At the time of the Christian Reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula, the primitive streak Limits Portucalense county with the lion kingdom was developing along the left bank of the river Sabor to its confluence with the creek Angueira. This streak was guarded by four main sentinels: Castle Million, Castle Santulhão (both have since disappeared), the Castle of Miranda Outeiro (in ruins) and the Castle Algoso. Complemented the main defense of the northeast sector of the castles Roias Feathers, Mogadouro and although more distant, the Bragança.

The most recent studies indicate that the building of the original structure of the castle dates back to sometime in the end of the reign of King Afonso Henriques (1112-1185), when his son Sancho had exercised the royal power. As recorded in the inquiries of 1258, its builder was a local lord, Mendo Bofino (or Mendo Rufino), which in turn received the lordship of Vimioso village.

From 1224 its structure was radically changed, at which time the castle was donated by Sancho II (1223-1248) to the Knights Hospitaller (called, from the sixteenth century, as the Order of Malta), after a period relatively long war with the kingdom of Leon. At the time, this castle was made up on the pinnacle of local government, residence of the royal representative in charge of the collection of real rights in land and Miranda Penas Roias.

The ancient town and Ylgoso municipality, Ulgoso or San Sebastian Algoso, was part of the bishopric and the district of Bragança. In the year 1230 the Temple and of St John’s Hospital made bankruptcy, in Coimbra, on several land dispute between which entered Ylgoso (Algoso), Vila Cha, Atenor, Roias Feathers, Paradela and others outside the bishopric Bragança.

On June 22, 1239 Pedro Costem, Temple Order of the Commander in Portugal, made a composition between the commendations of Mogadouro and Penas Roias, belonging to their order, and the Algoso.

Subsequently, February 13, 1291, Denis (1279-1325) made new composition, in Coimbra, with the Grand Commander of St. John’s Hospital, D. Fernão Peres (the Mossejo) concerning the commendation Algoso and other nearby lands. The importance of this stemmed income earned annually by its Commander: seven to eight thousand crusaders, including in this amount the two parts of the fruit of the abbeys of Travanca, Sendim, Dry Vilar, Two Churches and Guide. This sovereign will still determined to carry out repair work and improvements in the castle.

Held by the Hospitallers, the castle was transformed into a fortress in the Gothic style, especially the construction of the solid keep, with the commander of the residence function, and a turret on the wall to the south.

Celt colonies began to appear afterward, constructing castros in many of the places that developed into formal settlements. With the arrival of the Roman, bridges and formal roads began to appear, while many of the castros began to be converted into Roman encampments, later the nuclei of formalized settlements. Remains of the Roman civitas are still common: Praesidium (in Vila da Ponte, popularly known as Sabaraz) and Caladunum (in Cervos).

Although there were no overt indications that the Moors settled in this region, although oral tradition inferred as much.

With the establishment of the Christian kingdom of Portugal, Afonso Henriques donated portions of the land for charitable hospices (Salto), hospitals (Vilar de Perdizes and Dornelas) or monasteries (Pitões). Owing to its location, on the border with Galiza, defense fortifications were constructed, including the Castles of Gerês and Piconha, and later in Portelo and the village of Montalegre. A lighthouse was also constructed in Tourém, likely by King Sancho in 1187, since he was the master of the Terras da Piconha region.

It was only in September 1273 that King Afonso III bestowed on the citizens a foral (charter), founding the town of Montalegre and making the local sheriff the master of the Terras de Barroso. The foral was later confirmed by King Denis in 1289, and renewed by Afonso IV (in 1340), John II (in 1491), and Manuel (in 1515).

After the Portuguese Interregum, during the reign of John I, the Terras de Barroso were offered as a gift to Nuno Álvares Pereira for his support.

In 1809, French troops had problems in the region, during the Peninsular Wars, fighting off the Barrosões, in Misarela.

On 6 November 1836, the municipality of Montalegre was divided, in order to create the municipality of Boticas. In course, the parishes of Vilar de Vacas was lost to the neighbouring municipality of Vieira do Minho, and later the parish of Couto Misto de Santiago de Rubiás, was also de-annexed.

Contemporary history of the municipality has been marked by growing emigration, the result of the lack of economic recourse and the abandonment of traditional activities. The institutionalization of local government permitted a revitalization in the municipality, after the Carnation Revolution, which saw a growth in tertiary activities.

