Discovering Feira de Santos
- Recognitions
- The Feira de Santos de Monterroso has been recognized as a Galician Festival of Tourist Interest. On April 11, 2011, the Galician Federation of Municipalities and Provinces informed the Monterroso council that it had been granted this category. Another recognition was the fact that an image of the Feira de Santos was used by the National Lottery agency for the draw on October 14, 2010, thus giving it visibility and reputation at a national level.
- Feira de Santos, nowadays
- It is a lively event in which the traditional Galician fair coexists with modern forms of trade. But not only the economic is important on November 1st, but the social, ethnographic, gastronomic, recreational and cultural aspects go hand in hand on this marked date to continue enriching the ideology and worldview of A Ulloa.
- Music
- The Monterroso fair has its own popular song “Se ti viras o que eu vín”. The Santos Fair was an event frequented by the blind with their songs and pregos. From the mid-20th century, the old pregos of romances were replaced by songs from fashionable musical groups until the early 80s when this custom declined. In 2019, the singer Toño Núñez, accompanied by the accordionist Xosé Manuel Miguélez from Santo Xusto, and the boy Brais Gayoso, recovered the old tradition of the Cantares de Cego at the Monterroso fair. In 2024, the same group of artists performed a romance of the blind again in Santos, this time also accompanied by Mara Veiga.The merchants and their products arrived in Monterroso on foot, on horseback or in carts from afar, which explains their stay here on the 31st and their departure for their place of origin on the 2nd. Many of them stopped around in other market enclaves such as Penasillás (Chantada) before their final return.
- Getting to Monterroso
- In the last century, the way of travelling to Monterroso changed. With the arrival of roads, the way of coming to the fair also changed. Buses, trucks and mixed buses appeared, which replaced mules, carts and muleteers. Buses that arrived in Monterroso every day of the fair were: the Gómez de Castro company from Lugo, the San Martín (Ferranchís), Antón de Marcos, the Montaña y Martínez company, the Ribeirao and the Aceiteiro from Melide, the Sociales from Chantada, the Rodríguez company with the Melide-Chantada line, the Veloz da Ulloa from Palas, Autos Vázquez (the Rubio) from Taboada, Autos Meixide from Agolada, the Rúa de Antas from Ulla, the Americanos from Dacón, the Valdeporrás, the Castro from Nespereira, the Ruán, the Verín and the Vicentiño.
- The symbol of Feira de Santos
- Historically, there was a defining symbol of the Feira de Santos and it was none other than the line of cattle trains walking along the different roads towards Monterroso. When asking older people what image they would use to define the Feira de Santos in Monterroso, most of them agree on citing the memory of the different roads that converged at the Monterroso fair, full of muleteers with their trains, cattlemen, traders, etc. This image of the muleteer leading a line of cattle that walked together, the tail of the animal that preceded being tied to the head of the next one, was the one that inspired the symbol that identifies the Interpretation Center “Monterroso a vila das feiras”.
- What could be bought at the Feira de Santos in the 18th century?
- We know that it was possible to buy at the Santos Fair in Monterroso from documents such as the Report on the franchise of the fairs of the Deputy of the kingdom in Galicia, Mr. Jacinto de Novoa y Armesto, from the year 1798, deposited in the Provincial Archive of Lugo (Leg. 1798, syn. 86), which tells how merchants came to Santos from great distances and it was a fair where, in addition to the common goods and animals that could be found at any other fair, the sale of horses and mules was also common here and even precious products could be found. In this document, Santos is compared to the feast of the patron saint Santiago in Compostela. And it even defines for us what a fair of the time is for the inhabitants of the surroundings: "The markets are considered to be the meeting point, which different surrounding towns set up to procure from one another the articles they need by means of sales contracts and some exchanges with which they get part of the remedy to their need, and, in favor of work, and the daily application to the occupations that facilitate their meager subsistence; and if the markets were removed or reduced, it would result in a Kingdom like Galicia, composed almost of colonists, and day laborers who would be deprived of losing the utilities and the reward of their industry and work.” (folio 23)
- What can you buy at the Feira de Santos today?
- At the Feira de Santos, you can buy almost anything you want, the reason for the huge offer is due to the large number of stalls selling different goods that travel to Monterroso every year, exceeding a hundred. Furthermore, to fully satisfy demand, all the shops and stable businesses in the town open on those dates so that we will not miss anything. To round off the extensive offer, vendors with local products such as cheeses, honey, bacon, chestnuts, nuts, bread, spreads, butter, hazelnuts, garlic, onions, vegetables... are located inside the building called the Cúpula, which functions as a busy market square where agricultural surpluses find a place to be sold. Foreign products and local products share space every November 1 in Monterroso. After more than 800 documented years of the Feira de Santos in Monterroso, it continues to be a living event in which the traditional Galician fair coexists with modern forms of trade.
- Who are the vendors in Monterroso?
