SAN JORGE CULTURAL

JUEVES, 28 DE ABRIL DE 2011

HOMENAJE A FERMÍN BOHÓRQUEZ

En la Parroquia de San Jorge, a las 20:30 horas, reconocimiento público a Fermín Bohórquez, por su colaboración desinteresada durante muchos años con el Ilustrísimo Ayuntamiento de Alcalá de los Gazules, en los preparativos de las fiestas en honor de nuestro Patrón San Jorge.

A continuación entrega del VII Premio Ciudad de Alcalá. Este año, la Delegación de Cultura del Ilustrísimo Ayuntamiento de Alcalá de los Gazules, así como todo el Consistorio alcalaíno, han acordado por unanimidad conceder a la Peña Taurina Ruta del Toro y a la Peña Amigos del Camino, el VII Premio Ciudad de Alcalá, como reconocimiento a ambas entidades por su trabajo, así como por difundir la imagen de Alcalá de los Gazules, a la par que por haber sabido contribuir decisivamente al fomento y desarrollo de la localidad.

Seguidamente presentación por el Sr. Alcalde Don Arsenio J. Cordero Domínguez, de la nueva edición de la publicación anual "Apuntes Históricos y de nuestro Patrimonio 2011".

XXV PREGÓN DE SAN JORGE

El Pregón estará a cargo de Don Luis Pizarro Medina, Parlamentario andaluz, que será presentado por la anterior pregonera Doña María José Gómez Soto, Licenciada en Periodismo por la Universidad de Sevilla.

SAN JORGE 2011 EN ALCALÁ DE LOS GAZULES

LA PEÑA TAURINA ANUNCIA SAN JORGE

Memories of Alcalá 36: The Plaza Alta, or Plaza San Jorge

Original Spanish version, with photos

If we were going to run through the entire history of our town, we would have to begin and end with the Plaza Alta [lit. “high square”]! Alcalá was born at its highest point, on the summit of la Coracha., as were other noble towns, with a citadel, surrounded by palaces, churches and coats of arms. Alcalá has two parts: the old, with the castle and the old churches, and the new, with the Alameda and the Playa.

The dogs and the children liked the Plaza Alta. The dogs, because they could go through its narrow streets chasing vermin in the ruins of the big old houses without anybody bothering them; the children, because there was sufficient space to play fantasy games in the castle, the walls of the church and the ruins of the old houses. There were found the history, the fantasy, the wind tunnel, the Moorish water-tank, Father Viera's Beaterio, the cemetery, the castle, the tower, the lookout point over the valley of the River Barbate, the enclosed nuns, the palace of the dukes, the house of San Juan de Ribera, the old Town Hall (by then a hospital), the house of the priests or Rectory, the brothel, the summit of the Coracha, and the main gate of the old town.

It is the highest point and the centre of the old Moorish Alcalá. But previously it was Roman, when it was called Turris Lascutana. We can still see the Roman wells of the Fuente de la Salada, from the 2nd Century BC. Next to them passed “La Calzada” [paved highway], and a temple dedicated to the divinity of the water source, now disappeared. The basement of the castle is also Roman, which was finished in the Moorish period and is now considered as such. Between the 12th and 13th centuries they built the ramparts, of which now only the door of the ancient villa remains. And in the 16th century were built the old Town Hall, known as the Casa del Cabildo, and the church of St George over a Moorish mosque. All this history was converted by the children into a game, Moors and Christians.

All around were situated the dwellings, constructed to fit around the terrain of the hill. Each house was unique, taking advantage of the complexities and corners created by nature and the other old houses. The higher up the houses were, the grander were the buildings. Their stone façades emulated those of Medina, Vejer, Arcos, Jerez … But in my time they appeared to have been forgotten about, because people sought to live around the Alameda and the Playa. So the Plaza Alta and its surroundings became more and more deserted. Its streets were like a filigree of pearls from an Arabic rosary, raised during the centuries when they were populated by the Moors.

There were three churches, corresponding from the time of the Christian reconquest: San Jorge, the main parish church of the town; the convent of the nuns of St Clare, today converted into the SAFA education centre; and the Beaterio of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, founded by the Venerable Father Viera as an infant school and old people's home.

The Plaza Alta was the heart of the old town, and the Alameda that of the new town. When we go up there, time appears to slow down, as if an ancient breath of life is preserved in the stones and the nooks and crannies of the old buildings.

