Castropol

Camino del Norte

Principado de Asturias

Compound toponym. Castro, from the Latin castrum in its specific peninsular northwestern sense —⁠a fortified pre-Roman settlement. Pol, apocopation of the anthroponym Paulus ('small, humble', from the Latin paulus), a Christian name popular in the Middle Ages. It documents a Celtic-Suevic castro owned by a medieval Paulus.

The formula castro + anthroponym is one of the most productive patterns in the toponymy of the peninsular northwest: it documents a Celtic-Galician castro (a fortified pre-Roman settlement) reinterpreted in the Middle Ages as the property of a Christian lord whose name remained attached to the place. We saw before Castroverde (green castro) and Castromaior (great castro); here the complement is anthroponymic. Paulus, 'small, humble' in Latin, was a popular cognomen in early-medieval Christianity through the devotion to the apostle Paul of Tarsus. The apocopated form Pol (with loss of the final unstressed syllable -au- and simplification) is typical of medieval Asturian-Leonese —⁠frequent also in other toponyms like San Pol, Pola de Lena, A Pola. Castropol sits on a small peninsula over the Eo ria, the natural border with Galicia, and preserves one of the most photogenic medieval urban layouts in western Asturias, with white houses lined up over the cliffs. The council gives its name to the region and to one of the cultural heads of the eonaviego.

Evolution of the name

  1. castrum + Pauli late Latin 6th — 9th centuries
  2. Castropol medieval Asturleonese from the 12th century

Reflections, to the letter

Climbing into the old town on the promontory above the Eo estuary, the walker most likely treads the very castro of the name: local toponymy and finds from 2019 place a pre-Roman hillfort beneath the village. Castropol holds the highest density of catalogued castros in all of Asturias. The Pol⁠—⁠a contraction of a medieval Paulus⁠—⁠came only later, lending a Christian owner to a hill that had been walled for centuries.

Languages of origin

Themes

Origin status

confirmed

Glossary

Anthroponym
A personal name, often used as the base of toponyms (Lucronius → Logroño, Sigerici → Castrojeriz, Sacavus → Sacavém).
Apocope
Loss of one or more phonemes at the end of a word.
Castrum
A Roman military camp, originally permanent or seasonal, frequently reused in the Early Middle Ages as a defensive nucleus. The origin of hundreds of peninsular (Castro, Castrillo, Castrojeriz) and British toponyms (-chester, -caster: Manchester, Lancaster).
Pre-Roman
Prior to the Romanisation of the Iberian peninsula (3rd century BC); applied to toponyms, linguistic roots and populations.

Sources

  • García Arias, X.Ll. — Toponimia asturiana

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Camino del Norte

  1. ··· toward Santiago
  2. Goiriz
  3. Abadín
  4. Mondoñedo
  5. Lourenzá
  6. Vilanova de Lourenzá
  7. Ribadeo
  8. Castropol
  9. Tapia de Casariego
  10. La Caridad
  11. Navia
  12. Otur
  13. Luarca
  14. Canero
  15. ··· toward the start