this traumatic period, the town of Santo Domingo decided to recover the art of dancing and chose new protagonists, child dancers, to accompany the processions of its patron saint festivities.
Copyright (c) 2023 Javier Asensio García (Autor/a) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Los cinco cartularios de Santo Domingo de la Calzada (1120-1250)
In the archive of the cathedral of Santo Domingo de la Calzada there are three codices, among whose quires are hidden the remains of up to five cartularies. Two of them are practically contemporary, from the period 1217-1222, products of a moment of profound crisis in the diocese related to the intended transfer of the episcopal see from Calahorra to Santo Domingo. The nature of these two instruments has been somewhat obscured by an unfortunate change in the order of their quires. But, moreover, and further complicating their comprehension, in one of these two volumes there are two brief sequences in mid-12th century script: an embryonic cartulary begun around 1135, but soon abandoned; and then two quires referring to Salinas de Añana and related to the death of Count Ladrón around 1155. Finally, a brief dossier occupies the entirety of a third codex and seems to be related to the town’s change from abbatial to royal jurisdiction around 1250.
Copyright (c) 2023 David Peterson (Autor/a) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Los viajes espirituales y terrenales en la Vita SANCTI AEMILIANI de San Braulio
Braulio, bishop of Zaragoza (631-651), traced the biography of the eremite Millán in the Vita Sancti Aemiliani, a narrative text about his life and miracles. In its development, everything flows, nothing is static, to the point that his vital and spiritual ascension path can be set in a kind of «sacral itinerary». Indeed, Millán, in his desire to achieve the inner perfection, visits Felices, a eremit who dwelled in Bilibio; and then he repeatedly seeks at the top of the Distercios mountains for the solitude that will lead him to God, a complex task because his fame promotes, on the one hand, the arrival of numerous believers from very varied places to see him and, on the other, his appointment as head of the Berceo church. Despite these circumstances, he does not stop and continues his journey of perfection, persevering in an even more rigorous way of life.
Copyright (c) 2023 Javier García Turza (Autor/a) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Tomás Ramírez Pascual y el patrimonio parroquial de Arnedo
Tomás Ramírez took charge of the Arnedo parishes in 1999 and left in 2018. His mission was fundamentally pastoral, but his entire career as a parish priest was permeated by a concern and occupation for the rich and extensive historical, artistic and religious heritage of Arnedo for which he felt responsible. His cultural and intellectual background led him to recognize the value of small things, such as the cave church of the Patio de los Curas, or the greatness of the temples of Santa Eulalia, Santo Tomás, and San Cosme and San Damián. Their comments of all kinds through the newsletter “Our Parishes” gave rise to deep reflections and echoed how many parish initiatives promoted, supported or facilitated the development of cultural ncounters such as conferences, concerts. Tomás Ramírez committed himself to Arnedo and his momentum lives on in his parish and in the city.
Copyright (c) 2023 José Ángel Lalinde Gonzál ez (Autor/a) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
La restauración del patrimonio artístico en La Rioja. La Fundación Caja Rioja y el Tall er Diocesano de Restauración
This text is an explanation of the relationship between two institutions based on the restoration of the movable heritage of the Diocese of Calahorra, La Calzada and Logroño. The Caja Rioja Foundation collaborates with the Santo Domingo de la Calzada Restoration Workshop, created by Tomás Ramírez in 1983. The article begins with a description of the history of the protection of cultural heritage in La Rioja, and the collaboration of the Government with the Diocese. The La Rioja Savings Bank (Caja de Ahorros de La Rioja) began its participation in the protection of eritage in 1980 and since that date it has collaborated in several restorations until the arrival of the Foundation, which in 1991 began the relationship with Tomás Ramírez as parish priest of Santo Domingo and later with the Diocesan Restoration Workshop through a collaboration agreement.
Copyright (c) 2023 Luis Vicente Elías Pastor (Autor/a) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Los exvotos pictóricos. Documentos para la historia de La Rioja
Votive offerings are individual offerings that devotees offer to a sacred being in gratitude for a favor granted. They are a curious and interesting example of popular religiosity. Any object can be used as a votive offering, but in this article we are going to refer only to the so-called pictorial votive offerings or painted votive offerings, which are paintings, usually oil on canvas, which narrate the circumstances of the “miracle”. We want to draw the attention of researchers and anyone interested in history to the fact that the existence of an exhaustive published Catalog, with the files of 127 pictorial votive offerings from Rioja, represents the possibility of enjoying a valuable source of information to continue doing the history of La Rioja.