The streets which form the Barrio Alto have the flavour of the Moors, the Andalucians and the Christians: Antigua Puerta de la Villa, Plaza de San Jorge, Puerta del Sol, C/ del Castillo,Soledad, las Monjas, Calzada de San Vicente, San Juan de Ribera, San Francisco, Villegas, Plaza Collado, Alonso el Sabio, Arcipreste Roa, Sánchez Díaz, Miguel Tizón, San Pedro and Levante. Fortunately almost all the houses have been restored and the streets have been renovated. In summer, zt dusk, the people come out into the streets or sit in their doorways to take the air and socialize.

The oldest building is the castle, the “castellum” of the Romans, the citadel of the Moors, the fortress of the Christians. The only remaining parts are the tower of Homage and the a wall from the water tower. Few towns have offered a location better suited for nurturing children's fantasies. But little by little the buildings were abandoned; the castle, the Town Hall, the Church of St George, the Rectory …

Fortunately today the noble buildings of the Plaza Alta can be seen in their true context. The church is the spiritual home of all Alcalainos. The baptismal font,like a silent witness, is where the inhabitants of Alcalá are baptised.

In the Visigoth period, in the 7th Century, the bishop Pimenio from Medina Sidonia built the hermitages of the New Saints and the Cortijo de la Higuera, near the Puerto del Vizcaino, today called Puerto de la Parada, 16 km from Alcalá. Both can be found near the settlement of la Mesa del Esparragal. The Bishop Pimenio ordered an inscription to be made on the remains of altar stone, which was actually an ancient Roman pedestal, today conserved in a side wall behind the choir in the church of San Jorge. The Latin text says: “In the name of the Lord, here are preserved the remains of Saints Servanto, German, Saturnino, Justa and Rufina, martyrs, and of John the Baptist. On the 5th day of June of the year 33 of the Episcopate of Don Pimenio, 700 of the era” [662 AD].

With the arrival of the Moors, Christianity continued but was relegated to second place. With the Reconquest, it grew again under the protection of the Military Orders and the presence of the Kings Fernando III, the Holy, and Alfonso X, the Wise. In 1263, Alcalá was converted into a Christian town.

Next to the Church was the old Town Hall or Consistorio. At some point it was decided to abandon the building, convert it into a hospital and move the Town Hall to the Alameda. That was the point at which, for many years, the Barrio Alto was abandoned.

Today the square has recovered old and new connotations, such that we can call it the Plaza Alta, Plaza de la Historía, Plaza de la Religión, Plaza de la Educación, Plaza de las Fiestas and Plaza de San Jorge, or the Patron. At the time of writing, Alcalá is celebrating once more, in the year 2010, the festivals of the town: proclamations, religious celebrations, festivities, music, bull-runs, and home-cooked food will all form part of the “Year of Grace” which the Pope has conceded to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Saints. And those of us who live away from the town feel proud to be Alcalainos.

JUAN LEIVA
Translated by Claire Lloyd

Memories of Alcalá 22: The Towers of My Town

Spanish original and photos

Back in the 1940s there was a song which raised the spirits of everybody who, for whatever reason, had to leave their home town. It went like this:

“La torre de mi pueblo no la puedo olvidar
No la puedo olvidar, porque le tengo amor.
No quisiera morir muy lejos de ella, no.”

[I cannot forget the tower of my town, because I love it, I wouldn't like to die far away from it.]

And certainly, the symbol which we all remember most fondly about our town is its tower.

What is more, Alcalá's tower is an impressive construction from the time when our church was first built, i.e. in the 15th century, at the expense of the first Marquis of Tarifa, don Fadrique Enríquez de Rivera. Later it went through various reconstructions in the 16th, 17th and 18th Centuries. It can be seen from all corners of the town and gracefully dominates the whole municipality.

The tower is 785.56 metres above sea-level. In the top part there are five bells, four large and one small. It is crowned by a pyramid, topped by a cross and finished with eye-catching tiles. The view which you get from the bell tower is spectacular, with nothing to obscure it except the wall which leads from the tower to the castle keep.

The sound of the bells is deep, intensified by their size and amplified by the depth of their scale. The only thing which cuts through the quartet of their chimes is the small bell, which breaks in like a cry of joy amongst such gloomy sounds. The other bells conduct a melancholy concert, sorrowful and depressing. When the altar-boys went up to ring the bells on All Souls' Day, right through the night their chimes would fall on the town like a heavy blanket of mourning for those no longer with us.

Alcalá always boasted two towers: that of the Church of San Jorge, and the that of convent of the nuns of St Clare. The convent tower was in two parts; it served to communicate to the townsfolk the times for mass and other religious ceremonies. The convent, the church and the tower were constructed in the 16th century on the initiative of the family of los Duques, especially their natural son who later became San Juan de Ribera. His bell had a sound very familiar to the people of Alcalá, but they say that a priest, appointed to Alcalá at a time when religious artefacts were disappearing, took it off to Benalup.

