[11] The place name Valencia has three different geographical applications. It refers to the city, to the huerta of some fifty square miles of rich, alluvial fields surrounding the city, and to the kingdom, an area extending north to the River Cenia and south to Orihuela where, prior to the eighteenth century, the fueros of Valencia were in force.

Within the kingdom were two radically different agro-ecological systems: dry farming (secá in Valencian, secano in Castilian) in the mountainous hinterland and irrigation agriculture (Valencian, regadiu; Castilian, regadío) in the rich alluvial lands along the Mediterranean coast. In the northern part of the kingdom much of the irrigation water was supplied by five river systems, each of which created near its mouth an alluvial core area that became the highly cultivated, densely populated huertas of the Middle Ages. ⁽¹⁾Each huerta supported an urban commercial center. The Mijares watered the huerta known as La Plana, whose chief town was Castellón, and to the south were the Riu de Sogorb (now called the Palancia), serving the huerta of Morvedre (now Sagunto); the Guadalaviar (now the Turia), which was the river of Valencia; the Júcar, which irrigated the fertile area around Cullera; and the Serpis, which entered the sea near Gandia (see Frontispiece).

Along the margins of the huertas, stretching north and south along the seacoast, were low-lying, swampy lands -- the marjals -- typically given over in modern times to rice cultivation. ⁽²⁾The reclamation of these swamps, a constant preoccupation of medieval townsmen and rulers, has been man's contribution to the development of the huerta just as alluviation has been nature's. Although the lowness of the marjals exacerbated problems of [12] drainage and made their cultivation more difficult than that of the huerta proper, still, the most crucial distinction between huerta and marjal was one of development. The two formed a continuum, the former being reclaimed from and extended at the expense of the latter, the swamp encroaching on the cultivated areas and gaining control when vigilance was relaxed. This relation was pronounced during the Middle Ages, and it lent a characteristic rhythm to irrigation development.

Numerous social and economic factors combined to draw the town, the huerta, and the marjals into close interdependence. First, the Valencians of the littoral, descended from Catalan and southern French settlers, continued the Catalan tradition of the city-state. Most of the huerta was part of the municipal bounds (terme) of the city, and the cultivators were thus considered townsmen; also, many townsmen owned extramural farms. Second, as the towns developed as agricultural and commercial centers their growth and that of the surrounding huertas went hand in hand, the huerta supplying the town with food requirements and with some raw materials for industry. Third, the irrigation networks themselves served as physical links between town and huerta, since the canals served both agricultural and urban needs. Finally, the needs of the urban population determined the rate and extent of expansion of the irrigated farmland, and indeed the financial and administrative resources of the city were often required for the turning of barren marjal into productive huerta. ⁽³⁾

Farther inland and upstream from the main huerta-town complexes were numerous smaller huertas, watered either from the rivers or from the region's many springs that have accounted for dozens of village sites.⁽⁴⁾ In the south of the kingdom especially, where there are no large rivers, the small, oasis-like huerta was typical. These southern huertas where water was relatively scarce -- Alicante, Novelda, Elche -- were characterized by a water tenure system different from that prevailing in the large river huertas. In Valencia and Castellón water and land were inseparable, and water rights could not be alienated from the irrigated parcel. Water was distributed proportionally and free [13]to all whose land had rights to it. In Alicante, Elche, and other southern huertas water rights were detachable from the land and could be sold. Most scholars who have attempted to systematize Spanish irrigation systems have done so on the basis of alienability of water rights and have insisted on a rigid dichotomy between the two systems. ⁽⁵⁾This is an entirely valid criterion, which has not only a geographical basis (as Brunhes has shown) but a cultural one as well (see Part Two, below). Nevertheless, excessive contrasting of the two systems has obscured the basic homogeneity of administrative and social organization in all the huertas of the kingdom. This study is largely concerned with the Valencia model, which was more important economically and better documented; but regionwide similarities will be pointed out and the two systems will not merely be contrasted.
 
 

In the medieval huerta, the right to water inhered not in the landowner, but in the land itself. The donations of the Repartimiento specified what kind of land the grantee had received, as in 1248 when A. Boschet was granted three jovates of irrigated land in Gandia and two of unirrigated land ("III jo. terre in regadivo et II in seccano").⁽⁶⁾ The terms for irrigated land (regadiu) and unirrigated land (secá) indicated the legal status of the land in question, a status which was most difficult to alter. Regadiu implicitly had the right to the water of a specific source, ⁽⁷⁾ from which the owner was entitled to take an amount of water proportional to the area of regadiu he held. ⁽⁸⁾ Accordingly, specific water allotments were not included in medieval land grants, since the grantee receiving land in regadivo was understood to be entitled to a quantity of canal water in proportion to the size of his parcel.⁽⁹⁾ According to a dictate of Roman law universally observed in eastern Spain, nonuse did not void a right. (The principle of rega o pert -- irrigate or lose -- applied only to the irrigation turn, not to the underlying right.)

