La Rioja, a land of passage?

The present study has tried to highlight the thesis defended by different authors over several decades, in which it was maintained that La Rioja was a «land of passage», a region without its own personality, lacking a stable population and, therefore, alien to any linguistic, cultural and artistic m...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: García Turza, Javier
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:Spanish
Published: Ediciones de la Universidad de Murcia (Editum) 2011
Subjects:
Online Access:https://revistas.um.es/ayc/article/view/380231
Description
Summary:The present study has tried to highlight the thesis defended by different authors over several decades, in which it was maintained that La Rioja was a «land of passage», a region without its own personality, lacking a stable population and, therefore, alien to any linguistic, cultural and artistic movement of its own. On the contrary, these pages want to serve as a foundation for the entity that the Riojan territory had during the High Middle Ages. For this, aspects such as the study of cave dwelling systems are used, which alone justify the survival of a significant demographic volume despite the insecurity prevailing for centuries; religious continuity in some monasteries since Visigothic times; the significance of the language and of the name day as justifying elements of the aforementioned human survival in La Rioja, without forgetting the role played by the Camino de Santiago. En el presente estudio se ha tratado de poner en evidencia la tesis defendida por diferentes autores a lo largo de varias décadas, en la que se mantenía que La Rioja era una «tierra de paso», una región sin personalidad propia, carente de población estable y, por lo tanto, ajena a cualquier movimiento lingüístico, cultural y artístico propio. Por el contrario, estas páginas quieren servir de fundamento a la entidad que tuvo el territorio riojano durante la Alta Edad Media. Para ello se recurre a aspectos tales como el estudio de los sistemas de vivienda rupestres, que justifican por sí solos la pervivencia de un importante volumen demográfico a pesar de la inseguridad reinante durante siglos; la continuidad religiosa en algunos monasterios desde época visigoda; la trascendencia de la lengua y de la onomástica como elementos justificativos de la mencionada pervivencia humana en La Rioja, sin olvidar el papel jugado por el Camino de Santiago.