History

FERRERIES

History

Historical overview of Ferreries

The historical reports we have regarding the birth of Ferreries allow us to establish its founding at the end of the 13th century. When King James II of Mallorca organized the social and ecclesiastical structures of Menorca, creating the Pavordia (honorary title) and the rectories, he instituted, among others, a new parish in the "Fraria" district, under the patronage of the Apostle Saint Bartholomew. The name Ferreries appears for the first time in the "Pariatge" of the good King James. It is, in fact, a document of concord between the monarch and the bishop that reorganized the structures of the Menorcan church. But what is the origin of the name Ferreries? There are two widely considered theories regarding this, although both are undocumented. According to oral tradition, the name Ferreries is closely related to the toponyms of "Sa Rovellada", "S'Enclusa", and the hills of Son Telm that surround the town. Followers of this opinion consider the possibility that a blacksmith (ferrer) originally settled in these parts to attend to the horses of the transport teams traveling into the interior of the island territory. This belief would be reinforced by the spelling "Ferrerías", which appears in all subsequent documentation. Likewise, it is also significant that the first marriage registered in the parish books of Ferreries was that of a master blacksmith, Llorenç Triay, married on October 2, 1570, to Margarita Foixà. The other opinion defends the hypothesis that the name Ferreries is an orthographic deformation of Fraria, since the primitive church of Saint Bartholomew was built on land that belonged to the Mercedarian friars, probably those of Puig Ostern mentioned in the bull of Nicholas IV in 1291. In the vicinity of these areas, the first houses that would give life to the primitive population center began to be built in 1298. The historian Pere Riudavets i Tudurí, in his "History of the Island of Menorca", specifies this last theory when he writes: "...King Alfonso III granted land in the district of Mercadal to the Mercedarian religious who accompanied him to establish a convent, and that the King of Mallorca, James III, when decreeing the Pariatge, or code for the establishment of parishes and vicarages, mentions the sites and districts where they should be established, instituting the Parish of Saint Bartholomew in the Fraria (lands belonging to the Mercedarian friars), which over time has come to become Ferreries". And he adds later: "...it was necessary to increase the parish district of Saint Bartholomew upon its institution in the lands called the Fraria, and it is probable that this subdivision was carried out by the diocesan of the Balearic Islands, setting the limits it has today, in agreement with the municipality of Ciutadella and that of Mercadal, who must have ceded part of their respective territories to form what we call the "Terme de Ferreries" today". At the beginning of the 14th century, the town of Ferreries received the name of the Santa Agueda Castle district, and its most representative men participated in the politics and public affairs of Menorca, as referred to in the Carta-Pobla of August 30, 1301, by P. Villanueva regarding his "Literary Journey to the Churches of Spain". The dispersed nature of the population did not favor the development of Ferreries, which, before the end of the medieval period, already had some isolated population centers. We have news that in 1457, the places of Terraroja, San Gornés, Son Gras, and Ruma were founded, and in 1476, those of Son Mercer and Sa Mola were born. All of them as small population cells. Years later, specifically in 1860, Ruma had 10 houses, Son Mercer 5, and Sa Mola 5.