Changing the legal status of irrigated land to unirrigated, and [14]vice versa, was a complicated procedure. One of the fueros of James I indicates that in the initial moment of Christian settlement an option existed concerning the legal status of a donation:

The vineyards and estates which are able to irrigate pay cequiatge [canal maintenance tax] unless the lords of those vineyards or those estates shall desire not to take the water for irrigating; if anyone possesses some places which have not, up to now, been used to irrigate, he can take the water with which those places irrigate according to the custom of the place . . . and he can irrigate those places, without anyone impeding him, and pay cequiatge according to the manner of the other residents on that canal.⁽¹⁰⁾

In 1421 the Muslims of Chiva petitioned the governor to change the status of their regadiu land, which they had irrigated from the spring of Chiva, to secá status. The Muslims stated that the land in question had never been secá, and that because it was huerta and regadiu they had paid fifty pounds to the king each year. Now, however, the land had de facto become secá because of a long drought, and they wished that their taxes could be made equal to those of Christians holding unirrigated land.⁽¹¹⁾ The request had been made repeatedly before and, even though the Moorish quarter (morería) was fast becoming depopulated, the probabilities of its being granted were small. Irrigated lands were taxed at a much higher rate than unirrigated and no magnate would easily consent to a change in status.⁽¹²⁾ The opposite case, changing secá to regadiu, was another way of saying [15] "irrigating without rights." In the fine-books of the cequiers of Castellón, irrigators were frequently cited and fined for "irrigating in a place where there is no regadiu," or in a place where they "have no right." ⁽¹³⁾

Grants to the same settler of both irrigated and unirrigated lands did not necessarily mean that the two were contiguous; the holdings might have been located in different parts of the district. The frequency of unirrigated fields in a medieval huerta area was also a function of development; as existing canals were extended or new ones dug, new regadiu land came into existence.

Fields were measured in fanecates, cafizates, and jovates (six fanecates to the cafizate, and six cafizates to the jovate).⁽¹⁴⁾ Irrigated fields are typically smaller than unirrigated parcels because they are much more productive. In 1963, 72.2 percent of all parcels in the province of Valencia measured less than 0.5 hectares⁽¹⁵⁾ (equivalent in medieval measures to somewhat less than one cafizate), reflecting not so much a "minifundia" problem as the typically minute parcelation of irrigated land.

Average plots in the huerta of Valencia in the fifteenth century measured from three to ten fanecates. For example, a woman's will in 1442 disposing of terra campa that she held (apparently in Burjassot) on the Alborg Canal listed irrigated parcels of nine, six, and eight fanecates plus three fanecates of vineyard ⁽¹⁶⁾ -- an average of six and a half fanecates. The estate of Johan Monflorit in the huerta of Massamagrell (Moncada Canal) included parcels of terra campaand vineyards of five, four, ten, and five fanecates,⁽¹⁷⁾ an average of six. A list of parcels in the Mislata Canal system in 1462 included some fields with larger areas: two cafizates of field and vineyard, five and nine fanecates of vineyard, and other fields of three and a half, eight, eleven, and thirteen fanecates, and one-half and one cafizate (that is, three and six fanecates).⁽¹⁸⁾

Irrigated fields were most often quadrilateral, with straight border lines to facilitate the uniform flow of water. ⁽¹⁹⁾Figure 1 , [16] an eighteenth-century drawing, shows fields bordering the Favara Canal in the huerta of Valencia. These fields are trapezoidal, or nearly square, and the middle two are approximately three fanecates in area.  Figure 2 is an eighteenth-century plan of fields bordering the Sierra del Puig in Játiva and shows the typical [17] pattern of rectangular fields and straight ditches. The plan represents an estate owned by the chapter of the Valencia cathedral. Each of the four sections of the estate has a casita de campo (presumably a farmhouse inhabited by tenant laborers). The majority of medieval llauradors lived either in the villages and towns skirting the huerta or in alqueries, small hamlets dispersed throughout the huerta. The barraca (a thatched, whitewashed adobe building), the typical huerta house of modern times (eighteenth century to the present), is rarely cited in medieval documents.⁽²⁰⁾

A commonplace of medieval Valencian field perambulations is the medial canal. All irrigated fields had at least one channel [18] for a border, and many fields had more than one border on canals. Thus descriptions of landholdings abound with the phrases cequia en mig and braçal en mig. A vineyard purchased by Martin Morata of Valencia in 1427 fronted "on one side with a certain canal called Na Rovella, and on the other side with the vineyard of Bernard Rodrigo, with a branch canal in the middle."⁽²¹⁾ Morata's vineyard thus had irrigation canals on two sides. This situation made access to the fields difficult and aggravated problems of rights of way. In a dispute of 1462 three llauradors of the district of Marxalenes (left bank of the Guadalaviar), Miquel Ruvio, Pere Torres, and Johan del Vilar, raised a complaint against Bernat Roig, whose nine fanecates of vineyard were contiguous to holdings of each one. Roig formerly had access to his field by a path going to Marxalenes, passing near Vilar's field, but now he wanted to change his access. Instead of using the former route, he made a new path through the fields of Ruvio and Torres and across a canal dividing them in order to reach the road going to Benicalapet. Not only did he destroy trees and crops to do this, but the new access crossed and, indeed, broke down the medial canal.⁽²²⁾ Such complications were quite frequent and are noteworthy as illustrations of the rather rigid structuring which irrigation canals lend to any system of communications.

