The history of the Basque farmhouse, evolution and decadence throughout the different epochs.
Between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the era of the farmhouse (baserri) began and at that time it referred to the base establishment of the family production of an agricultural society located in the mountains. Little by little, this establishment acquired improvements due to the experience accumulated by the landlords and became a house adapted to farming and animal care.
Basque farmhouses have their own name and throughout history they have always kept the same name. This has helped to keep track of the farmhouses but it is often thought that the current building is the original one, a fact that is generally false since most of the farmhouses that are still standing have been rebuilt or renovated.
Since the first farmhouses were built, Basque society has been changing. From being gatherers and shepherds, they moved to the agricultural world, but not everyone had the same status. The free landowners were those who had no obligations to any lord and were the owners of the land they worked. Below them were the pecheros of the king, men who worked the land of the crown autonomously and therefore had to meet a series of conditions such as paying taxes at a certain time and under no circumstances could they leave the land (there always had to be a member of the family present on the land). And finally, there were the vassals, peasants who worked the land but without freedoms. For example, they had to ask permission from their lord and master to marry.
One of the problems of the hamlets was their location and the lack of defense that this entailed. Normally the farmhouse was located in the mountains, in a remote and distant area and was vulnerable to any type of attack, from attacks by wild animals to raids by the men of the nobles of the area. In addition, the first farmhouses were not as big as the ones we can see today and were usually huts made of wooden planks very little resistant to any invasion. But in the 16th century and thanks to the reign of the Catholic kings, and the fortune they began to acquire both in Andalusia and the gold from the Americas, the pressure of the nobles and the crown on the workers of the land and the inhabitants of the farmhouses began to decrease and consequently, the villagers began to think about reforming their houses looking for a better life. This is when stone and wood began to be combined and the results were more than acceptable, since the level of carpentry was much higher than average and the results were exceptional.
History of the Basque farmhouse
There were many ways to build a farmhouse but all of them followed the main criterion, in the lower floor lived the family and the animals and in the upper floor the storage of the harvest. In this way, the families began to cultivate in particular wheat and apples, and after the passing of the years, they improved the technique and extended the lands to work, obtaining a great quantity of product in the harvest. For this reason, and because the families always sought the respect of society, they began to build larger farmhouses to increase storage capacity and later, they began to build barns and granaries for better conservation.
As the years went by, the peasants saw that they were getting more yield with corn than with any other cereal and this, together with the continuous search for more income, caused all the land to be worked without rest and following techniques that were not very recommendable for the soil. The use of baked stone lime in the orchards was spreading and at the end of the XVIII century they began to realize that the harvest gave less and less food. This caused a great increase in the number of farmhouses, as the nobles began to look for new lands to cultivate and built farmhouses to settle down.
But in the 19th century, the era of industrialization and the new factories that required a large workforce, attracted most of the people who worked the land, and the nobles quickly saw that their farmhouses were becoming empty. They tried to fight back by freezing the rents or even lowering the price, but to no avail and the world of the farmhouse went into decline.
Decaying farmhouse
Many years have passed since the last farmhouse was founded, but lately a large number of farmhouses are being renovated to adapt them to modern times and it has also become fashionable to convert them into rural houses.
Current farmhouse
This is the history of the Basque farmhouse and it is difficult to foresee what will be the future of the farmhouses, but their presence in the Basque lands will last until eternity.
0 Comments