The other belfries were not towers but gables. These gables were formed by a wall with recesses for the bells, topped by a cross. In those days there were four bell-gables in Alcalá. That of La Victoria, with two bells, dates from the middle of the 16th century. This was once the church of the monks of Mínimos, or Victorios. The church was still in use when I was a child [1940s], but the monks had left when the smaller monasteries were closed [1830s]. The belfry of Santo Domingo was not used, because that church had been closed at the same time. The one in the chapel of the Hospital de la Misericordia still existed, with a bell, but hadn't been used for many years. And finally the one in the Beatario, which was still in service for the chapel of the nunnery and the primary school.

Formerly, Alcalá had also had many other hermitages, which were gradually disappearing. They all had their own little belfry to call the faithful. The majority were gables, but others had campaniles, a piece of wall separate from the hermitage itself with an iron frame to hang the bell from. The oldest is that of San Vicente, dating from the 13th century with links back to the Visigothic era, situated right at the top of the Coracha. Another of the most ancient is that of San Ildefonso, erected after the victory of Alfonso X “The Wise”, in the 13th century. In the 15th century there was a church adjoining San Jorge, called Santa Águeda. The 16th century Hermitage of San Antonio, previously called Nuestra Señora de la Consolación, was was the first home of the Mínimos in Alcalá, while the monastery of La Victoria was being built.

The Church of Santa Catalina is mentioned by the General Visitor of the Diocese, don Felipe de Obregón, in the 16th century. It was apparently located in the old Casa de los Ribera, inside what was later the Convent of the Nuns of St Clare, whose tower belonged to the church. We must also remember the belfry of the Hermitage of la Vera Cruz, situated in the Alameda from the 16th century. Later on, in the 18th century, it was called la Soledad. With the departure of the Minimos, the hermitage fell into decay and was abandoned.

This, briefly, is the history of the towers of a town with ancient roots, one of the pioneers of the Christian faith, which grew out of the Hispano-Roman and Visigothic eras. Unfortunately, almost all physical traces have disappeared, but thanks to the tenacity and investigations of the historians we can know more about our history. And thanks to its tower, we are able to sing:

“La torre de mi pueblo no la puedo olvidar
No la puedo olvidar, porque le tengo amor.
No quisiera morir muy lejos de ella, no.”

JUAN LEIVA
Translated by Claire Lloyd

Memories of Alcalá 21: Christmas in Alcalá

Spanish original


In the old days, Christmas in Alcalá was different. In the middle of December, without saying anything, all the families began their preparations for Christmas. Those who were able to had slaughtered a pig, so there was no shortage of chorizo, black pudding, crackling, chitterlings and salami during the festive period. The smell of Alcalá's traditional pork products impregnated every corner of the town. The splendid sausages were put by in the store-rooms and lofts of the houses to be cured, ready for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

They also made cakes and pastries: pestiños, doughnuts, aniseed cakes, oven-baked cakes, little fried pastries, pine-nut cakes, angel hair cakes. We didn't need to buy cakes, because they were made at home and given as presents. The nuns of St Clare made little marzipan figures, Cádiz bread, shortbread … Sometimes when people went to Cádiz, on the way back when the COMES bus stopped at Medina they would buy little boxes of macaroons, sweet biscuits, almond cakes and other specialities of “Las Trejas” in the Town Hall square.

In the Beatario and other infant schools of the town, the walls would be adorned with symbols of the nativity. The nuns rehearsed villancicos [folk carols] with the little children and the students. Many men went out into the fields to gather hawthorn, lentisco, rosemary, palm leaves and other greenery to build a nativity scene. For the children this was a major event. It was set up in a corner of the house: the secret entrance, rivers, paths, models of carbon-sellers, washerwomen in the river, shepherds with their sheep and goats, cowmen, wells … They were vignettes taken from real life. The town itself was like a beautiful picture of a nativity scene.

Don Arsenio and Señor Cobos rehearsed with a choir of young girls the Christmas Eve mass and the carols for the ceremony of kissing the feet of the infant Jesus. The mass was celebrated at San Jorge and the whole town attended. The singers occupied the choir stalls, but many young men sat close by to watch the girls singing. The children were enthusiastic about the song solos, because there were a couple of girls who impressed the congregation with their voices.

The mass was said at that time by Father Mainé, parish priest of San Jorge, who preached very well. The deacon was Father Lara, parish coadjutor and chaplain to the nuns of St Clare, and the sub-deacon was Father Manuel, coadjutor and chaplain of la Victoria. The celebration was one of the biggest of the year and the church was packed solid; men and women, adolescents and children, nobody was missing.