In customary law, canals running between estates were presumed legally medial (like a wall medial between two houses, responsibility for which was shared by both neighbors) if there were no title to the contrary. If silt from cleaning the canal were piled on only one side of the canal, however, this was taken as proof of sole ownership of the channel by the man on whose side the pile was; it had to be his, the reasoning went, if he assumed sole responsibility for maintenance. ⁽²³⁾

The huertas, with their complicated canal networks, proved formidable obstacles in the paths of would-he invaders. James I, during the Valencian campaign, worried lest the battlefield be an irrigated one and some of his men fall into canals: "So at night we sent out brave men to see if the fields were irrigated or not, and if they were not irrigated, the men were to return [19] to us and we could then deem it well that the attack be made."⁽²⁴⁾ The strategic difficulties of facing an enemy across canals is self evident. Ramon Muntaner recounted the Murcian foray of Prince Peter of Aragon against the Muslims: "Surely, had it not been for the canals which stood between the two hosts, the prince would have attacked them. But the canals and the water were so great in between them, that they were unable to do so." ⁽²⁵⁾

Obviously the huerta -- much more than unirrigated lands -- depended greatly on the good condition of its roads and paths for communication. The roads had to be kept clean and passable to travelers at all times. James I decreed that if a landholder "whether irrigating or not, or in any other manner shall throw water on highways or roads, he must pay five sous and make restitution to those who have suffered harm owing to the splashing of those waters." ⁽²⁶⁾ The fathers of Murcia went so far as to declare that flooding the road was especially contemptible because it made passers-by blaspheme. ⁽²⁷⁾

Roads passed through a variety of jurisdictions and so responsibility for their maintenance fell to more than one administrative organ. In the huerta itself the irrigation communities and their officers assumed this task. The ordinances of the communities set fines for watering the road: "Item, if any one [through] irrigating or in another way should flood fields or public paths, let him pay for each contravention, ten sous, payable one-half to the cequier and the other half to the accuser, and beyond this, let him be held [responsible] for all the harm which results from the said flooding, not only to neighbors, but to others as well."⁽²⁸⁾

The burden of enforcement fell to the irrigation officials.⁽²⁹⁾ In the fifteenth-century fine-books of the cequier of Castellón, watering the road (rega cami) was the third most cited offense (113 of 910 fines, or 12.5 percent), the usual fine being one penny (1/12 of a sou) or two. But the problem was so continually [20] aggravating and vexatious that the cequiers and their assistants, who had in any case to fulfill their primary function of overseeing the distribution of water, could not alone adequately enforce the cleanliness of the roads. Especially near or within the city, other jurisdictions became involved with road problems.

Royal roads ⁽³⁰⁾ within the municipal bounds of the city of Valencia and the ditches draining them (escorredors) were under the care of the municipal office of walls and sewers (fabrica demurs i valls). Their maintenance therefore fell within the jurisdiction of the town council, ⁽³¹⁾ which, on February 12, 1417, set a fine of twenty sous for causing water to flow onto these roads, considering that "the said roads be destroyed and the drainage ditches broken down by the water which irrigators fronting on, or who have possessions near to, the roads" let flow thereon. To enforce this ruling the council further suggested appointing an inspector (visitador dels camins) to make the round of the royal roads once or twice a month.⁽³²⁾

The ordinary jurisdiction of the fabrica (and its chief official, the sotsobrer) did not extend to the small roads of the huerta, and the council frequently took note of the poor state of the roads and of the difficulty in getting anyone to patrol them and enforce the regulations. The problem was debated in full by the council at the meeting of August 14, 1396 (Appendix I), at which it was decided that since neither cequiers, mustasaf (the urban public health officer), or sotsobrer were keeping the roads in good repair, another officer would have to be appointed to do so. Castellón had similar problems, and its council noted in 1408 that harm had come to the city because of the fouling of the road to the sea -- the fault of poorly cleaned canals. The council agreed that either the mustasaf or the cequiers ought to clean and repair the canals in such a way that the road not be dirtied. ⁽³³⁾

It can be appreciated that within the municipal bounds, which included the whole huerta in both Valencia and Castellón, the problem of keeping the roads dry fell untidily between jurisdictions. The mustasaf, who was really an urban and commercially oriented official, could hardly be expected to spend time walking through the fields. The cequiers were concerned only secondarily [21] with what was an unwelcome by-product of irrigation. The continued dispositions on the subject make it clear that the problem was endemic to the irrigation environment and that alleviation by decree was close to impossible.

Failure to comply with road regulations was the subject of a communication from Prince John of Navarre to the bailiff general of Valencia in 1450. The jurates (municipal administrative officials) and councillors had informed the Prince that the roads of the huerta were totally ruined as a result of the great abuses daily committed by the residents, especially in flooding the roads. Moreover, the cequiers had ceased applying the due punishment because, the town fathers asserted, "they are themselves landholders and cultivators participating in the abuse." The petitioners suggested that the treasurer (racional) of the city be given charge of enforcing the road regulations. ⁽³⁴⁾

A basic physical reason for the frequent involvement of roads with the irrigation network was that roads often ran along the banks of canals. Canals were considered public, as were the banks (caxers), which had to be left open and unplanted for a short space on either side of the canal to allow men and animals to pass and to leave unencumbered the access to the canal. ⁽³⁵⁾ The tendency for public banks of canals to become natural arteries of communication was entirely logical. The road system of the huerta was institutionally homologous to the canal network. Secondary roads, for example, were called filloles (daughters), an expression borrowed from irrigation terminology.⁽³⁶⁾ Just as all the members of the commons of an irrigation canal were known as the hereters of that canal, those sharing the same road or path were called its hereters. ⁽³⁷⁾Those hereters whose property fronted on the road formed a discrete community -- more informally constituted, to be sure, than the community of irrigators -- with certain common responsibilities regarding the maintenance of the public way like those of members of irrigation communities in the maintenance of the canals.

The interweaving network of roads and canals passing over and under each other by means of bridges, aqueducts, and siphons was a striking aspect of the medieval huerta. Bridges[22] were particularly important links in the huerta communication system: to the irrigator the primary purpose of bridges was to protect the sides of the canals against damage by fording men and animals. The convenience of the traveler was only a secondary consideration.