From 1296 to 1301, the Kingdom of León was again independent and after the re-union with Castile remained a kingdom until 1833, but as part of a united Spain. In the Royal Decree of 30 November 1833, the Kingdom of León was considered one of the Spanish regions and divided into the provinces of León, Zamora and Salamanca. In 1978, these three provinces of the region of León were included along with six provinces of the historic region of Old Castile to create the autonomous community ofCastile and León.

The city of León was founded by the Roman Seventh Legion (usually written as Legio Septima Gemina (“twin seventh legion”). It was the headquarters of that legion in the late empire and was a centre for trade in gold, which was mined at Las Médulas nearby. In 540, the city was conquered by the Arian Visigothic king Liuvigild, who did not harass the already well-established Roman Catholic population. In AD 717, León fell again, this time to the Moors. However, León was one of the first cities retaken during the Christian reconquest of the Iberian peninsula, and became part of the Kingdom of Asturias in AD 742.

León was a small town during this time, but one of the few former Roman cities in the Kingdom of Asturias which still held significance (the surviving Roman walls bear the medieval walling upon them). During Visigothic times, the city had served as a bishopric, and incorporating the city into Asturias brought legitimacy to the Asturian monarchs who sought to lead a unified Iberian church, during a time when most of the Iberian Peninsula was governed by Muslim powers.

Foundation of Kingdom of Leon

León was created as a separate kingdom when the Asturian king, Alfonso the Great, divided his realm among his three sons. León was inherited by García I (911–914). His successor was Ordoño II of León (914–924), who moved the capital of the kingdom of Astures to León.

Ordoño II of León was also a military leader who brought military expeditions from León south to Seville, Córdoba, and Guadalajara, in the heart of the Muslim territory.

After a few years of civil wars during the reign of Fruela II, Alfonso Fróilaz and Alfonso IV, Ramiro II (931–951) assumed the throne and brought stability to the kingdom. A brave military chief who defeated the Muslim armies in their own territory, Ramiro’s expeditions turned the Valley of the Douro into a no-man’s land that separated Christian kingdoms in the north of Iberia from the Muslim states in the south. Ramiro II was nicknamed “The Devil” by Muslims because of his great military skill.

As the Leonese troops advanced they were followed by a process of repoblación, which consisted of repopulating the Meseta high plains, with people coming from Galicia and especially from Asturias and León. This migration of Leonese peoples greatly influenced the Leonese language. During the repoblación period, there arose a distinct form of art known as Mozarabic art. Mozarabic art is a mixing of Visigoth, Islamic, and Byzantine elements. Notable examples of the Mozarabic style are the Leonese churches of San Miguel de Escaladaand Santiago de Peñalba.

During the early 10th century, León expanded to the south and east, securing territory that became the County of Burgos. Fortified with numerous castles, Burgos remained within Leon until the 930s, at which time Count Ferdinand II of Castile began a campaign to expand Burgos and make it independent and hereditary. He took for himself the title Count of Castile, in reference to the many castles of the territory (around Burgos), and continued expanding his area at the expense of León by allying with the Caliphate of Córdoba, until AD 966, when he was defeated by Sancho I of León.

The Kingdom of León continued to be the most important of all those of the Iberian Peninsula. However, Sancho III of Navarre (1004–1035) took over Castile in the 1020s, and added León in the last year of his life, leaving Galicia to temporary independence. In the division of lands which followed his death, his son Fernando succeeded to the county of Castile. Two years later, in 1037, he conquered León and Galicia. For nearly 30 years, until his death in 1065, he ruled over a combined kingdom of León-Castile as Ferdinand I of León. In these clashes in an impoverished and isolated culture, where salt-making and a blacksmith’s forge counted as industries, the armies that decided the fate of the kingdoms numbered in the hundreds of fighting men.

Early in its existence, León lay directly to the north of the wealthy, sophisticated, and powerful Caliphate of Córdoba. When internal dissensions divided Al-Andalus loyalties in the 11th century, leading to an age of smaller Taifa successor states of the Caliphate, the impoverished Christian kingdoms who had been sending tribute to the Caliphate found themselves in a position to demand payments (parias) instead, in return for favours to particular factions or as simple extortion.