- In addition to the residents of the surrounding municipalities and regions, people from all over Galicia come to Monterroso on this date. Buses from the most diverse points of Galicia arrive in Monterroso for the occasion early in the morning and leave Monterroso well into the evening. The Feira de Santos brings together thousands of people in Monterroso and for this reason it is necessary to guarantee security. On that date, the security system and the service of agents who regulate traffic are reinforced to ensure fluidity in the different entrances and exits of Monterroso.
- Interrelationship between the Feira de Santos and the town
- Nowadays Monterroso is small on the day of November 1st, thousands of people visit the town, celebrate, park their vehicles, taste our food, walk, have fun, work, enjoy... Santos is the biggest fair of the year in Monterroso, although all the so-called “winter fairs” (October, November, December, January and February) are important. The town of Monterroso owes its existence to the fairs of Monterroso. In fact, the plot that today occupies the municipal seat was the place where historically the fair has been held since time immemorial. The town was born around the fairs. San Miguel de Esporiz was the municipal capital until it was definitively transferred to the new civil parish of recent creation, San Miguel de Monterroso, in the 20th century, which prevailed due to the number of inhabitants and important businesses, promoted by the Fairs of the 1st day. The birth of the new town marked the beginning of the construction of the church (authorization was given in 1909). A nascent municipal capital needed some symbols that would identify it, and having a temple was indispensable. The pull that the Monterroso fair had historically justifies that the municipal capital be based around the fairs and not around the French Way as usually happens in other municipalities where such a route passes.
- Was the Feira de Santos just an economic event throughout its history?
- Santos was traditionally an economic turn in the center of Galicia, but staying with that idea would be very impoverishing, because in addition to shopping and selling, the stay in Monterroso was used for many other tasks: going to the barber, talking to the butler, seeing the lawyer, consulting a doctor about an illness... According to the analysis of a hundred documents from the 16th to the 19th centuries that were in the archive of Mr. Carlos Méndez, a third of the notarial deeds drawn up in Monterroso took place at the fair. Different fees were also paid on fair days. But the stay here was also used to ask a girl for a word, to chat, to buy some sheets with the latest romance that recounted gruesome events...
- The fairgrounds
- In the 21st century, the grounds of the Feira de Santos de Monterroso are the entire town of Monterroso plus part of Seteigrexas, where the current livestock market pavilions were built in 2000. But it was not always like this. We know that the original place where the fair was held was in the area around the place called Feiravella, an enclave that was located between the parishes of Sirgal and Esporiz, but until now we do not know when the change of location to the place where the town stands today took place. In the Cadastre of the Marqués de Ensenada, parish of San Miguel de Esporiz, the Feiravella is already referred to with that name, which means that the fair had already been moved to the new site. The lord of Podente, Don Manuel Bernardo Rivera, in the summer of 1790, when the uprisings occurred due to the increase in royal taxes and the collection of the same by the royal horsemen, wanted the fair to no longer be held in Monterroso, near the Pazo de A Laxe, and to be moved to Monte Orgoso, in the parish of Bidouredo. In fact, in the August fair there were vendors in both enclaves, Orgoso and Monterroso.
- Proverbs and sayings related to Saints and the Monterroso fair
- The tradition of breeding and selling horses in A Ulloa has been documented since the Middle Ages, as can be seen in a document from the Tomb of Ferreira de Pallares, which speaks of breeding free-range cattle in the Marzán and Ligonde mountains. The importance of this type of cattle lasted until the 1970s, as it was used for tilling fields and also for hauling in lands outside Galicia. These beasts were so well-known that they gave rise to expressions such as “the mules of Monterroso were the tractors of Castile”.
- How did the Feira de Santos come about?
- The Feira de Santos, like the other fairs on the first day in Monterroso, seems to have been born from the concentration of vendors at the confluence of roads that took place in the vicinity of the current town of Monterroso. The founding document has not yet appeared, but what we do know is that in 1219 it was already being celebrated and had recognition and an influx of public. Well, in this year it is when the monastery of Sobrado obtains the royal concession to be able to collect the Pedaticum of salt at the fair of Monterroso. The pedaticum was a tax that was imposed on salt, which was a royal monopoly.
- Was the Feira de Santos born as a free fair?
- The Feira de Santos has been a free fair since time immemorial. Not even in 1790, when Charles IV ordered that the royal alcabaleiros collect the rents at all fairs, did this payment take place. The reason was the uprising that arose against this royal ordinance on July 1st at the Monterroso fair itself and that prevented state officials from doing their job. This revolt was carried out by the Partida da Ulloa, men, mainly young men from the jurisdiction of Monterroso and da Ulloa who rose up against the imposition of such taxes, led by Manuel Bernardo Rivera, lord of the House of Podente. It spread throughout Galicia and forced the Supreme State Junta to abolish such taxes by ordering the general directors of income to refrain from collecting them at “fairs that have been held as free fairs up to now”. At this Santos fair in 1790, Fernando Joanes made his debut and would soon be promoted to a paid commander, earning fifteen reales a day.