In Valencia bridges on royal roads were the responsibility of the fabrica,⁽³⁸⁾ which was also in charge of building and repairing all the bridges in the Marjals, an area whose development was the special charge of the city. ⁽³⁹⁾ But even when royal roads or special projects were not involved, the city had an interest in assuring that even small bridges be maintained, for the common good. The foreman (sobrestant) of the fabrica had to see "that bridges be made in all places which pass over cequiols [small channels] in order to reach the fields. Because, since individuals excuse themselves from making these bridges, the cequiols cave in, and the water cannot flow, whence a great harm ensues..." ⁽⁴⁰⁾ Bridges, like the roads themselves, were public property and when crossing a canal had to be supported on public space on either side. The council of Castellón agreed in 1414 that the bridge called En Roca "ought to be torn down and rebuilt anew of a good breadth at its base from bank to bank, and that the said bases not exceed the limits of the banks of the canal."⁽⁴¹⁾

Although there may be a basic association of domestic animals (for plowing and manure) with irrigation agriculture, ⁽⁴²⁾clearly there must be a severe limitation on numbers and movement of beasts if the system is to be kept free from the threat of physical destruction. Medieval records are filled with instances of damage caused by animals to canals, and repeated attempts to legislate against this circumstance are indicative of the relative lack of effectiveness that the regulations had. ⁽⁴³⁾

Sheep, goats, and any cattle not for purely domestic use were forbidden to pasture in the huerta. For this reason rather strict bounds were defined, and special areas -- unirrigated -- were [23] set off outside the limits of the huerta as pasture (bovalar).⁽⁴⁴⁾ The council of Valencia defined the bounds of the huerta, within which no herds were permitted (see Map I):

Now hear that the jurates and councillors of the city inform you that according to a regulation made . . . on July 30, 1332 . . . no one . . . may keep sheep or goats in the huerta of the city, that is from this side of the Gully of Catarroja, going down towards the sea, and then along the canals of Quart and Moncada, down to the cross set up in the road to Morvedre, near Meliana, and down to the sea.

No one ought to have any sheep or goats within the huerta of the city, according to the limitations as declared above, that is to say, in vineyards, or fields of alfalfa, cereals or rice, by night or by day, in any way.

Nor may anyone have large cattle, such as oxen, mares, mules, asses, hogs or sows . . . except on his own property alone.⁽⁴⁵⁾

As indicated before, the problem was aggravated by the fact that the cows did not merely get into the corn, they also broke down canals, the most common natural field boundary. This problem was especially acute in the less well developed swampy areas, where communications were hampered by poor drainage and an insufficient number of bridges. The bridges were crucial, [26] as the complaint of some residents of the Marjais of Valencia in 1396 attests:

Some people having possessions in the Marjals . . . in the places of Russafa and Alfafar . . . suffer great harm, notably owing to the indolence and delay on the part of the city, through ceasing or delaying to make bridges and pontoons over the canals of the said Marjals, through lack of which bridges the oxen and other beasts, large and small, which pasture in the Marjais, have crossed over through the said canals and branch canals and ruined and destroyed them, blocking up the channel and the water so that it flows back on their properties and makes them return to their former swampy state. ⁽⁴⁸⁾

The peril to which uncontrolled cattle subjected the huerta cannot be overemphasized. The huerta was largely a cattle-free zone, and this heightened even more its ecological difference from unirrigated areas.

The medieval huerta presented the following paradox: in a kingdom rich in animal resources it deliberately eschewed the numerous herds as a source of fertilizer in order to better maintain the physical condition of the canal network. Human fertilizer gathered from the city was to some extent used, but generally the high yields of medieval Valencian agriculture can be attributed more to plain water than to the advantageous use of animal waste. Extensive fallowing -- just as on unirrigated land [27] -- and, complimentarily, the alkaline properties of the soil (making it conducive to the growth of nitrogen-fixing plants) also contributed to high productivity. Medieval agricultural use of water was radically different from what it is today. Irrigation was not generally used for growing exotic plants which could not otherwise be grown in the Valencian climate; it was used, rather, to increase the yield of ordinary crops grown generally throughout medieval Europe without the benefit of irrigation and which, indeed, are not today irrigated in eastern Spain. Thus cereal grain, grapes, and even carobs were commonly irrigated in medieval Valencia.

It is a striking, if vexatious, characteristic of medieval irrigation documents that they are primarily concerned with delivery of water from the source to the farmer's turn-out, but not beyond. Information about what the farmer did with the water is sparse. Thin though the data may be, they still enable some comment on medieval crops and occasion some contrasts with modern practices.

Table 1 is a summary of the crops mentioned specifically in the fine-books of the cequiers of Castellón (1443 and 1486). The

Grapes were either irrigated or not, but most often they were.⁽⁵⁶⁾ The Castellón evidence indicates that they were watered as they ripened throughout the spring and summer. In 1438 one Bernat Ebri, llaurador of Chirivella, brought suit against the family of Miquel Giner in order to receive payment for work done in caring for Giner's vineyards (the account is given in Appendix 2). One of the vineyards in question was not irrigated, but four others were. Indeed one of Ebri' s witnesses was Pere Garcia, cequier of Chirivella, who testified that Ebri had irrigated the four vineyards mentioned. When asked how he knew this, Garcia replied that "he himself had irrigated them and was paid for the said irrigation."⁽⁵⁷⁾

