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Traducción
al ingles
Myriam Casero
Recopilación
Mª Jesús Ramos
"...the Holy
Hosts went up to take refuge in the chapel of the “Dueñas”.
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THE REBELLION OF THE TROUT
It is well-known that
the relationship between the masses and the nobility
wasn’t very good in
1158.
The privileges of the nobility were absolutely unfair
and so, the rest of the population were really tired of
them.
One of these
privileges was the fact that the nobles could choose and
buy goods in the market before the populace who had to
do their shopping after 10.00 a.m.
One day
Pedro “el Pellitero”,
son of a craftsman from
Balborraz,
saw a generous trout from Sanabria and decided to buy it.
In that very moment,a servant of
D.Gómez Alvarez de
Vizcaya took
the trout. The fishermonger and the young tried to
convince the servant to leave the trout,as the time for
them to buy was already over. They weren’t able to.
Moreover the servant, recognizing the young man as the
one who was in love with his master’s daughter, made fun
of him. Pedro,
full of rage, stabbed him. The servant died and
Pellitero was sent to prison.
Don Gómez
claimed justice and the nobles had a meeting the
following day at
San Román’s church.There,they
talked of killing the
assassin and show his head all over the town as an
example. This rumour was expanded over the town; the
masses were really excited and Pedro`s father,
Benito,
went with the rest of the population towards the church.
Shortly after, the church was surrounded by the enraged
men and women who carrying heather and holm oak to the
Plaza de la Leña,set
the church on fire. Not even a noble could be saved.
Then a miracle took place: the Holy Hosts went up to
take refuge in the chapel of the “Dueñas”
who lived next to the church. These ladies were most of
them widows of dead knights at wars or crusades. The
town was completely destroyed.
Benito “el Pellitero”
thought that the noblemen would take revenge so they
decided to leave their houses and look for a shelter
beyond the rocks of Sancti Spiritus. Thus, they could go
on their way to Portugal, but before that they went to
León to see the king. They wanted to apologize.
The king forgave them
with two conditions: they woul re-build the church and
visit the Pope
Alexander III
for penance. The new church was dedicated to the Virgin
so it was called “Santa María la Nueva” and had a silver
altar with jewels, which was what the Pope ordered them
to do. This was made by a goldsmith the following
century. It was used in San Salvador’s church and later
became the
Corpus Christi’s processional
monstrance.
◄ Legends
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"and
below them… the head of stone" |
THE HEAD
OF STONE
It is said that a
young man called Don Diego Alvarado lived in
Zamora in 1173.
This womanizer, troublemaker and gambler man fell
in love with a very young
Inés de Mansilla.
She loved him too but Don Diego’s lack of fortune made
their relation impossible.
By then the building
of San Salvador, which will become the cathedral, went
on. The construction had began in
1126;
King Alfonso
VII wanted a
new cathedral. Don Diego used to visit the work. One day
he saw the soldiers of the bishop carrying some boxes
into the cloister. The boxes were full of jewels and
golden coins sent by the king and
Doña Sancha
for the building of the cathedral.
Don Diego
decided to become rich by stealing the boxes but when he
wanted to go out of the cathedral through a window in “the
bishop’s door”, the southern door the hole began to get
narrower. Then his body fell parting from his head.
The next morning
everybody knew about it. The facade couldn’t be finished
as the builders didn’t want to work on it. The head was
left there for two days so that the people could see it
and learn from it. The head was getting harder and
harder and became stone. That is why we can see two big
columns with
Saint Peter and Saint Paul
on the left, and the Virgin with the Child, angels and
all kind of ornamentation on the right, and below them…
the head of
stone.
◄ Legends
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THE
CROSS OF MEAT
Before the 14th.c.
the monks of
St. Benito
were already in Zamora. However they had to move to a
different convent:
San
Miguel
“intramuros” (inside the walls). Some time before that
King Alfonso XI was fighting in Algeciras among many
“zamoranos”. The
bubonic plague
became their worst enemy there and in the town. They
couldn’t even bury the dead. The town was desperated.
In the convent of
St. Miguel
a very old monk, ”monje
Ruperto” was
praying for the epidemy to stop. He used to walk as he
prayed.
One day he was
praying near an olive tree and suddenly a very bright
light with an angel came out. He offered him a cross .It
was he Cross
of salvation
and as long as the cross was adored, nothing bad would
ever happen. That afternoon a procession took place from
St. Miguel. Those with bubonic plague got cured when the
Cross passed.
The monks thought of
carrying the Cross to Valladolid, but the population of
Zamora didn’t let them and a stone cross was sculpted in
the ramparts that surrounded the town.
Many stories happened
after that until 1935: the relic was taken to the
cathedral and left there and can be visited twice a year.
◄ Legends
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THE
HOLY CORPSES
The story tells about
a devout shepherd from
Toledo
who, while he was praying, an old man came to speak to
him. This old man introduced himself as
Ildefonso,
archbishop of Toledo and told the shepherd to follow him.
The shepherd did so like in a dream and arrived at a
place surrounded by walls. Once there the old man
explained that his corpse laid next to
Atilano’s
and that fact should be known by everybody. When the
shepherd woke up began his way to
Zamora.
Just after arriving, he met the priest of the church and
told him all about his dream. The priests didn’t believe
him and so the shepherd came back home.
In
1260
the story is repeated with don
Suero Pérez de
Velasco as
bishop of
Zamora. This
time the shepherd was from
Jambrina
–a village near
Zamora.