Copyright (c) 2023 Carlos Muntión Hernáez (Autor/a) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
El escultor Antonio de Zárraga y los tres bustos relicarios para el Monasterio de San Prudencio de Monte Laturce en Clavijo
The location of the movable property of the monastery of San Prudencio de Monte Laturce and the documentary sources related to them, has allowed us to know the authorship of three reliquary busts that, due to the confiscation processes, since 1835 are preserved in the catedral church of Santa María de la Redonda in Logroño. All left the hand of the sculptor Antonio de Zárraga, in 1593, to receive worship in the afore mentioned monastery. This article delves in to the authorship of them and other works of the master, as well as the importance that the relics had in the main centers of devotion in La Rioja.
Copyright (c) 2023 María Teresa Álvarez Clavijo (Autor/a) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Mujeres al frente del taller de plateros en Burgos y Castilla, del siglo XVI al XVIII
We study the presence of women in the workshops of Burgos and Castile during the Modern Age. As many women learned to embroider, the participation was very important in the embroidery workshops, where daughters of embroiderers have been documented working regularly. The possession of looms and embroidery instruments has also been documented among noblewomen. In general, the widows of silversmiths could run their husband’s workshop for at least a year to finish the work they had started. But it has also been proven that some women worked as silversmiths for longer periods and contracted new works. This trend increased considerably in the 18th century, and even a woman was in charge of the maintenance of the silver in the cathedral of Valladolid.
Copyright (c) 2023 Aurelio Barrón García (Autor/a) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Esteban Solórzano y el retablo de San Gil Abad de la iglesia de Ortilla (Huesca):
In 1537, the council of Ortilla (Huesca) commissioned Esteban Solórzano, a painter, through the Huescan canon Martín de Santángel, to create the main sculpture altarpiece for the parish church of San Gil Abad. Solórzano was a disciple of the excellent sculptor Damián Forment and in the latter’s workshop the clay “patterns” were to be made, models for the thirteen images and the two wooden stories, as specified in the contract. The Renaissance altarpiece was dismantled in the 18th century, recomposed with great alterations, dedicating it to Saint Anthony of Padua and placed in the chapel of the transept on the Gospel side, with the loss of some carvings and others distributed in different parts of the same temple. Solórzano, due to accusations from witnesses in a trial in 1548, appears as an unrecommended person: “a drunkard, a gambler, an adulterer and a public concubinary”. In this interesting document, the envy and misgivings among the former members of the Forment workshop in Huesca are expressed.
Copyright (c) 2023 Carmen Morte García (Autor/a) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Iconografía Jacobea en la escultura románica riojana
My contribution to the tribute offered by the Instituto de Estudios Riojanos to the Riojan priest Tomás Ramírez Pascual is related to his passion for art, especially for the Romanesque art along the Camino de Santiago. This pertains not only to Santo Domingo de la Calzada, where he served as a priest for eighteen years but also to any other Romanesque sculptural expression along the Jacobean route in La Rioja. The article aims to address the question of whether there exists an iconography ssociated with pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela in the Romanesque art of La Rioja, both in locations along the route such as Logroño, Navarrete, or Santo Domingo de la Calzada, as well as in other places like Ochánduri or San Millán de la Cogolla, which, although located away from the main pilgrimage path, also preserve sculptural remnants with Jacobean themes, indicating the cultural influence of pilgrimages on the art of that era.
Copyright (c) 2023 Minerva Sáenz Rodríguez (Autor/a) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Tomás Ramírez Pascual. Árbol enramado de hondas raíces
Copyright (c) 2023 Jesús Martínez Cañas (Autor/a) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
The family origins of castilian epic: blood and lineage in the legend of los Siete Infantes de Lara
This article analyses the relationships between the legend of the Siete Infantes de Lara and the Cantar de Mio Cid and the Poem of Fernán González, both spatially, temporally and in terms of lineages. Establishes the historicity of some passages and the intra-family conflicts and conflicts between the different families involved in the legend on the basis of the theory of filiation and alliance, as well as the feudal-vasaldic commitment (auxilium and consilium).
