Celorio

Principado de Asturias

Toponym derived from the Latin cellarium ('pantry, storehouse, monastic granary'), from cella ('small room, cell'). It specifically designates in medieval documentation an agricultural annex dependent on a great monastery —⁠the cellarium stored the grain, the wine and the produce of the monastic lands.

Cellarium, derived from the more basic cella ('small room, pantry, monastic cell'), designated in late and medieval Latin the storehouse where the products of the countryside were kept: grain, wine, oil, cheese, honey. The function was central in the monastic economy: each great abbey managed a complex of cellarios scattered across its territories, exploitation heads that centralised the harvest and livestock of each property. Hispanic toponymy preserves dozens: Celorio, Celada, Cellán, Cilleros, Cillanueva. The Asturian Celorio is documented from the 10th century as a dependency of the Benedictine monastery of San Salvador de Celorio, founded in 1073 by Munia and Aldonza, daughters of count Munio Vela. The monastic church, Romanesque with later reforms, remains the centre of the hamlet. The Celorio beach, with the small island of La Almenada in front, is one of the most photographed on the eastern Asturian coast.

Evolution of the name

cella → cellarium Latin before the 6th century
Celorio medieval Asturleonese from the 10th century

Reflections, to the letter

The village name was the storehouse —⁠cellarium in Latin, monastic pantry where the grain, wine and oil of the monastery's lands were kept. The hamlet grew in the shadow of the Benedictine monastery of San Salvador de Celorio, founded in 1073 by two sisters, Munia and Aldonza, daughters of a local count. The Romanesque church remains the centre of the village, a thousand years after its foundation.

Glossary

Cellarium (monastic pantry): A building or annex dependent on a medieval monastery where the produce of the countryside (grain, wine, oil, cheese, honey) obtained from the monastic lands was stored. The management of the cellarium was in the hands of the cellerarius or storekeeper, an office already described in the Rule of Saint Benedict (chapter XXXI).

Sources

García Arias, X.Ll. — Toponimia asturiana

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Camino del Norte

Evolution of the name

Reflections, to the letter

Languages of origin

Themes

Origin status

Glossary

Sources