Boadilla del Camino (Palencia) (0)

Did you know that... Boadilla del Camino

It's situated near where the Way of St. James and the river Pisuerga greet each other, in the Palencia region of Tierra de Campos, 35 km from the provincial capital. Boadilla del Camino was founded after the reconquest of the lands of Castile, which were repopulated with people from the Picos de Europa. The first written documents tell us about the town, in the 10th century, within the jurisdiction founded by Count Fernán Mentales, Lord of Melgar de Yuso, who granted Boadilla de Camino the category of town in which its neighbours freely chose their lord, reaching in the following centuries a notable degree of importance and autonomy. It was the last town in Tierra de Campos where Don Diego Gómez de Sandoval, Adelantado Mayor de Castilla, exercised his right of lordship in 1426.

A little more history

The town has had illustrious sons, who between the 15th and 16th centuries and coinciding with the period of greatest boom of the town, left their mark on history, such as Antonio de Rojas who was bishop of Mallorca, Palencia and León, Archbishop of Granada, First Patriarch of the Indies and President of the Royal Council during the reign of Carlos I, or Nicolás de Bobadilla, who was part of the beginnings of the Society of Jesus and who stood out for his defence of the ideas of the Counter-Reformation through lands of Germany and Italy. During this period the Rollo, the present Church and a Pilgrims' Hospital were erected. The Gothic Rollo of Justice was erected in the 15th century as a symbol of jurisdictional autonomy, which the town possessed thanks to a privilege of Henry IV and later confirmed by the Catholic Monarchs in 1482, by which the town was no longer subject to the jurisdiction of the lords of Melgar and Castrojeriz. Today Boadilla, in the middle of the Jacobean route, welcomes us and shows us its vigorous historical and artistic past.

What to see in Boadilla del Camino?

In Boadilla del Camino watches over us, in its height and with great elegance, the Roll of Justice that is preserved next to the church and that dates from the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century. It is one of the most richly decorated rolls in Spain and is crowned with an impressive Gothic spire. Also in these centuries was built the parish church dedicated to Our Lady of the Assumption, on the remains of an early Romanesque or Gothic temple that can still be seen at the base of the tower. Inside it houses beautiful altarpieces and works of art as well as a simple but beautiful 13th century baptismal font.

To discover

It is remarkable that its houses, as well as those of other villages in the area, are made of adobe, blocks of pressed earth, and that only the churches and notable houses were made of stone. At the entrance of the village, coming from Itero along the French Way, we find the Old Fountain which, located in a small park with trees and benches that invite us to rest, has a curious mechanism for the water supply, it is necessary to turn a wheel until the water sprouts from the wall. Very close to here are the washing places, built recently but knowing how to draw the ways of life of other times. And what cannot be missing in this land are the dovecotes, curious constructions of square plant, being able to see, in some that are in ruins, their internal structure. Near Boadilla del Camino you can walk along the banks of the Canal de Castilla, which began to be built in the 18th century. Of the three branches of this construction, is the northern branch, which runs through Boadilla, which has a greater unevenness, you can see the typical structures and necessary for this great work of engineering, locks, bridges, arks, and the ruins of a mill. In addition, its banks are home to all kinds of birds, ducks, herons, birds of prey, bustards...

Festivities

The patron saint fiestas of Boadilla del Camino are on 13 June in honour of San Antonio de Padua. The brotherhood of San Isidro Labrador celebrates its feast day on 15 May and on 30 April begins the novena in honour of Cristo de San Miguel which ends on 8 May, the day of its feast day. On 15 August Our Lady is celebrated.

Traditions

Saint Anthony of Padua is known as the Saint of Miracles, the Ark of the Testament and the Saint of the whole world, because he is undoubtedly the most popular and venerated saint in the church, especially by the humble people. Formerly there was a beautiful tradition that was to buy a bread on June 13 and give it to a needy person. Today the bread has been replaced by the sandwich. Another of the traditions that this saint sponsored, but that today has been lost, was to buy, also on June 13, a piece of bread and keep it at home in a white bag throughout the year. After this time, in the following festivity, the bread was soaked with water and given to the birds. It was said that there would never be a lack of bread in the house where he had been.

Curiosities

In Boadilla del Camino there are three geographical singularities, the first is the Tierra de Campos, Boadilla is the eastern limit of the great Castilian steppe, the second is the Way of Saint James, since the tenth century, pilgrims were leaving the Caminos del Norte to go to Santiago by a more bearable route, the French Way, and the third is the Canal de Castilla.

The Legend

In Boadilla there is a legend according to which when in the past the brothers of the Christ of San Miguel took him out in procession, when arriving in front of the place where the church of San Miguel was settled, the image became heavier as if it wanted to stay in the temple where it was originally.