Certain trees, such as carobs and figs, were also found both in regadiu and secá; ⁽⁵⁸⁾ but oranges were always irrigated. Most references indicate that the orange was a luxury crop and that it was also grown ornamentally in such places as the Ort dels Tarongers del Real of the city of Valencia ⁽⁵⁹⁾and the Taronger del Palau of Castellón, ⁽⁶⁰⁾orange groves associated with public buildings. Other fifteenth-century documents refer to oranges in Chirivella (Canal of Benacher and Faitanar),⁽⁶¹⁾ in the Campanar-Marxalenes area on the left bank of the Guadalaviar (Rascanya system) ⁽⁶²⁾ and near the Albufera. ⁽⁶³⁾ There must have been considerable production of the fruit if Ramon Muntaner could report the shipment of fifty cartloads from the kingdom at one time.⁽⁶⁴⁾

In times of drought the canals could not supply all of the irrigators and priorities had to be established. In July of the drought year 1376 the Valencia council decreed that in all the canals of the huerta cereals and vegetables were to be watered first, then vineyards, then fallow fields "about to be sown," and finally rice, ⁽⁶⁵⁾the cultivation of which was generally prohibited in huertas associated with large towns because of the danger of disease. (The text of the council's decree is in Appendix 3.)

The actual schedule of crop rotation is not clear from the [30]documents I have examined. Although more than two harvests a year would have been possible -- as the practice today ⁽⁶⁶⁾ -- there is no concrete evidence that this was taken advantage of. Tables 2 and 3 indicate a three-course rotation of winter wheat,

1. Geographers characterize vegas and huertas by their red or brown alluvial soil, with high (2 to 4 percent) iron content and groundwater at about 2 m. (Brian T. Bunting, The Geography of Soil [London, 1965], p. 120). Houston (Western Mediterranean World, p. 277) alludes to the "oriental density" of huerta population.

2. On marjals, see Alice Foster, The Geographic Structure of the Vega of Valencia (Chicago, 1936), p. 33; Fontavelha, Huerta de Gandia, pp.90-91; and Francisco de Paula Momblanch, Historia de la Albufera de Valencia (Valencia,1960). On the swampy, pestiferous nature of Mediterranean lowlands in general, see Fernand Braudel, El mediterraneo y el mundo mediterraneo en la época de Felipe II, 2 vols. (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1953) I, 55-60.

3. On various aspects of the interdependence of town and huerta, see Robert I. Burns, The Crusader Kingdom of Valencia, 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), I,151, and Houston, "Urban Geography of Valencia," p. 22

4. At least 118 such in the Valencian region (Houston,Western Mediterranean World, pp. 277-278).

5. See Brunhes, L'Irrigation, chap. ii; Rafael Altamira, "Mercado de agua para riego en la huerta de Alicante y en otras localidades de la [284] península y Canarias," in Joaquín Costa, ed., Derecho consuetudinario de España, 2 vols. (Barcelona, 1902), II, 136-164, 441-447; Mariano Ruiz-Funes Garcia, Derecho consuetudinario y economía popular de la provincia de Murcia (Madrid, 1916), pp. 165--192.

6. Repartimiento de Valencia, ed. Próspero de Bofarul y Mascaró, Colección de documentos inéditos del Archivo General de la Corona de Aragón, 41 vols. (Barcelona, 1847-1910), IX, 349.

All translations are mine except where otherwise indicated.

7. See below, Chap. II.

8. Later, specific rights in an irrigation turn were sometimes specified in grants (usually in places where water was sold by the hour), as in a grant of 1708 of "a piece of land . . . with one-half hour of water" ("un tros de terra . . . ab miga hora de aygua de la damunt"); Joan Beneyto i Pérez, "La propietat predial i l'aigua de rec," ACCV, 4 (1931), 125 fl. 2.

9. For example, a sale of land in the district of Moncada (Oct. 15, 1305) "cum cequiis aquis ad rigandum" (AHN, Montesa, Documentos particulares, no. 626).

10. Manuel Dualde Serrano, ed., Fori antiqui valentiae (Madrid-Valencia, 1950--1967), p. 280.

11. ARV, Gobernación, 2227, 16th hand, fol. 27 (Nov. 12, 1421). Similar cases arose with regard to nonuse by mills. If a mill was decrepit and had been inoperative for years, should the owner still have to contribute to the maintenance of the canal? See ARV, Gobernación, 2300, 2nd hand, fol. 7v. (Feb. 20, 1461), where the syndic of the Rascanya Canal argues that the miller still must pay because as owner of the mill he still has the right to use the water, whether or not he actually does so. The fueros did provide for a change in status if an irrigation source had been dry for 10 years or more (Fori antiqui valentiae, p. 75).

12. In an agreement between the master of the Order of Montesa and the men of Moncada and Massarrojos, concluded May 17, 1403, entry fees were set at 90 sous per cafizate of regadiu and 30s. per jovate of secá. With the jovate equivalent to 6 cafizates, irrigated land was worth 18 times more than unirrigated land at this time (But the tax rate -- sens -- was set at 7s. per jovate of secá and per cafizate of regadiu, indicating a multiple of only 6) (AHN, Montesa, libro 542 c, fol 144r).

13. Variants of this complaint: "regave per loch hon no tenie anpriu, regava per ha hon no deu, sorregava per ha hon no ha regadiu, regava per loch que no a regadiu." The illegal conversion of unirrigated land to irrigated has been a constant concern. In a letter to El Mercantil Valenciano, Feb. 20, 1878. "an irrigator" writes that people without water rights had been taking water from the Júcar Canal and converting secano to huerta. The acequiero should have fined these people but had not.