Copyright (c) 2024 Jesús Fernando Cáseda Teresa (Autor/a) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
The dialogue between tradition and modernity in the comedy of Bretón de los Herreros as an instrument for social changes. The sensitive upbringing of the middle class
From his apprenticeship in the dramatic craft of recasting and translating to the creation of original works, Bretón always maintained thematic interests and objectives among which the use of love plots for the transformation of the social order, especially in relation to achievement of harmonious and happy coexistence relationships, stands out. Many of his works show his knowledge of the individual and social emotions of his time. The dramatic mechanisms used have a double objective: to be a portrait of the transformation of the middle class after the cultural upheavals of the Enlightenment and Romantic movements, and to provide a certain moralizing tone. The formula for his success lies in the fact that he understands that feelings have become a fundamental category to define people, and he takes advantage of the power that literature has for the sensitive education of his audience.
Copyright (c) 2024 Maribel Martínez López (Autor/a) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
L’objet de cette étude c’est le retable principal de Pinillos. On découvre et on documente son auteur Sebastián de Rojas, imaginero (sculpteur d’images religieuses) aussi bien que les auteurs de sa polychromie, Juan de Rojas et Francisco de Lubiano, dans le deuxième quart du XVIème siècle. Sur cette base, on peut décrire ses particularités : assez archaïque pour ce qui réfère la sculpture, mais avec une grande richesse, variété et modernité pour ce qui concerne la taille, ce qui suggère l’existence d’un atelier avec des subordonnés de formation diverse.
Copyright (c) 2024 José Gabriel Moya Valgañon (Autor/a) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
“The solitary of Logroño: Politics, networks, and self-perception of Baldomero Espartero through his correspondence with the catalan esparterist circle (1856-1870)”
This article proposes an analysis of the correspondence exchanged between Baldomero Espartero and Luis Cutchet, both progressive liberals, especially after the former’s retreat to Logroño following the Progressive Biennium (1854-1856). It delves into the characters and their context, thus offering a structured interpretation along three lines: the politics of Espartero’s progressivism from opposition, the shaping of Espartero’s a self-perceptions, and the socio-political networks created around the Dukes of Victoria.
Copyright (c) 2024 Javier Zúñiga Crespo, Daniel Aquillué Domínguez (Autor/a) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Women during the 19th century in Huelva. Successors of the businesses founded by their natural husbands from La Rioja
There are important colonies of natives of La Rioja in the towns of Gibraleón, Ayamonte, Moguer, Trigueros and Huelva. The presence of natives of the Sierra de Cameros during the 19th century in the province of Huelva is high. The object of analysis of this work is aimed at studying those women who married natives of La Rioja and that due to the early death of their husbands and with minor children, they took over businesses founded a few decades earlier by their husbands. Over the years, many of these activities were able to continue in the province of Huelva, thanks to the work of their wives and relatives.
Copyright (c) 2024 María Antonia Moreno Flores (Autor/a) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Data for the biography of Juan Íñiguez de Arnedo, native of Bergasa and Bishop of Pamplona (1700-1710)
Juan Íñiguez de Arnedo (Bergasa, La Rioja, 1641-Pamplona, 1710) was a collegiate of the major of San Ildefonso and professor of different specialities at the University of Alcalá, later a canon of Toledo. Appointed bishop of Pamplona in 1700, he remained in office until his death in 1710. Some documents mention him as a native of Vergara, in Guipúzcoa, an error due to the confusion of Vergara with Bergasa, a small village in the Cidacos valley in the Eastern Rioja. He belongs to a family with numerous representatives in state institutions and in the Military Order of Santiago, which is linked to other notable families of the Rioja Baja, such as the Bretón and Díez de Tejada families. We present new data and hypotheses about his family relations, a summary of his academic career and a portrait from an unknown author, which depicts him and which was kept until a few years ago in Arnedo.
Copyright (c) 2024 Emilio Cervantes Ruiz de la Torre (Autor/a) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
María Antonia Moreno Flores, La historia de una migración. Antonio Íñiguez Domínguez y Antonia Martínez de Tejada. Desde Laguna de Cameros en La Rioja hasta la Villa de Gibraleón, Asociación Gibraleón Cultural, 2023
Es reseña de: La historia de una migración. Antonio Íñiguez Domínguez y Antonia Martínez de Tejada. Desde Laguna de Cameros en La Rioja hasta la Villa de Gibraleón,Huelva : Asociación Gibraleón Cultural, 2023
Copyright (c) 2024 Manuel Moreno Alonso (Autor/a) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Generelo Lanaspa, J. J. (Coord.) (2023), Viajeros y fotógrafos en San Juan de la Peña (1840-1980). Catálogo de la Exposición en el Monasterio Alto de San Juan de la Peña. Huesca: Gobierno de Aragón, Departamento de Educación, Cultura y Deporte.
