An ancient remote country
It held resin, wood, gold, coal, wool, ham, wine, oil... It wasn't exactly a land of passage. But, deep in the mountains, it was a coveted land. Since time immemorial. It is still today one of the Catalan territories with the highest density of megalithic monuments. The Romans also claimed this distant and difficult-to-access territory as their own. To get there from the coast, the most popular route was the Salt Road, used for centuries by muleteers from Cardona, the enclave of the white mountain: towards Solsona, passing through Sant Llorenç de Morunys, jumping over the Coll de Port, crossing the Vansa valley and from there, skirting the Cadí mountain range, to the present-day Seu de Urgell, at the confluence of the Segre and Valira rivers, and from where it connected with the strata Ceretana, the one that led through the plain of Cerdanya to Iulia Libica, that is, Llívia, founded in the time of Emperor Augustus. There are those who venture to say that Hannibal, with his elephants, had followed the Salt Road in 218 BC. Perhaps so.
This ancient, remote country is located between the Pyrenees and the Cadí. In the book The ancient country (Anem Editors), historian Quim Varela has established, to the best of his knowledge, its Romanization. Scholarship and dissemination: the little-known and fascinating history of a corner of the world in a still unique and forgotten geographical context: the empty Catalonia. The modern political border has, however, been porous. From centuries ago to the present day, Andorrans and Urgellenses have maintained strong ties: familial, commercial, and vital. And, at the same time, each valley retains its own unique idiosyncrasy.
The geographer Strabo (63 BC-24 AD) described the inhabitants of the Pyrenees, the border between the Iberians and the Gauls, as "sober." He said: "They only drink water, sleep on the ground and wear their hair long like women, although to fight they tie it on their forehead with a ribbon. [...] They practice gymnastic, hopliptical and equestrian wrestling, training for boxing, running, merrymaking and pitched battles." Before, the Greek Polybius (250 BC-120 BC) had named the airenosioi (airenosis, traditionally identified with the inhabitants of the Aran Valley) and the andosinoi (Andosinos, those from Andorra).
If Llívia was an important Roman city, the Seo (Urgellum) was not a civitas, but rather one oppidum or fortification and then one vicus or town at an ancient crossroads and rivers. Llívia dominated the neighboring Cerdanya until the founding of Puigcerdà, already in the 13th century. The city of Urgel did not gain much importance until the High Middle Ages. The monastery of Sant Serni de Tavèrnoles, halfway between La Seu and Andorra, may derive from tabernulae, an ancient post or halt. Romanization advanced little by little, not without resistance.
In this ancient land of peaks and valleys, Roman (Latin) toponymy coexisted with Basque toponymy. The distinguished Joan Coromines, for example, proposed an etymology for Urgell with Ibero-Basque roots: ur is water (either fountain). Be that as it may, Western Catalan was born in Urgellet and Andorra, from where it would have spread southward in the slow process of conquest and repopulation by the Counts of Urgell between the 9th and 12th centuries. In fact, the border between Eastern and Western Catalan coincides exactly with the limits between Urgellet and Baridà, a sub-region straddling Cerdanya. Weak Romanization would have allowed the Basque substratum to survive in these highlands. Bilingualism between Proto-Basque and Latin continued at least until the year 1000. The things of the language are slow, fluid, and exciting.
PS: I bought this interesting book in Arsèguel, a town in Baridà, at the La Puça bookstore, a small miracle made possible by Anna Riberaygua. Also miraculous is the wool factory-museum, located at the foot of the same town, run by the Isern sisters and featuring a spectacular working Mule-Jenny spinning wheel from the mid-19th century.