While he was with his flock fell asleep and the
Virgin of Bamba
appeared to him. She said that he should go to Saint
Peter’s church and explain that
Ildefonso’s
corpse laid next to
the altar. When the priest listened to the story, got
very surprised,- for he remembered the one which
happened before. The bishop was told about the corpse
and ordered the excavations he had decided to make.
Surprisingly, a burial with the inscription ”hic iacet
Beati Ildephonsi” was found next to other with
Atilano’s.
Mortal remains. The
hole where the remains appeared was blocked with an iron
grille.From then it is called “the
well of San Ildefonso”.
In
1777,
don Diego de
Arias, paid
for a pyramid that showed the exact place of the find
and a inscription with the story of the saint that
seemed to be as follows:
The priests of
Toledo
decided to carry the mortal remains of their dearest
Archbishop Ildefonso to Galicia in order to preserve
them from being defiled by the Muslims. The way to
Santiago turned hard and long so, seeing
Zamora
as a peaceful and walled town, they decided to leave the
mortal remains in the main church of the time called
Santa Leocadia.
When Fernando I repopulated the town after one hundred
years, he turned the church to a Roman Bizantine temple
that dedicated to
Saint Peter.
Finally, the bishop
Menéndez Valdés
made the mortal remains of the two saints to be put in
the mayor altar.
But the legend is not
complete. Nothing is said about the people from
Toledo.
They never accepted the fact of the remains being kept
in Zamora.
They tried to move the remains on several occasions
without success like that one in which a priest from
Toledo promised to bring them back there. He achieved to
work as verger of
Saint Peter.
He was given the keys because an important visit was to
take place. Then he opened one of the urns, took the
head of the saint and came back to
Toledo.
There a big ceremony, presided by the head, was
celebrated. But the prayers and songs were interrupted
by the head which said loudly,
”I’m not Ildefonso,
I’m Atilano”.
So
S.Ildefonso’s
remains are kept in
Zamora
after all.
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ARIAS
GONZALO
The church of “San
Martín de los Caballeros”
(St.Martin of Knights) was of noble ancestry in
Zamora in 1494.
The mortal remains of Arias Gonzalo and his three sons
were buried there because they had fought in the “campo
de la verdad” (field of truth”) to defend the honour of
the town in front of
Diego Ordóñez.
The tomb of
Arias Gonzalo,
with six lions surrounded by ten shields of stone, was
in the middle of the chapel .But it was in very bad
condition due to what had happened with some men of
Enrique IV who having been made fun of by some noblemen
in Avila, sent his daughter,
Juana la Beltraneja
to Zamora to
appoint her his heir. Those men who came with her,
thinking that the men from Zamora had something to do
with the mockery, captured the town and defiled the
tombs of the noblest ancestors. One of them was, of
course, Arias
Gonzalo’s. And
the legend began then. It happened that after Arias
Gonzalo died, at the end of the
11th c.
He was embalmed and
buried in that tomb with his sword which was said to
have magical powers. Many people visited the tomb to ask
for curation and it seemed they got it. However, after
the arrival of Enrique’s men, the tomb was left broken.
A swarm of bees nested there but they wouldn’t sting the
children who wanted their honey. From then on, the
people of the town wouln’t let anyone to be buried in
the same place although a merchant, called
Diego Alonso,
tried to Build his tomb there.
Once the tomb got
really damaged,
Gonzalo’s
mortal remains were carried to the cloister of the
cathedral and after a fire in
1591
were taken to the
northern nave of the cathedral where they still are.
◄ Legends
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THE LIZARD OF THE VIRGIN OF THE REMEDIES
This legend has two versions. One
of them tells about some children playing in
Valorio
(a small forest to walk and rest in the outskirts of the
town) where they were attacked by an enormous lizard
which came out of the stream.
Later, a woman who was washing
next to the stream was killed by the animal. People
stopped going to Valorio.
The population of
Zamora
began to go to the chapel of the
Virgin
of the Remedies
to ask her for protection. One afternoon after the
prayers, the faithful decided to hunt the lizard. The
animal came out of the stream to attack them, but this
time they were able to trap and kill it. The lizard was
offered to the Virgin.
They wanted to thank her.
The other version says that when
the chapel was being built, in the
12th.c.,
the walls consructed during the day were demolished at
night. The builders were really shocked. Some even
thought that it was the devil who didn’t want the chapel
to be built. Days went by and some neighbours decided to
spend the night there to see what actually happened.
Early that night they could hear a very big noise
followed by a lizard coming out of the vegetation.
The following night, the people
went to look for the lizard .They found it, killed it
and stuffed it to be shown in the chapel.
◄ Legends
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THE FEAST OF THE RAY
The feast of the ray was celebrated in
Zamora the 18th
of June. It was dedicated to the
Virgin of the Majesty
who was named the Virgin of the
“Bald head” as well
because of her broad forehead. It is considered an
important gothic statue. Many people of Zamora used to
say the rosary in front of this Virgin and it became an
institutionalized pious practice in
1663.
Almost two centuries later, in 1811, while the
Napoleonic
troops were all around the town, the faithful
were saying the rosary in front of the Virgin as usual.
This time they were asking for the liberation of the
town. It was a hot afternoon of June.
A violent storm broke .Unfortunately a big ray fell on
the weather vane of the cathedral and came into. It
destroyed everything on its way except for the faithful.
They didn’t suffer any harm.
The priests of the town decided that the Virgin had
protected them and that they would toll the most
important bell of the cathedral (called the “bomb”)the
day before at noon. This feast used to be very popular
but it isn’t any more.
◄ Legends
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