At the end of the mass, the young people took out bottles of anis and brandy. They went through the streets singing villancicos accompanied by the drumming of spoons on the bottles and the sound of the little bells that were kept at home for the goats. They asked for donations or sweets. We children copied them and did the same thing, but without drinking alcohol, and we went to bed earlier. When we went to bed, the others carried on singing villancicos. And in that delicious half-asleep state, we could still hear those melodies:

Pero mira cómo beben los peces en el río …
La Virgén está lavando y tendiendo en el romero, los pajarillos cantando y el romero floreciendo ...

[But see how they drink, the fishes in the river …

The Virgin is washing clothes and hanging them out on the rosemary, the little birds are singing and the rosemary is blooming …]

And I remember them full of nostalgia and melancholy. I don't know if it was because of the war, but they were sad sounds, that made you cry.

JUAN LEIVA
Translated by Claire Lloyd

Memories of Alcalá 8: “You'll end up like Almendrita”

Spanish original

This Memory of Alcalá is not about my childhood, but it came to mind when I was recalling those years in the 1940s when I was an altar-boy in La Victoria, with Father Manuel. This article commemorates two of the most relevant professions of those times, especially at burials and in the funeral services of San Jorge: the sochantre [chanter], and the organist.

The sochantre was a type of singer who chanted the motets and psalms at Mass and the Divine Offices. In the 1940s the choir had almost disappeared, only performing at Christmas and the celebrations of the Virgin of the Saints. At that time the sochantre was Don Antonio Cobos, who had a deep, rich bass voice. His voice was more powerful than those of all the priests combined. The organist was Don Arsenio, an educated man, knowledgeable about music, who produced unforgettable sounds from the organ of San Jorge, and was a very good singer as well.

The parish of Alcalá had a tradition of excellent singers and organists, I can bring to mind at least thirty, whose duty it was to turn up each day and sing the Divine Office in the choir stalls of San Jorge. The construction of that choir is an excellent example of 18th century choral seating, made by Agustin de Medina y Flores. The organ is a formidable musical instrument, made by Francisco Pérez of Valladolid. No-one could deny that the chanters and organists of San Jorge did justice to their surroundings.

At the end of the 19th century, one of those chanters was Antonio Periáñez Lagos, married to Gertrudis del Manzano, both from Alcalá de los Gazules. In 1879 they arrived in El Puerto de Santa Maria with a nephew, Manuel Almendra Periáñez, an 18-year-old orphan, his sister Maria, one year younger, and a great-uncle, Francisco Periáñez Salcedo. They were all natives of Alcalá. Uncle Antonio sang all his life, and made a good living for his family acting as chanter in the Mayor Prioral Church in El Puerto. The Prioral was at that time among the ten richest parishes in the archdiocese of Seville. It also had a flourishing choir of clerics who sang the Divine Office every day.

On 2 June 1897, at 9 o'clock at night, Manuel Almendra Periáñez, 23 years old and suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis, was certified dead by the medic Don Lorenzo Barrios after a dreadful attack of asthma which not even inhaling eucalyptus vapours could alleviate. The illness had prevented him from being able to lie down, so he had spent the hours and the days seated in the front bay window of the house, No 9, Calle de Santa Clara in El Puerto, on the left-hand side as seen from Calle Cielos.

On 24 November 1996, Enrique Pérez Fernández from Jerez, a teacher and writer in El Puerto de Santa Maria, published in the Diario de Cádiz a curious anecdote which he had dug out from the old periodical Revista Portuense. It was entitled “A Ghost in Santa Clara” and the sub-title was “You'll end up like Almendrita”.

Two weeks after the death of Manuel Almendra, the Revista Portuense, under the heading “Appearance of a Dead Man”, reported the following item: “Popular fantasy, which is so given to exaggeration, has led to a large crowd of people gathering every day in Calle Santa Clara to see imprinted, so they say, on a pane of glass in a bay window, the face of a young man who passed away a short time ago. The old wives of the neighbourhood mentioned this to the people of the town, and unfortunately it spread to people outside the town, giving an air of credibility to what was just an amusing fiction.”

Incredulous, the journalist went that afternoon of 16 June 1897 to the place of the supposed apparition and the following day published a report on the event with the facts he had been able to gather there. It turned out that a little girl from that street, accustomed to seeing Almendra sitting in the window, believed that she could still see his face on a window-pane even after his death. The news ran through the whole city and in no time at all, many of the townsfolk turned up to take a look at the apparition.

