Official Gazette of the Valencian Community No7
Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport
RESOLUTION of 28 January 2015, of the General Directorate of Culture, by which a file is initiated to declare the festivities of Moors and Christians of the Valencian Community as Intangible Assets of Local Relevance. (2015/731)
L’article 1.3 of the Law 4/1998, June 11, of the Valencian Cultural Heritage, establishments that are part of the Valencian cultural heritage, as intangible assets of the ethnological heritage, the creations, the knowledge, the techniques, the most representative and valuable practices and uses of the traditional Valencian way of life and culture.
Likewise, the expressions of the traditions of the Valencian people in their manifestations form part of said heritage as intangible assets, musicals, artistic, gastronomic or leisure, and especially those that have been the object of oral transmission and those that maintain and enhance the use of Valencian.
The articles 15.5 i 55 of the Law 4/1998, of June 11, of the Valencian Cultural Heritage, establish that they will be included in the fifth section of the General Inventory of the Valencian Cultural Heritage, with the qualification of Intangible Assets of Local Relevance, those creations, knowledge, practices, techniques, more representative and valuable uses and activities of the traditional Valencian culture and ways of life. Likewise, intangible assets that are expressions of the traditions of the Valencian people in their musical manifestations will be included, artistic, gastronomic or leisure, and especially those that have been the object of oral transmission and those that maintain and enhance the use of Valencian.
In view of the requests made for the explicit cultural recognition of Moorish and Christian festivals in the territorial scope of the Valencian Community, the reports that are in the administrative file and in accordance with the latter; making use of the powers conferred by the article 56 of the Law 4/1998, of June 11, of the Valencian Cultural Heritage; l’article 20 of the Decree 140/2014, of 5 September, by which the Organic and Functional Regulation of the Ministry of Education is approved, Culture and Sport; i l’article 19.1 of the Decree 62/2011, of 20 May, which regulates the declaration procedure and the protection regime for assets of local relevance, solve:
Primer
Initiate a file to declare the festivities of the Moors and Christians of the Valencian Community as an Intangible Good of Local Relevance and proceed with their registration in the fifth section of the General Inventory of the Valencian Cultural Heritage.
This should not be an obstacle so that those who meet the requirements established by the Consultative Commission set up in this resolution can have individualized recognition as Assets of Intangible Cultural Interest.
second
In consideration of the importance of this cultural manifestation and its special imbrication in the cultural and customary heritage of many municipalities of the Valencian Community and without prejudice to the normative regulation contained in this regard in the Law 4/1998, of June 11, of the Valencian Cultural Heritage, a Consultative Commission is established by this resolution, made up of five members, attached to the General Directorate of Culture, within which the interests involved will be represented, and whose functions will be: establish the criteria for the recognition as Assets of Intangible Cultural Interest of those festivals or acts of the Moors and Christians festivals of particular relevance and significance for the Valencian cultural heritage and propose their declaration, if that's the case.
Composition of this Commission:
- A representative of the National Union of Moorish and Christian Festive Entities (UNDEF).
– A representative of the Valencian Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FVMP).
– A representative of the Traditional Festivals Council.
- Two representatives of the general management competent in matters of cultural heritage.
- The people who exercise the presidency and the secretary will be designated by the person in charge of the General Management.
Third
The management of cultural heritage, protected by this declaration of Intangible Local Relevance, it corresponds to the festival associations themselves and to the town councils, if that's the case.
The Generalitat Valenciana, UNDEF and the festival associations will promote the dissemination of this good and guarantee its study and documentation with scientific criteria, and they will incorporate the available testimonies into material supports that guarantee their survival.
Quart
Notify the present resolution to those interested in the procedure i, particularly, given the large number of municipalities involved, to the Valencian Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FVMP), entity that represents and encompasses all the municipalities of the Valencian Community.
Which is made public for the appropriate purposes.
Valencia, 28 of 2015. – The General Director of Culture: Marta Alonso Rodríguez.
ANNEX
Data on the object of the declaration
1.- Introduction
A very diverse series of ritual manifestations are grouped under the name of Moors and Christians festival, recreational and festive, which spread over relatively heterogeneous geographical areas and with a diverse history, present as a common element a symbolic Moorish and Christian confrontation. His main argument, theatrical in nature, it is based on the abduction by the crescent hosts, and subsequent recovery, on the Christian side, of some religious image or motif. The function, with a scheme that is repeated in most cases, concludes with the baptism and conversion of the Muslim.
The participation in the party has been increasing through the creation of new groups in terms of equality, which are really centers of sociability and commensality, not only on the days of the festival but throughout the year. The popularization of the party and the participation in it of all social classes and all sectors of the population, including the massive incorporation of women, they turn it into an authentic mass phenomenon and a true expression of the people's culture, which involves almost the entire population and instills a sense of identity and continuity that contributes to promoting respect for cultural diversity and human creativity.
The party is not limited only to our community but extends not only to the Valencian geography, but also for Spanish, European and American. In the Valencian Community, this party has an important ritual and festive character with great roots and history. In each town it is celebrated on different dates and acquire unique local modulations, but in all of them the influence of said model on mass participation can be detected, in parades and music, in clothing and other elements.
The festival has undergone a process of evolution over the centuries until reaching the celebration we know today. The most remote antecedents of these festivals can be found in the twelfth century, in the representations of the struggles that recall the Christian Reconquest.