Thus, though scarcely influenced by the culture of the successor territories of the former Caliphate, Ferdinand I followed the example of the counts of Barcelona and the kings of Aragon and he became hugely wealthy from the parias of the Taifas. When he died in 1065, his territories and the parias were split among his three sons, of whom Alfonso emerged the victor in the classic fratricidal strife common to feudal successions.

Few in Europe would have known of this immense new wealth in a kingdom so isolated that its bishops had virtually no contact with Rome, except that Ferdinand and his heirs (the kings of León and Castile) became the greatest benefactors of the Abbey of Cluny, where Abbot Hugh (died 1109) undertook construction of the huge third abbey church, the cynosure of every eye. The Way of Saint James called pilgrims from Western Europe to the supposed tomb of Saint James the Great in Santiago de Compostela, and the large hostels and churches along the route encouraged building in the Romanesque style.

Alfonso VI was one of the most important kings of León of the Middle Ages. He assumed control of first León, and later Castile and Galicia, when his brother died attacking the Leonese city of Zamora. He was crowned Emperor of Spain and received the honoring of all the kings of the Iberian Peninsula.

The taking of Toledo, the old Visigoth capital, in 1085 by Alfonso VI of León was a turning point in the development of León and Castile and the first major milestone in theReconquista. Christian Mozarabs from Al-Andalus had come north to populate the deserted frontier lands, and the traditional view of Spanish history has been that they brought with them the remains of Visigothic and Classical culture, and a new ideology of Reconquista, a crusade against the Moors. Modern historians see the fall of Toledo as marking a basic change in relations with the Moorish south, turning from the simple extortion of annual tribute to outright territorial expansion. Alfonso VI was drawn into local politics by strife within Toledo and inherited the political alliances of the city-state. He found himself faced with problems unfamiliar to him, such as appointing and dealing with a Catholicbishop in Toledo and the settling of garrisons in the small Muslim strongholds, the taifas, which were dependent on Toledo and which often bought the king’s favour with gold from their trade with Al-Andalus and the Maghreb. Alfonso VI thus found his role as a Catholic king redefined as he governed large cities with sophisticated urban, Muslim subjects and growing Christian populations.

The two kingdoms of León and Castile were split in 1157, when a major defeat for Alfonso VII of Castile weakened the authority of Castile.

Alfonso IX did not want his kingdom to disappear upon his death and designated his heirs as Sancha and Dulce, the daughters of his first wife. When Alfonso IX died in 1230, his son by Berenguela of Castile, Ferdinand III of Castile, invaded León and assumed the crown. He thus became the first joint sovereign of both kingdoms since the death of Alfonso VII in 1157. The isolated Atlantic province, the County of Portugal, separated to become the Kingdom of Portugal.

The union between León and Castile was never accepted by Leonese people. King Ferdinand III needed 2 years to suffocate the independentist revolts in the Kingdom of León. So, his son Alfonso X returned the independence of the Kingdom of León, but it was not respected by Sancho IV. His brother John waited until 1296, when Sancho was dead, to be crowned as John I, King of León, Galicia and Sevilla. In 1301 he abdicated and the king of Castile assumed the Crown of León, joining both kingdoms.

Though the kings of Castile and León initially continued to take the title King of León as the superior title, and to use a lion as part of their standard, power in fact became centralized in Castile, as exemplified by the Leonese language’s replacement by Spanish. The Kingdom of León and the Kingdom of Castile kept different Parliaments, different flags, different coin and different laws until the Modern Era, when Spain, like other European states, centralized governmental power.

The Kingdom of León coexisted as a personal union under the Crown of Castile, with León possessing separate institutions, such as its own cortes, the Real Adelantamiento of the Kingdom of León, the Merino mayor of León, among others, many of which lasted until the 19th century. The Castilian monarchs, however, soon began a process of unifying the laws of the two kingdoms, as exemplified by the Siete Partidas. By the 16th century, León became a captaincy-general.

In the 19th century, the Kingdom of León declared war, together with Galicia and Asturias, against France, and organised the Junta General del Reino de León as its own government. The modern region of the Kingdom of León was established in 1833^[2] and was divided into León, Zamora, and Salamanca provinces.

At present, León is composed of the provinces of León, Zamora, and Salamanca, is now part of the autonomous community of Castile and León within the modern Kingdom of Spain.

