Colmenar Viejo

Comunidad de Madrid

Compound toponym. Colmenar is a derivative of Latin columnaris ('proper to columns') or, according to the more sustained philological hypothesis, of pre-Roman *culumena ('honeycomb, container for bees') with the Castilian locative suffix -ar, designating 'place of beehives'. The epithet Viejo, added in the 15th century, distinguishes this Colmenar from other homonymous municipalities of the Madrid surroundings (Colmenar de Oreja, Colmenar del Arroyo).

Colmena is an old Castilian word of disputed origin. The two main hypotheses converge in meaning but diverge in origin: the Latin one derives from columnaris with figurative sense (the traditional beehive consisted of a hollow cork column); the pre-Roman one suggests a Celtic or Iberian substrate *culumena, with cognates in western Indo-European languages. The apiculture industry was, from the Middle Ages, one of the economic pillars of the Madrid range: the council ordinances of Colmenar Viejo (1463) regulate in detail the arrangement of beehives in the village's dehesas, the swarms, the ownership of the honey and the conflicts with transhumant shepherds. The denomination Viejo is from 1503: in a pastoral visit of the Toledo bishopric the place is distinguished as Colmenar el Viejo, in opposition to Colmenares of later foundation. Colmenar Viejo was the historical head of the Land of Madrid until the 15th century and maintained its rural and livestock character until the 20th-century metropolitan expansion.

Evolution of the name

*culumena / columnaris pre-Roman and Latin before the 9th century
Colmenar medieval Castilian from the 13th century
Colmenar Viejo Castilian from the 15th century

Reflections, to the letter

Colmenar Viejo carries its origin on its coat of arms: a beehive ringed with bees, one of the blazons heraldry calls canting because they speak their own name without words. Tradition says eleven hives by the Alcalá–Segovia crossroads founded the place, and the sierra still keeps more than seventy traditional cork-and-stone apiaries scattered across the hills. The pilgrim leaves through the dehesa over the same land that lived for centuries on the honey that named it.

Glossary

Locative suffix: A Castilian ending marking "place of" or "workshop where X is worked": -ería (panadería, herrería), -ero/-era (barquera, Itero "place of the road"). From the Latin -arium.
Pre-Roman: Prior to the Romanisation of the Iberian peninsula (3rd century BC); applied to toponyms, linguistic roots and populations.
Traditional cork apiculture: Traditional bee-raising system characteristic of the Madrid range, Extremadura and western Andalusia, based on cylindrical beehives made with cork cut from the cork oak, installed in covered apiaries (vasares) or in the open air. The technique, attested from the Middle Ages in the Colmenar Viejo ordinances (1463), produces the monofloral honey of rockrose and rosemary characteristic of Guadarrama. It was displaced in the 20th century by modular Langstroth hives but survives in traditional exploitations.

Sources

Pérez Vicente, J. — Historia de Colmenar Viejo

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Camino de Madrid

Evolution of the name

Reflections, to the letter

Languages of origin

Themes

Origin status

Glossary

Sources