From the fifteenth century, with the first manifestations of the Corpus, and a few centuries later with the processions and pilgrimages of the patronal festivals, the so-called soldiery appears, a tradition that, with some transformation, has reached our days. These were companies of soldiers that formed the so-called General Militia of the Kingdom, which originated through groups of the old citizen militias created by the Catholic Kings whose mission was to protect the population.
with time, these soldiers open to the rest of the population that, grouping in these, they begin to set up what will be known as filades or troupes of Moors and Christians, thus emphasizing both its new civil and ritual character. Hui en dia, the previous symbolic hierarchies still persist in the internal organization of the troupes or rows.
In the 18th century, although various simulations are documented in different localities of the Valencian Community, ostentatious celebrations in processions and military functions were already common. These had an extraordinary character, since they were integrated into the program of events for the patronal festivals and were held almost every year. They consisted of displays of flag wheels and arquebusier salvos that accompanied the passage of the images of the patron saints and were carried out by the local militias. sometimes, its components divided into two sides, Moors and Christians, they simulated a small fight for the possession of a square or castle.
In the middle of the 19th century, with industrialization, the party gradually spread through the districts of the Mariola mountain range and the Vinalopó valleys as a party with origins in some planned models, but new in form and content. It is what has been called the modern festival of Moors and Christians, which is born in a context of social change and break with traditional society. The bourgeoisie is the new engine of a new model of liberal and participatory society.
2.- Denomination
Festivals of Moors and Christians
3.- Territorial scope
The towns of the Valencian Community where the feasts of Moors and Christians are developed.
4.- Actors principals
The revelers who fall into troupes that belong to one of the two sides of the party, the Moor or the Christ.
5.- Description of the good
The festive sequence of the Moors and Christians is rigorously structured, since it corresponds to a defined dramatic logic that begins with the Christian and Moorish entries, it continues with the procession of the patron saint and ends with the conquest of the Moors and the subsequent reconquest of the Christians.
Symbolism and ritual merge into a whole that represents a historical fact and that originates from a catechistic intention, the defeat of the enemy of the faith through the divine intercession of the patron saint of the population. It is what has been called the Alcoi party model.
Within the festivals of Moors and Christians we find some basic components that make it up:
– The religious, represented by processions, romeries i misses. Currently, the Moors and Christians are celebrated within and on the occasion of the patronal feasts.
– The historical, the element that really characterizes Moorish and Christian festivals and at the same time differentiates them from any other type of festival. It features fighting content, arquebusier, embassies, loss and recovery of the castle that symbolizes the town, recalling the events that occurred during the reconquest. It is represented by embassies, guerrillas, boasts, landing, conversion of Moors to Christianity or other similar acts.
– The military, whose origin is in the ancient Soldadesque since the 16th century, and which is currently preserved in the organization of the troupes. The most representative and spectacular act of the military element of the festivities is the entrance, which consists of a parade in which all the revelers participate, grouped in troupes or rows with spectacular costumes and the rhythm of black marches, Christian marches or pasdobles composed expressly for the holidays.
These three basic elements that make up Moorish and Christian festivals are perfectly fused and intertwined in all the towns that celebrate it, except in Alcoy, where they stay separate on each of the three days that the festivities last. Like this, in all localities, the events of the Moors and Christians festival alternate with the parades and arquebusier, in other words that is, the historical with the religious and with the popular.
Moorish and Christian festivals have evolved to form a structure different from other festivals with music, specific clothing and the use of gunpowder in the arquebusiery that takes a major role in the party.
The importance of embassies should be emphasized, some texts written in verse, in charge of the dissemination of historical facts. The parliaments are the central axis of the party and the most theatrical part. Each population has its own particularities, but basically the dramatic structure is the same: it begins with the arrival of the Moorish embassy, that offers the inhabitants of the castle a model of society full of kindness and wealth that is not accepted by Christians. Sense chord, the Moors take the square and plant their flags, which is usually represented by the theft of the pattern's image. In the evening or the next morning, the Christians, invoking their patron saint they regain the fortress, forcing Muslims to convert. The action usually revolves around a wooden castle that stands in the middle of the town square.
Embassies are already documented in the 18th century in Alicante festivals, and the current texts come from the first third of the 19th century. possibly, its antecedents are found in the comedies of Moors and Christians, so widespread in the 17th century, and that are inspired by the stories of the popular baroque theatre. They show a taste for orientalism and have little historical rigor, with a multitude of anachronisms and with a contextualization that is far enough away from the historical reality of the Valencian territory of the time. At that time, the embassies took on a purpose parallel to the merely festive one, to create the motivation of national pride in a difficult political and military period.
The population participates massively in Moorish and Christian festivals, grouping in troupes, rows, etc., with a name and a characteristic dress, more or less related to what popular wisdom assigned to the two contending sides in the Reconquest.
Music, clothing and gunpowder are indispensable elements in the unfolding of the party. It is the world of sensations, senses that add to the visual spectacle of the festival of Moors and Christians. Like this, the music we find is concrete, own, born with and for the Moors and Christians, that fills every holiday and that is unique. It is about the festive pasdoubles and the Moorish and Christian marches, band music, which has been called Moorish and Christian music.
