A Rúa de Francos

Rúa dos Francos

Camino Inglés

A Coruña · La CoruñaGalicia

Transparent compound toponym: A Rúa (Galician 'the street, the paved way', from the Latin ruga 'wrinkle, furrow, paved road') + de Francos, gentilic in substantivised plural from franco, 'inhabitant of the Frankish kingdom' or, by medieval extension, any European of trans-Pyrenean origin. It documents a medieval settlement of Frankish merchants and artisans along the Camino, the same historical pattern that gave its name to the Camino Francés.

The first element, rúa, is the Galician and Portuguese word for 'street'. It comes from the Latin ruga ('wrinkle, furrow'), which in late Hispanic Latin specialised to designate a paved street or roadway with longitudinal marks —⁠of carts, of furrows⁠— in contrast to the dirt street. The same root gave Portuguese rua, French rue and Italian ruga (in toponyms). The second element preserves a concrete historical episode. The medieval francos were European immigrants —⁠Franks, Burgundians, Gascons, Flemings⁠— attracted to the Peninsula by the Christian kings during the 11th and 12th centuries as qualified resettlers: merchants, artisans, doctors, technical specialists. In exchange for populating the Jacobean routes, they received their own fueros, tax exemptions and separate neighbourhoods called francos or burgos de francos. Estella, Sangüesa, Logroño, Burgos, Sahagún, Astorga, León, Lugo, Santiago —⁠all the great towns of the Camino Francés had their Frankish quarter documented in the Codex Calixtinus (12th century). The Rúa de Francos of Betanzos is one of the lesser-known but preserves in its name the exact trace of that process. The gentilic franco gives, by extension, the name of the Camino Francés itself and, in modern Castilian, the words franco ('free, exempt') and franquicia.

Evolution of the name

  1. ruga / Francus Latin 5th — 9th centuries
  2. Rua dos Francos / A Rúa de Francos medieval Galician from the 12th century

Reflections, to the letter

The name is the signature of a quarter of foreigners. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries the Christian kings of the north drew in merchants and craftsmen from beyond the Pyrenees —⁠the Franks⁠— to repopulate the pilgrim routes, granting them their own charter and their own street. Betanzos still keeps the trace in its names: beside this Rúa de Francos survive A Rúa and O Francés, and the old Calle de Francia now called Rúa das Monxas. To walk them is to read, without meaning to, the roll of those who came from abroad to live off the Camino.

Languages of origin

Themes

Origin status

confirmed

Glossary

Burgo de francos
A separate medieval neighbourhood within a peninsular town, granted by royal privilege to trans-Pyrenean European immigrants —⁠Franks, Burgundians, Gascons, Flemings⁠— during the 11th and 12th centuries. In exchange for populating the Jacobean routes and contributing qualified trades (commerce, craft, medicine), they received their own charters and tax exemptions. Frequent in the great towns of the Camino Francés.
Fuero
A set of privileges, rights and exemptions granted by a medieval king to a town or community in exchange for certain obligations (defence, repopulation, taxes). The fueros formed the local law of each settlement and were the main instrument of the Christian repopulation of the Peninsula between the 10th and 14th centuries.
Gentilic / demonym
A word indicating geographical origin of a person (Madrilenian, Leonese, Galician, Riojan…). When applied to a group rather than an individual, it approaches the ethnonym.
Roman road
A stone-paved Roman highway, part of the imperial communications network (Via Aquitana, Via Augusta, Iter ab Asturica); many such roads became medieval routes and, later, stretches of the Camino de Santiago.
Substantivised plural
A device by which an adjective or noun in the plural is fixed as a place name without the noun that governed it: fontanas = "[lands of the] springs", ferreiros = "[place of the] smiths". Frequent in medieval repopulation.

Sources

  • Códice Calixtino — Libro V (Guía del Peregrino)
  • Navaza, G. — Toponimia de Galicia

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Camino Inglés

  1. ··· toward Santiago
  2. Leiro
  3. Sigüeiro
  4. Buscás
  5. A Calle
  6. Hospital de Bruma
  7. Presedo
  8. A Rúa de Francos
  9. Poulo
  10. Betanzos
  11. Vilanova
  12. Carral
  13. Miño
  14. Sigrás
  15. ··· toward the start