14. See M. Manrique, "La jovada valenciana," BSCC, 15 (1934), 156-166. [285] Until the conquest of Valencia the jovate had twelve cafizates, and the cafizate twelve fanecates. The king reduced the measures when he discovered that he had granted more land than existed (ibid., pp. 164-165). Fanegada is from Arabic, fanîqa, "sack" (Eero K. Neuvonen, Los arabismos del español en el siglo XIII [Helsinki, 1941], pp. 129-130), and cafizada from Arabic. qafîz, a dry measure (ibid., p. 75), indications originally of the amount of grain which could be sown on a given area. Jovada is related to the Castilian yugada, the amount of land which can be plowed by a yoke of oxen in one day.

15. Servicio nacional de concentración parcelaria, 1953-1963, 2 vols. (Madrid: Ministerio de Agricultura, 1963), I, 20-21, cuadro no. 2.

16. ARV, Gobernación, 2268, 4th hand, fol. 8r (May 1, 1442).

17. ARV, Gobernación, 2272, 2nd hand, fol. 29r (June 13, 1446).

18. ARV, Gobernación, 2307, 32nd hand, fols. 18r-19v (1462).

19. See Fontavella (Huerta de Gandia, pp. 103-104), who points out the extreme irregularity of secano fields in comparison with the orderliness of the irrigated huerta. See his parcel map of Beniopa (p. 106) and compare with the aerial photo of rice land (opp. p. 212), in which the fields tend to be extremely elongated. Cf. Houston, Western Mediterranean World, p. 133, fig. 49.

20. The casita or casa de labor is relatively modern (see Fontavella, Huerta de Gandia, pp. 314--315). On the barraca, see Casas Torres, Huerta de Valencia, pp. 79--139; J. M. Houston, "Land Use and Society in the Plain of Valencia," in R. Miller and J Wreford Watson, eds., Geographical Essays in Memory of Alan G. Ogilvie (London, 1959), p. 191; on the alqueria, Casas Torres, Huerta de Valencia, pp. 141-168; Fontavella, Huerta de Gandia, pp. 310-311. Pere Garcia, in 1462, owned "one cafizate of vineyard with abarraca, fronting on the Mislata Canal" ("una cafiçada de vinya ab la barraqua afronta ab cequia de miziata") (ARV, Gobernación, 2307, 32nd hand, fol. 19v).

21. ARV, Protocolos, 3009, n.p. (July 28, 1427): "prout afrontatur ab una parte cum quadam cequia nuncupata de Na Rovella et ab ahia parte cum vinea Bernardi Rodrigo, braçallo medio."

22. ARV, Gobernación, 2306, 23rd hand, fol. 25r (July 31, 1462).

23. Pedro Diaz Cassou. Ordenanzas y costumbres de la huerta de Murcia (Madrid, 1889), p. 21, n. 2.

24. James I. Crónica, ed. M. Aguiló y Fuster (Barcelona, 1873), chap. cclviii: "e encara no sabem si han los camps regats, e per les cequies, e ponen caure alguns, e pendre gran mal . . . mas que a la nuyt fariem cercar homens de valor, e que guardarien sils camps eren regats o no, e si nols hauien regats que vinguessen a nos, e que teniem per bo ques faes la brocada." There are numerous references to the strategic ramifications of huerta fighting in the Chronicle: in Mallorca James recounted that (chap. [286] lxvii) "we put the Aragonese on one side and the Catalans on the other, and the canal was in between" ("metem los aragonesos d'una part e els cathalans de l'altra, e la cequia era en mig").

25. Muntaner, Crónica, 9 vols. in 2 (Barcelona, 1927--1952), chap. xiii: "Segurament que, si no fossen les cequies qui eren entre amdues les hosts, que'l dit senyor infant haguera brocat sobre ells; mas les cequies e les aygues eren tan grans al mig d'ells, que nou pogueren fer."

26. Fori antiqui valentiae, p. 280 (Latin). Catalan version, Fori regni valentiae (Valencia, 1548): "E sil hereter quan regara, o no regara, o daltra manera gitara laygua en les vies, o en les carreres pach cinch sois, e restituesque a aquells qui hauran soffert lo dan, e a aquells qui passaran per les vies, o per les carreres lo dan que hauran sofert per lo gotament daquelles aygues."

27. Ruiz-Funes, Derecho consuetudinario de Murcia, p. 144. A 1000 maravedí fine was set by the council (n.d.).

28. Archivo del Patriarca de Valencia, Protoc. Francesc Vilba, no. 1684 (May 29, 1435), hereafter cited Benacher-Faitanar Ordinances, 1435: "Item que si algun regant o en altra manera sorregara camps o sendes publiques pach per cascuna vegada que contrafara X. sous pagadors la mitat al dit cequier e laltra mitat al acusador e ultra ao sia tengut a tot lo dan que per lo dit sorregarnent se seguira axi als vehins corn als altres."

29. The duties of cequiers are discussed in Chap. II.

30. The roads to Morvedre, Alboraia, Moncada, Liria, Burjassot, Quart, Chirivella and Alaquas, Játiva, Picassent, Torrent, Russafa, and the road encircling the city, according to Joseph Lop, De la institució . . . de las fabriques . . . de murs e valls (Valencia, 1675), pp. 292-334.

31. The council (consell), a popularly elected body whose purpose was to advise the jurates and otherwise deliberate the affairs of the city, was comprised of 4 members elected from each of the 12 parishes and another 4 from each guild. The 6 jurates (jurats), elected annually by the council, were the executive and administrative officers of the city. See Manuel Danvila y Collado, La germanía de Valencia (Madrid, 1884), pp. 434--438.