Political parties representing “Leonesismo”, the Leonese regionalist and nationalist movements, support the creation of an autonomous community separate from Castile. Leonesist parties gained 13.6% of votes cast in the León autonomic elections in 2007. There have also been initiatives approved by some Leonese city councils to establish aNUTS-2 (European Statistical Region) for León.

The Leonese Kingdom was an independent kingdom in the Middle Ages, keeping its status as a kingdom under the Spanish rule until the 1833 territorial division of Spain. The languages of León are the Leonese language and Spanish in Spain and the Leonese and Portuguese in Portugal.

A variety of Leonese called Mirandese (mirandês) is spoken in the Miranda do Douro Region of Portugal.

There are Leonese minorities in the District of Bragança (Portugal) that maintain Leonese culture and Leonese language, mainly in the northwest (Riodonor, Guadramil) and in the Land of Miranda, where a Leonesedialect known as Mirandês was officially recognised by the Parliament of Portugal.

The Leonese language developed from Vulgar Latin with contributions from the pre-Roman languages spoken in the Spanish provinces of León, Zamora, and Salamanca and in some villages in the District of Bragança, Portugal. Close to Mirandese and Asturian or Bable, it belongs to the Astur-Leonese subgroup of Iberian languages.

Leonese was the official language of the Leonese Kingdom in the Middle Ages and achieved a high codification grade. The first written text in Leonese was Nodicia de Kesos (959 or 974).

Its precarious situation as a minority language has driven Leonese to near extinction; it is considered a seriously endangered language by UNESCO. There are ongoing language revival efforts to try to get the urban population interested in the language. There is the Leonese Council that promotes the language, and the municipalities of Zamora, Coyanza, Mansilla de las Mulas or La Bañeza have promoted the teaching of Leonese.

Torre de Dona Chama

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Mirandese has a distinct phonology, morphology and syntax, and has been distinct at least since the formation of Portugal in the 12th century. It has its roots in the spoken Latin of the north of the Iberian Peninsula (Portuguese developed in the northwest).

It is a descendant of the ancient Astur-Leonese language of northern Iberia, the last remnant of the ancient language of the Kingdom of León, and closely related to the modern Astur-Leonese languages in Spain. However, these amalgamations in the Spanish territory did not affect Mirandese, which preserves distinct linguistic differences in relation to both Portuguese and Spanish. It shares a great deal of lexicon with regional Portuguese dialects.

In the 19th century, José Leite de Vasconcelos described it as “the language of the farms, of work, home, and love between the Mirandese”. Since 1986–87 it has been taught to students between the ages of 10 and 11, and so is recovering.

Today Mirandese retains fewer than 5,000 speakers (but the number can be up to 15,000 if counting second-language speakers) in the villages of the Municipality of Miranda do Douro and in some eastern villages (e.g. Vilar Seco and Angueira; in Caçarelhos, it is considered recently extinct) of the Municipality of Vimioso, and some linguistic influence can be observed at other villages of the municipality of Vimioso and the municipalities of Mogadouro, Macedo de Cavaleiros and Bragança.

Three variants of the Mirandese language exist: Border Mirandese (Mirandés Raiano), Central Mirandese (Mirandés Central) and Sendinese (Sendinés). Most speakers of Mirandese also speak Portuguese; some of these speak Spanish as well.

The main differences between Mirandese in Portugal and the Astur-Leonese languages in Spain are caused by the dominant languages in each region. Mirandese has been influenced phonetically and in lexicon by Portuguese and the Astur-Leonese languages in Spain by Spanish (Castilian). All have distinctive orthography that phonetically reflects the respective main national languages. Another difference is that Mirandese and Leonese remain very conservative, while Asturian has undergone a greater amount of change.

The visit allows to discover characteristic features of the social and cultural life of a region whose strong identity, manifested in the presence of the Mirandese language (second official language of Portugal since 1998) and anchored in agriculture, livestock and border trade, is going nowadays through deep and rapid changes.

Besides some archaeological pieces of interest, the collection is mainly ethnographic, facing the description of life of the population of a rural border region between the nineteenth century and the contemporary period.

Address:

Praça D. João III – 5210-190 Miranda do Douro

GPS:Lat: 41,4943605 Long: -6,274196299999971

Phone:+ 351 273 431 164

E-mail:mterramiranda@culturanorte.pt