Albergaria-a-Velha

Camino Portugués · Camino Portugués de la Costa

Distrito de AveiroPortugal

Here Camino Portugués and Camino Portugués de la Costa converge. It is one of the points where the pilgrim shares the way with those arriving by another route.

From medieval Portuguese albergaria 'hostel, pilgrim hospital' —⁠from the Germanic haribergan 'to lodge' via Provençal albergaria⁠— + a-Velha 'the Old', a qualifier distinguishing it from nearby Albergaria-a-Nova.

The Germanism albergaria entered the Iberian Romance languages through the Provençal of Jacobean pilgrims crossing Catalonia in the 12th century: it designated the hostel specifically regulated to lodge pilgrims, distinct from the inn of commercial transit. The medieval Portuguese albergarias were royal or monastic foundations with chapel, hospital and free meals for three days, a pattern inherited from the Cluniac hospices. Over time, some doubled: when a new foundation rose beside an existing one, the former took the qualifier a-Velha and the latter a-Nova. Albergaria-a-Velha, founded around the Camino's hospital in the 14th century, preserves that medieval administrative logic in its name.

Evolution of the name

  1. haribergan / haribergôn Germanic 5th — 8th century
  2. albergaria medieval Provençal-Portuguese 12th — 14th century
  3. Albergaria-a-Velha Portuguese from the 15th century

Reflections, to the letter

The name is the trade itself: in November 1117 Dona Teresa, mother of Afonso Henriques, bound the nobleman Gonçalo Eriz to maintain an albergaria here, a shelter for the poor and for passing pilgrims. The building is gone, but the walker crossing the town treads the very ground that for eight centuries existed to offer precisely what the name promises: roof and bread. Few place names on the Camino state their reason for being so plainly.

Languages of origin

Themes

Origin status

confirmed

Glossary

Fuero
A medieval legal privilege granted by a king to a town, conferring special rights and freedoms.
Germanism
A lexical borrowing from Germanic (Visigothic, Suebian, Vandal) into peninsular languages. Frequent in medieval anthroponymy: Rodericus → Rodrigo, Hildericus → Ildefonso, Bermudo. Also common vocabulary: guerra, ganar, blanco.

Sources

  • Machado, J.P. — Dicionário Onomástico Etimológico da Língua Portuguesa
  • Mattoso, J. — Identificação de um país
  • Piel, J.M. — Os nomes germânicos na toponímia portuguesa (Coímbra, 1937)

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Camino Portugués

  1. ··· toward Santiago
  2. Vilarinho
  3. Porto
  4. Vila Nova de Gaia
  5. Grijó
  6. São João da Madeira
  7. Oliveira de Azeméis
  8. Albergaria-a-Velha
  9. Águeda
  10. Anadia
  11. Mealhada
  12. Coímbra
  13. Condeixa-a-Nova
  14. Conímbriga
  15. ··· toward the start