The journalist reported that half the city had lined up opposite the window, until the point at which the window-frame had been removed, but people said they could still see it in the glass in the other window-frame. There were even some who said they could see it in one of the glass sides of a nearby gas-lamp, and had stayed there looking at it until well into the early hours. Señor Periáñez had complained bitterly about what was going on, because his wife had become gravely ill, and on top of the pain of his nephew's death was now added the commotion caused by these people. He had asked the Mayor to send a couple of civil guards to put a stop to what was going on.

The lawyer and writer Luis Suárez, who learned the story from his maternal grandmother, Doña Candelaria Leal, gave another version of the events in a later journal called Cruzados, in the early 1960s, under the title “Characters by Word of Mouth”. He was sure that this event gave rise to the popular saying in El Puerto, “You'll end up like Almendrita”.

JUAN LEIVA
Translated by Claire Lloyd

SAN JORGE 2008

Así estaba la Plaza de San Jorge al finalizar la capea de la segunda vaca.

Sábado 26 de Abril de 2008

Otro aspecto de la Plaza de San Jorge.

Sábado 26 de Abril de 2008

Así estaban las gradas y la puerta de San Jorge de la Parroquia.

Sábado 26 de Abril de 2008

La segunda vaca rodeada de aficionados.

Sábado 26 de Abril de 2008

Sábado 26 de Abril de 2008

Otro aspecto de las gradas de la Parroquia de San Jorge.

Sábado 26 de Abril de 2008

La segunda vaca llega en el camión.

Sábado 26 de Abril de 2008

Todo el mundo a la espera de que la segunda vaca salte a la arena de la Plaza Alta.

Sábado 26 de Abril de 2008

Personal encargado de la preparación de la gran filetada popular.

Sábado 26 de Abril de 2008

La primera vaca en la Plaza Alta.

Sábado 26 de Abril de 2008

Así estaba la Plaza Alta.

Sábado 26 de Abril de 2007

Sábado 26 de Abril de 2008

Sábado 26 de Abril de 2008

Calle Ildefonso Romero

Domingo 27 de Abril de 2008

Paseo San Juan de Ribera

Domingo 27 de Abril de 2008

Paseo San Juan de Ribera

Domingo 27 de Abril de 2008

Paseo San Juan de Ribera

Domingo 27 de Abril de 2008

A la espera de que la vaca pase por calle Ildefonso Romero

Domingo 27 de Abril de 2008

Plaza Alameda de la Cruz

Domingo 27 de Abril de 2008

SAN JORGE 2008

SAN JORGE 2008

Aspecto que presentaba el altar mayor de nuestra Parroquia antes de comenzar la función religiosa en honor del Patrón San Jorge

Capea de la primera vaca a su paso por San José

Otro momento de la capea por San José

La vaca camino de la calle Ildefonso Romero

Bajando hacia la calle Ildefonso Romero

Los aficionados a la fiesta siguen a la becerra hasta La Alameda

Un grupo de amigos fieles cada año a la fiesta de San Jorge.

Andrés Romero Torres, José Solino Sánchez, Marco Antonio Huelga de la Luz, Jesús Cuesta Arana, Francisco José Solino Sánchez y Juan Antonio Tizón Espina.

La segunda becerra en la Plaza Alta

Otro momento de la fiesta en la Plaza de San Jorge

XXII PREGÓN DE SAN JORGE

Viernes 18 de Abril de 2008

María de los Santos Delgado Pérez

Pregonera de San Jorge 2008

Viernes 18 de Abril de 2008

Arsenio J. Cordero Domínguez entregó a María de los Santos Delgado Pérez un obsequio como Pregonera de San Jorge 2008

Viernes 18 de Abril de 2008

Arsenio J. Cordero Domínguez, Alcalde de Alcalá de los Gazules, hace entrega de un ramo de flores a María de los Santos Delgado Pérez, Pregonera de San Jorge 2008

XXII PREGÓN DE SAN JORGE

Viernes 18 de Abril de 2008

Gema Pérez Lozano

Viernes 18 de Abril de 2008

María del Carmen Pérez Barroso

Viernes 18 de Abril de 2008

Arsenio J. Cordero Domínguez

Alcalde-Presidente del Ilmo. Ayuntamiento

Viernes 18 de Abril de 2008

Miguel Pastor Sánchez

Viernes 18 de Abril de 2008

María de los Santos Delgado Pérez

Pregonera de San Jorge 2008

Viernes 18 de Abril de 2008

María de los Santos Delgado Pérez

Pregonera de San Jorge 2008

Viernes 18 de Abril de 2008

María de los Santos Delgado Pérez

Pregonera de San Jorge 2008

El cartel de San Jorge 2007 ya está aquí