Caspe
Caspe is a municipality in the province of Zaragoza, part of the autonomous community of Aragon, in Spain, seat of the comarca of Bajo Aragón-Caspe. As of 2018 it had a population of 9,525 inhabitants and its municipality, of 503.33 km2, is the fourth largest in Aragon.
Caspe obtained the title of "city" in the 19th century, as a result of the damage suffered in the Carlist Wars, by concession of Queen Isabella II.
Name
There is a popular belief that Caspe is named for ancient inhabitants of the city reportedly from the Caspian Sea. However this widespread etymology lacks philological rigor. The place name Casp was documented in Andalusi sources as "Qsp", "Qasp" or "Qasb", and has been related to the Arabic word "Casba". It is also possible that the name of the city derives from the Indo-European root Cass and the suffix pe.Geography
Caspe is located at 41.2 degrees north in latitude and on the Greenwich meridian. It is 104 kilometers southeast of Zaragoza on the banks of the Guadalope river—which no longer carries water in this section, having been diverted upstream when the Mequinenza reservoir, also called the Sea of Aragon, was built —and a few kilometers from the Ebro. It is 152 meters above sea level, in one of the most arid areas of Aragon, with an average temperature of 15 °C and 325 mm of annual precipitation.It is located at the crossroads of two axes: the Ebro — in an east–west direction, partly used by the railway — and, perpendicular to it, the one that, starting from Andorra, passes through Alcañiz and continues to Barbastro and Monzón.
Flora and fauna
Due to its combination of steppe, river, forest, and Mediterranean forest, Caspe is home to a large diversity of fauna and flora.It has a diverse year-round population of birds of prey, such as golden eagles, Eurasian griffon vultures, peregrine falcons, common buzzards, goshawks and sparrowhawks. European merlins, kites and hen harriers in winter, as well as black kites, Egyptian vultures, European short-toed, alcotans, ash harriers and lesser kestrels in summer. Nocturnal birds of prey include the long-eared owl, the little owl, Scops owl and the barn owl. Although not as extensive as in its surroundings, Caspe has a population of steppe birds that include the great bustard and common curlew, both species of sandgrouse; the black-bellied sandgrouse and the pin-tailed sandgrouse, as well as the great spotted cuckoo. The steppe landscape comprises the juniper, black juniper, rosemary, thyme, and reeds.
Its gallery forests create a complex habitat that joins the mountain landscapes and rainfed fields. Waterfowl can be found, such as the mallard duck, gray heron, imperial heron, little bittern, little egret, and kingfisher. These forests are mainly made up of black poplars, reeds, and reed beds. Some forest species inhabit the bush landscape, such as the sparrowhawk above and goshawk, in addition to others, such as the standard turtle dove and bee-eater in summer, the crossbill, red partridge and the increasingly rare common quail. The Mediterranean and mountain forests are mainly made up of Aleppo pine, black juniper and white sable, corolla, ginesta, romerales, and thyme.
As for mammals, the red deer stands out since it is the only deer that never became extinct in Aragon; also, the wild boar, common badger, common fox, marten, genet, otter, weasel, roe deer, ordinary rabbit, Iberian hare and rodents such as voles or field mice, among others. Caspe's diversity of habitats makes possible the presence of a considerable variety of amphibians and reptiles. In the ponds and puddles of the hills, there are common toads, spur toads, running toads, spotted toads, common frogs, and viper snakes. In addition, the ocellated lizard, bastard snake, horseshoe snake, and ladder snake are found throughout the territory, as well as the leper turtle in the river. In some forest areas, the rare snout viper lives.
Caspe also has a considerable population of white storks in the convent of Santo Domingo and the Colegiata de Santa María la Mayor, with a total of 17 couples.
Prehistory and archeology
The municipality of Caspe seems to have been one of the last to be populated within Lower Aragon, either due to environmental problems with the prehistoric habitat or because erosion has destroyed the deposits.However, in the area of Cauvaca an amygdaloid biface was discovered that can be ascribed to a generic Acheulean or an initial Mousterian, 150,000 – 100,000 years ago, which demonstrates, at least, the passage through this area of groups of Neanderthal hunter-gatherers. Similar lithic cores have been found in Soto de Vinué V.
The rock art at the site stands out. Located though a small opening in the sandstone, it comprises a set of Levantine-style cave paintings. The composition brings together several figures, highlighting a magnificent deer in an alert attitude to start the fight with another congener no that appears with lowered antlers. Between both figures a doe can be seen, in a lower position, and there is also a fourth figure, quite lost, which is possibly another doe. Paint traces at the far right of the composition seem to correspond to the figure of an archer.
The demographic and cultural emergence of Caspe took place around the 8th century BC with the appearance of towns and tumular necropolises of the Indo-European Celtic Hallstatt culture from the early Iron Age, which mainly correspond to populations of the Segre basin and the high Ebro basin, especially from Navarre and Álava.
Among the late Bronze deposits, it is worth mentioning Cabezos de Sancharancón. This town is on the road from Caspe to, quadrangular houses on a conical hill with many sandstone blocks accumulated on the slopes. The ceramic materials collected on the surface typologically fit with those of the advanced Middle Bronze, although there are also a very few remains of vessels that can be attributed to the Urnfield culture, in addition to carved flints.
Another interesting deposit is the Cabezo de Monleón, on the Guadalope river, where 52 houses that make up a central street plan have been identified. Its population has been estimated at 300 inhabitants and the occupation by those shepherds, metallurgists and cereal farmers could have extended between 800 BCE and Iberization.
