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Main Festivities

Main Festivities

The main festivities are “Les Festes Majors“, which are celebrated from August 22nd to 26th, in honor of the apostle San Bartolomé and the Saints Abdón and Senén, former patrons of the Valencian farmers, popularly known as “Els Santets de la Pedra “

The images are venerated in the hermitage built on the site of the castle of Almizra, of which a tower remains attached to the religious building. The eve of the holidays are transferred to the population in popular pilgrimage.

Along with the different religious celebrations, the festivities are completed with parades of Moors and Christians, embassies, “les cordaes” of rockets, verbenas …

The historical acts celebrated during the festivities, specifically on August 25, are:

– The “Pregó anunciador del Tractat d’Almirra” in which a herald on horseback, and accompanied by the local music band crosses the streets of the town announcing on behalf of D. Jaime I, the immediate celebration of the pact with the infant from Castilla

– The “Representació del Tractat d’Almirra“, the most peculiar act, in which the pact is revived between Jaime I, “El Conqueridor”, and the Infante D. Alfonso de Castilla (Alfonso the Wise). It is a bilingual work, elaborated according to the “llibre dels Feits” and texts by Salvador Doménech Llorens.

ARGUMENT: By the pacts of Tudillén (1151) and Cazola (1179), the kings of Aragon and Castilla had already established the lands of future conquest in the Arab territory that today forms the Comunidad Valenciana. Nevertheless, certain disagreements arose between both monarchs in September of 1243 by the conquest of Xàtiva, forced Jaime I to cross the stipulated border, penetrating lands of Castilian conquest, seizing Villena and Sax, submitting at the same time “Els capdets “And” Burriharon. “

Given the seriousness of the situation, it was imposed an interview between Aragonese-Catalans and Castilians, in order to resolve the existing differences, close to an open war between the two Christian kingdoms. Las pretensiones castellanas eran que la villa de Xàtiva debía ser entregada al infante Alfonso como dote de promesa de su futura mujer Violant, la hija del propio Jaime I y Violant de Hungría. The king argued that when he got married he did not receive any dowry in lands and that Xàtiva for the previous pacts was for Aragonese conquest.

The Castilians, without arguments, said that Xativa would be Castilian, because the Moor Major would give it to the Infante. This irritated King Jaume I, making him shout: “Whoever in Xàtiva will want to enter, over us will have to pass”.

The prayers and tears of Queen Violant, wife of the monarch and the new proposals of the Castilian Infante, appeased the natural indignation of the King. The conflict ended happily with a Treaty in which the limits of the respective conquests were fixed. With that, the first southern border of the old Kingdom of Valencia was established. The treaty was signed at the Castle of Almizra on March 26, 1244, with the presence of bishops, gentlemen, wealthy men and teachers of military orders.

Regarding festive gastronomy, on August 24th (patron’s day) it is typical to eat “Putxero and fasegures”.

La Festa dels folls

La Festa dels folls

It is celebrated on the weekend between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, it consists of a humorous critique of the events of local life. The tradition has its origins in the early nineteenth century, and possibly was linked to the collection of money for the construction of the church, which began at that time.

It can be defined as a satirical and burlesque characterization of the same established society, in which the municipal corporation and religious representation are superseded, naming new: mayor, secretary, sheriff, priest, two clowns and the waiters who perform military service, all of them are the ones who are responsible for upsetting the established order by making public the new provisions to govern in the day and a half that lasts the celebration, imposing sanctions on all people (neighbors and visitors):

“Fine who goes through the sun
fine who goes in the shadow and
fine who is staying at home “.

“La Fantasmeta” hill

“La Fantasmeta” hill

It presents little outstanding slopes, the top culminates with a small platform with both Islamic materials, dateable at the end of the 13th century, and the Bronze (Site studied in the work done by the research grant of the Juan Gil Albert Studies Institute 1989, with the title of Prehistoric Poverty of the Alto Vinalopó).

A few meters from the site of “La Fantasmeta”, a cyclopean structure, known as “La Caseta dels Corps”, it has two large slabs of limestone arranged vertically, parallel to a step of the natural rock of the hill of 1 ’10 m tall. On both of them, a slab of large dimensions is arranged as a roof.