32. AMV, Manuals de Consell, 26, fol. 217r: "los dits camins sien derruits e los escorredors riblerts per les aygues qui los regants frontalers o qui han possessions prop dels camins lancen en aquells dits camins e escorredors."

33. AMC, Libres de Consell, 16, n.p. (Aug. 11, 1408).

34. ARV, Real, 272, fol. 143r (May 22, 1450): "la punicio se deia fer per los cequiers aquelhs empero la cessen fer perque son hereters mateix e lauradors participants en lo abus."

35. Provision for public space on the banks of canals is an inheritance from Islamic law. Legal scholars differed, however, on the width of the harîm (forbidden space), specifying between 25 and 50 cubits. Ab Hanifa said that the harîm of a canal was constituted by the space occupied by the mud thrown upon the banks. The practice of the modern Ghûta of [287] Damascus is that the harîm should be equal on each bank to the width of the canal (Henri Bruno, Contribution a l'étude du régime des eaux en droit musulman [Paris, 1913], pp. 56-58, al-Mâwardi, Les statuts gouvernementaux [al-Ahkâm al-Sultâniya], trans. E. Fagnan [Algiers: Adolphe Jourdan, 1915], pp. 390-392; René Tresse, "L'Irrigation dans la Ghouta de Damas," Revue des études islamiques, 3 [192g], 477). In Castellón, there had to be a space 4 palms wide on one side of the canal and 2 on the other in which plants or trees could not be planted (Libre de ondinacions de la vila de Castelló de la Plana, ed. Luis Revest y Corzo [Castellón, 1957], p. 67). A Murcian ordinance of Oct. 3, 1476, specified a space of 10 palms on the banks of main canals, 5 palms on secondary channels (Diaz Cassou,Ordenanzas y costumbres, p. 65).

36. Lop, Murs e valls, p. 298: "Lo cami de Alboraya es fillola del cami Real de Molvedre."

37. AMV, Manuals de Consell, 32, primer libre, fol. 28v (Oct. 15, 1438), concerning the hereters of a carrero (lane).

38. See Lop, Murs e valls, pp. 292--340, for indications of specific bridges, including those over the canals of Faitanar, Favara, Rascanya, and Rovehla.

39. In AMV, Libros de Sotsobrenia de Muros y Valladares, 2, fol. i55r (Dec. 24, 1390), the sotsobrer lists his duties in the Marjals as overseeing the making of canals and "repairs of roads, bridges, and pontoons" (ponts e pontons). On May 22, 1391 (ibid., 4, n.p.) he paid 336 sous 1 diner to Jacme Demenso, a carpenter, for "repairing, making, and remaking . . .two bridges of mortar and rubble which are over the Favara Canal near the aiquenia of Guerau de Castellvert" ("dos ponts de reble e dargamassa que son sobre le cequia de Favara").

40. Lop, Murs e valls, pp. 255--256: "en tots los puestos, que travessen per damunt los cequiols, pera passar a les heretats facen ponts. Per co. que per escusarse los particulars de fer dits ponts rebleixen dits cequiols, y les aygues no poden tenir eixida."

41. AMC, Libres de Consell, 20. n.p. (Aug. 5, 1414): "Item lo honorable consell acorda quel pont appellat den Bona fos enderroquat et de nou adobat e refet de bona amplaria deis peus de quexer a quexer e que los dits peus no hisquen mes quels limits del quexer de la cequia." For another bridge over the cequia maior of Castellón, near the river, which was on the point of falling down and causing trouble to pedestrians, see Libres de Consell, 18, n.p. (June 1, 1411).

42. See Chapple and Coon, Principles of Anthropology, p. 184.

43. The Libre de ordinacions de la villa de Castelló de la Plana contains numerous medieval and early modern cattle regulations.

44. See ibid., pp. 68-72, "Del bovalar."

45. AMV, Manuals de Consell, 3, fol. 98v (July 28, 1334). The bounds of the huerta: "del Riusech de Catarroya aena e devahla tro a la mar e puja tro a la cequia de Quart e de Moncada e devalla tro a la creu que [288] es posada en lo cami de Murvedre apud Meliana e devalla tro a la mar." Compare with similar versions in Manuals de Consell, 1, fol. 172r (Sept. 26, 1321) and 13, 2nd fasc., fol. 28r (Aug. 21, 1357).

46. AMV, Cartas Misivas, 7, n.p. (Aug. 20, 1400): "de tenir en la dita orta e de pexer e pasturar en aquella sens fer tala e dan, vint cabres e I cabro tant solament." Compare similar license to Anthoni Esteve to pasture a sheep in the huerta (June 14, 1401).

47. AMV, Manuals de Consell, 4, fol. 88v. See also Cartas Misivas, 1, fol. 54r (Jan. 8, 1335), wherein the city writes to the Archbishop of Zaragoza that one Lop de Luna was trying to prejudice the rights of both king and city by pasturing beasts in Paterna -- i.e., within the limits of the huerta -- contrary to the fueros of the city.

48. AMV, Manuals de Consell. 20, fol. 296r (Apr. 1, 1396):

alcuns havents . . . possessions en les marjals . . . en los lochs de roçafa e dalfofar . . . prenien gran dan e senyaladament en desidia e tarda de la part de la universitat de la dita ciutat per cessar o tardar de fer ponts e pontons de les cequies de les dites marjals per fretura dels quals ponts e pontons los bous e altres besties majors e menors pasturants en les dites marjals traversaven per les dites cequies e braals e enrunaven e destrovien aquelles embargants lo cas e les aygues de manera que aquelles regolfaven en lurs possessions e aquelles fahien tornar al primer estament marjalench.