The deposit of dates from the Iberian era, located in the vicinity of the. It corresponds to the old phase of Iberian settlement. Chronologically later is the town of La Tallada, occupied from the 4th century BCE to its destruction and abandonment in the 1st century BC. Located atop of a hill, it is medium in size and consisted of rectangular houses, many of them carved out of the rock.
From the 1st century, the Ebro valley was fully Romanized and the sites, identified as Roman villas, of Azud de Civán, Boquera del Regallo I-II, Mas de Rabel, Campo de Ráfales, Picardías, Soto de Baños, El Fondón and Miralpeix date from that time. From this last enclave is the Miralpeix Mausoleum, which was moved to its current location as a result of the construction of the Mequinenza reservoir that led to the flooding of the monument. It was built in the late 2nd or early 3rd century AD.
Likewise, local historiography mentions the remains of the city of Trabia, an indigenous population destroyed by the Romans who came to coin money. Both Trabia and the nearby place of Valdurrios are pre-Roman place names. According to some authors, a medieval town was built on its ruins, but did not last. Trabia had owned its carta puebla since the middle of the 12th century, which indicates that the place had some importance. It was inhabited at least until 1440, the year in which the figure of Justice was last attested.
History
Antiquity
It has been maintained that, before the Roman conquest of Hispania, the lands that the municipality currently occupies were inhabited by the Sedetani, an Iberian group from the 3rd century BCE. However, recent investigations place the Ausetani in the Caspe region, whose capital, Osicerda, may have been located in the Cabezo Palao de Alcañiz. This city-state and its territory possibly reached the Ebro to the north and the Matarraña river to the east, a border between Ositans and Ilercavones.Middle Ages
From the arrival of the Muslims in 713 to the Christian reconquest in the first half of the 12th century, the lands of the Ebro constituted the northernmost mark of Al-Andalus, a sector occupied by the Yemeni contingent. In this territory, Latin culture predominated over the Hispanic-Roman and Visigoth indigenous population of Christians and Jews; but from the 10th century on, Arabization and Islamization of the population prevailed, leaving Christians and Jews relegated to a small percentage.Between June and September 1169, Caspe was integrated into the Crown of Aragon by King Alfonso II. The conquest of the town was carried out under the direction of the Count of Pallars, Arnau Mir de Tost, and his son Ramón, in collaboration with other feudal lords. In the Annals of the Crown of Aragon by, the following is narrated:
At this time, the Moors who were in the region of the Edetanos in the castles and forces they had on the banks of the Algas river were waging a great war... And Caspe was won, a very important place along the banks of the Ebro And from there the war continued on the banks of Guadalob and the Calanda river.It is estimated that the number of inhabitants of Caspe, at the time of the Reconquista, could have been somewhat higher than 1,000 inhabitants, overwhelmingly Islamic. Muslims were allowed to keep their religious practices, but had a year to leave their own homes and move outside the city walls. It cannot be specified when Jews arrived in Caspe, but what is certain is that when the troops of Alfonso II entered, Jews already lived in the La Muela neighborhood, sharing it with Muslims.
The town then passed to the Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem through a land swap carried out with Alfonso II for other assets of the order. Its castle was used as residence of the bailiwick of the hospital. The population stabilized in the last quarter of the 13th century, after Garcelán de Timor was appointed commander of the bailiwick of Caspe. The town, which then had about 1,500 inhabitants, expanded from La Muela to the surrounding farmhouses with the castle of the Order at the top and the church of Santa María for the whole of the Christian community.
In 1392, Juan Fernández de Heredia, grand master of the order, bought all the possessions in the town to found a convent. He raised the church to the category of collegiate church and increased the importance of the Sanjuanista Convent by endowing it with treasures and relics such as a lignum crucis. When he died, his body was brought from Avignon and buried in the convent church, in a tomb that he himself had carved.
In medieval times, Caspe was the largest Aragonese center for the production of glass; and one of the largest in Spain. Thirty glass furnaces are known to have existed in its municipal area. The large amount of saline soils favored the growth of Salsola kali, a type of plant from which the ashes are useful in the production of glass, and this, together with the quality and quantity of the sand, were the basic elements for that manufacture. It seems that Jews were the first involved in this industry, mainly between the 14th and 15th centuries. Many of the glaziers belonged to the most important families in the town.
In the fourteenth century, the black plague ravaged the Kingdom of Aragon; There is evidence that the epidemic had reached in Caspe in 1371, even forcing the sessions of the Cortes Generales to move elsewhere. According to the Anales de Valimaña, about 300 people in the town died of the plague.
The population was the scene in 1412 of the historic "Compromiso de Caspe", when Martin I of Aragon died without descendants. On April 22 of that year, the deliberations of the delegates began, and on June 28 he was proclaimed King Fernando de Trastamara, called that of Antequera, as Fernando I of Aragón. In front of the door that gives access to the apse of Santa María la Mayor, a platform was erected, from which the people were informed of the declaration of right voted by the delegates of the States of the Crown of Aragon in favor of Don Fernando. The following day, Fray Vicente de Ferrer, who had taken a very active part in the sessions of the well-known Commitment, preached at the church.
Caspe remained for the rest of the 15th century a thriving town with its neighborhoods of La Muela, San Roque and El Pueyo, and an agricultural economy that took advantage of irrigation by the Ebro and Guadalope. At that time Pope Benedict XIII, better known as Pope Luna, visited the town to settle matters between his own family, the Luna, and the Urrea.