Es reseña de: Viajeros y fotógrafos en San Juan de la Peña (1840-1980): [Exposición] / coord. por Juan José Generelo Lanaspa Gobierno de Aragón, 2023. ISBN 978-84-8380-470-4
Copyright (c) 2024 Begoña Arrúe Ugarte (Autor/a) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Jose Ramón Bergasa Pascual, Logroño, Una Ciudad Media Hacia El Nuevo Modelo Urbano. Desarrollos Urbanos 1958-2009, Instituto de Estudios Riojanos
Es reseña de: Logroño, una ciudad media hacia el nuevo modelo urbano: desarrollos urbanos, 1958-2009 José Ramón Bergasa Pascual Instituto de Estudios Riojanos, 2023. ISBN 978-84-9960-166-3
Copyright (c) 2024 Álvaro Foncea Román (Autor/a) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
New information on Domingo Alvarez’s stay in Rome and on his Roman sketchbook
The Riojan painter Domingo Álvarez Enciso was one of the young artists who obtained a grant from the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 1758 to train in Rome. In this study we will analyse certain aspects of this part of his biography, such as the places where he lived, his participation in the competition of the Parmesan academy in 1762 and identify the sources of inspiration for some of the images in his notebook that were still hidden.
Copyright (c) 2024 Raquel Gallego García (Autor/a) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
The “Good Society”. Distinction and heritage in an association of provinces. The Círculo Logroñés
This article describes the recreation society “Círculo Logroñés” from a cultural perspective strongly influenced by the theoretical approaches, the practical results of Cultural History and the reflections of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. This article outlines and explains the “good society” to which the members of the “Círculo Logroñés” belonged. It also includes the most relevant elements of its tangible and intangible heritage, it shows the distinction of its members and the classification (classement) that arose among them, and describes the role assigned to women in this recreation society. All these features would shape the bourgeois habitus that was transmitted from generation to generation among the members of the bourgeois and aristocratic society of the second half of the nineteenth century and the first third of the twentieth century.
Copyright (c) 2024 Esteban Moreno Ruiz (Autor/a) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
De hidalgos riojanos a conquistadores de México-Tenochtitlan
After analyzing the historiography around the Riojans who participated in the adventure of the New World, we find the figures of the brothers Pedro and Martín de Ircio. However, we observed that these works did not delve into the life of these Riojan conquerors, especially from the Indian perspective. Therefore, the present work attempts from the application of the genealogical methodology and the historical biographic, an extensive reconstruction of both his family history and his indiana career through new data, documents, and bibliographic consultation.
Copyright (c) 2024 David Cuevas Góngora (Autor/a) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Political engagement and economic possibilities
The Mateo-Sagasta family’s liberal affiliation is recognized. The connection with liberal ideas on the maternal side, the Escolar family, is more obscure. The information gathered here proves that the path taken by this Torrecillan family from the Constitutional Triennium to the years following the 1868 revolution was one of firm adherence to liberal politics. First, his grandfather, Nicolás María Escolar, and then his children and sons-in-law, beginning with the Progressive Biennium, left the town a legacy of a majority favorable to liberalism, which Práxedes himself would sublimate in his own political action. What he had received in his childhood, he gave to the new society of his dreams.
Copyright (c) 2025 Berceo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
La Iberia and La Nueva Iberia as expressions of progressivism during the institutional decline of the Isabelino regime
This study analyses the role played by La Iberia (1854–1866) and La Nueva Iberia (1868) as discursive platforms for liberal progressivism during the decline of the Isabelino regime. The main objective is to demonstrate that both newspapers did not merely reflect the institutional crisis, but acted as active agents in shaping a political and cultural alternative. Through a methodology based on the analysis of newspaper sources, editorials and contextual documents, the study examines how the press articulated a civic pedagogy aimed at an enlightened and committed citizenry. The interest of the work lies in highlighting the structural function of the press as a political actor, capable of influencing the legitimisation of power and the gestation of reformist horizons. Sagasta’s career as a journalist and political leader