This structure presents an open face to the N / NE, to which a block line of limestone is attached, arranged in a semicircle whose axes are born in the walls of the structure, forming a possible chamber or anteroom.

Location on the map

Medieval deposit of the Castell d’Almizra

Medieval deposit of the Castell d’Almizra

In the enclosure, located in the mount San Bartolomé, two types of construction are observed, the tapial of the linen cloth of the wall, of Muslim origin, and the basal sillarejo of the tower more typically Christian. The works carried out pursue two fundamental objectives: on the one hand the design of the spatial distribution, based on the uncovering of wall structures that would allow, together with the findings, the knowledge of the different functions of each sector and, in this way , it would help us to rebuild your plant. On the other hand, knowing the chronology of the place and its occupational evolution, this is achieved through the study of materials, especially ceramics, and the study of the strata.

The materials found show a settlement corresponding to the Bronze Age, handmade ovoid vessels, loom weights and hand mills, a settlement that is interrupted during the Iberian period and again a reoccupation showing the medieval materials. These are for the most part ceramic, although fragments of small bottles, jars and small glasses of glass, small objects of bone, and also of bronze and iron are also important. It is the common ceramics the most abundant, ataifores, phials, jars, jars, lamps, basins, lids, casseroles, stoves …

The decorations of the rest of the ceramic group correspond to incisions, laces decorated with fingerings and ungulations, painting, dry rope, printed green purple and scribed. All this material is very fragmented is under study a ceramic material of this last campaign, which could delay the end of the occupation of the castle to more modern dates. The stratigraphy shows in some places vestiges of fire, which must be paralyzed with the types of findings.

In medieval times there is the substitution of the Muslim conception of the castle as the unifier of the surrounding farmsteads, for the Christian one that used fortification to control the territory.

Hardly remains a tower of square base, disguised with a roof, to which the hermitage of San Bartolomé was added to him, in the hill of the same name. This tower dates from the 14th century, and for its construction, ashlars, basal ashlar and masonry, typically Christian materials were used. In its walls there are only two open windows and five windows blinded, four of them in the upper part, one on each side. From its interior this upper part resembles a pigeon house. The beams that support the roof are made of wood.

Location on the map

Petroglyph “Les Graelletes”

Petroglyph “Les Graelletes”

This stone is located between two enclaves of considerable importance in the history of the past of this area, the two hills or hillocks located on its right and left and in which physical remains of certain relevance belonging to the Bronze have been found. These engravings belong to the Bronze Age, although not the whole, some are of greater antiquity. In some of these stones is the sign of the labyrinth; This is not very common to find in many places, the place where it is most representative is Galicia.

Some of the signs within “Les Graelletes”, we could also affirm that they are, of those determined as fusiform, and there are parallelisms with other studied zones although not very close geographically.

Situations of overposition or approximation of some of the motifs, or of repetition, seem to be that they respond in almost all the petroglyphs of many places, even outside the Peninsula, to which they begin to engrave or carve primitive cultures that span very long periods in time, and each one with its peculiarities, and finding in all historical moments the deepest magical-religious feeling and in all cases something supernatural.

Location on the map

Church of San Bartolomé

Church of San Bartolomé

S. XVIII; 1875 reform; s XIX bell tower (1416)

Church located on a small mount, presiding over the hamlet.

Its dimensions are superior to what would be expected from the modest size of the population. It has a Latin cross plan and nave of three sections covered by a barrel vault with blind lunettes and side chapels covered with vaulted vaults. It is finished with an apse behind the presbytery. The interior decoration is scarce, but there are frescoes and reliefs of plaster in dome, presbytery and pendentives. The three classic altars of the transept and presbytery stand out, as well as the classical pilasters of the nave, the old floor made of ceramic tiles and the dome on a large illuminated drum. The factory is of masonry seen to the outside with ashlars in base and corners. The dome is covered with white and blue tiles, highlighting the prismatic tower located at the feet, almost free, with the body of bells built in brick and topped with a dome, similar to the towers of Agost, Bigastro and San Juan.

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