50. AMV, Manuals de Consell, 33 fol. 92r (Apr. 30, 1445): "Es veritat que en la dita cequia per beneffici de aquella eren necessaris alguns ponts per los quals poguessen passar los bous vaques e altres besties e bestiars per ço no enrunassen aquella." Similar concerns occupied the council of Castellón with regard to its marjals. See disposition regarding the New Canal near Benicasim (AMC, Libres de Consell, 16, n.p., Jan. 17, 1409) where there were no caxers, beasts could pass only in designated places and sheep could graze only in special areas set off by the city. On Aug. 5, 1436 (ibid., 35, n.p.), the council noted that because of the coming and going of beasts the ditches of the Marjals were broken down causing stagnation of the water.

51. Symbols: o=1443 book, x=1486 book.

52. Hereters of Algirós (Mestalla) were reimbursed for damages caused them "axi en lo alfalç com en los altres splets" (AMV, Manuals de Consell, 34, fol. 265r, Jan. 14, 1450).

53. ARV, Gobernación, 2262, 1st hand, fol. 35r (Feb. 17, 1438). Regarding Oliva and Nules: no water was getting through from the Mijares; hence the triga (a castilianism?), blats, and crops (splets) in general were endangered. With regard to the general use of blat as "cereal," see ARV, [289] Gobernación, 2262, 2nd hand, fol. 40r (July 1, 1438): Jacme Prats held irrigated land in Massamagrell (Moncada Canal), which he held from the lord of that place at a rent of five measures (almuts) of grain, "that is, wheat and barley" ("un troç de terra campa situat en terme del dit loch [of Massarnagrell] en lo regadiu tengut . . , a cens de y almuts de blat, ço es de forment e dordi."

54. Compare Francesc Fiximenis' list of Valencian grains, vegetables, and spices (Regiment de la cosa publica, ed. D Molins de Rey [Barcelona: Els Nostres Classics, 1927], p 25): "[Valencia] abunda en diversitats de grans, així com de forment, ordi, mill, panís d'acça, avena, espelta, tramella, faves, ciurons, llentilles, fesols, písols, tremussos, amós, alquena, adcerco, pastell, comí, batafalua, alcaraulla."

55. The Jesuit Pene Gil, in his Geografía de Catalunya, wrote that "what most commonly causes bad harvests [of wheat] is the lack of water, drought, particularly in the months of April and May", Josep Iglésies. Pene Gil, S. I. (1551--5622): i la seva Geografía de Catalunya [Barcelona, 1949], p. 294.

56. Libre de ondinacions de la vila de Castelló de le Plana, p. 111 ("Corn totes les vinyes axí de sequa corn de la orta son bovalar").

57. ARV, Gobernación, 2262, 7th hand, fol. 17v (Aug. 28, 1438): "E dix que per tant corn ell dit ts. les ha regades e es stat pagat del dit rech." See also ARV, Gobernación, 2286, 11th hand, fol. 15r (1455): "Item lo dit en Salvador Prats, menor de dies, en l'any mil CCCCXXXXIII comença cavar, podar, magenar, regar, veremar, dar tot recapte continuament en la dita vinya." The vineyard in question was in the district of Museros.

58. See ARV, Gobernación, 2219, 3rd hand, fol. 3r (Jan. 28. 1417). garroferes (carobs) in the huerta of Penchisa; and Gobernación, 2241, 6th hand, fol. 39r., regarding fields owned by some Muslims in Torres Torres: "un troc de figueral en lo sequa Item, un troç de garoferal e figuerol situat en lo dit terme francis qui te conifronta ab la cequia chiqua e ab vinya de Albalati,"

59. Vicente Branchat, Tratado de los derechos y regalías que corresponden al real patrimonio en el neyno de Valencia, 3 vols. (Valencia, 1784--1786), III, 277--279 (May 8, 1479).

60. AMC, Llibres de Consell, 17 n.p. (Aug. 18, 1409). Payment to Ferrando the water-carrier for 3 loads of water which he carried to irrigate the palace orange grove. ("Item an iferrando ayguader per iii carregues de aygua que porta per a regar lo temonger del palau.")

61. ARV, Gobernación, 2267, 11th hand, fol. 27v (Aug 6, 1441), regarding an obstruction in the canal of orange and apple trees.

62. ARV, Gobernación, 2273, 14th hand, fols. 4v--9r (May 2, 1447). References to trees planted on the banks of the canal including oranges, mulberries, pomegranates, two kinds of peaches (berxiquersand pnesiguers) and willows.

63. "La dita barqua ab la qual lo dit Sr. Rey per hauer plaer ab lo inclit D. Johan frare del dit Senyor a jugar les tarongades en la albufera del dit Sr. Rey"; ARV, doc. of 1417 cited by Antoni M. Alcover, Diccionani català-valencià-balear, 10 vols [Palma, 1930-1962]), X,160.

64. Muntaner, Crónica, chap. clv: "Vaérets batallas de taronges, que del regne de Valencia n'avien feyt venir més de cinquanta càrregues".

65. AMV, Manuals de Consell, 17, fol. 62r (July 18, 1376), "De forma de regar los esplets": The water to be given first to "paniços e ortalices, enapres a les vinyes, enapres als guarets per a sembrar, e derrerament als arroços." Compare order of priorities in the Ghta: 1) fruit trees, 2) grapes, 3) fodder, 4) rice (Tresse, "L'Irrigation," p. 539).

66. For modern rotations, see Fontavella, Huerta de Gandia, pp. 165--166.

67. Symbols: o=1443 book, x=1486 book