Cortegada

Camino de la Geira y los Arrieiros · Camino Miñoto Ribeiro

Ourense · OrenseGalicia

Here Camino de la Geira y los Arrieiros and Camino Miñoto Ribeiro converge. It is one of the points where the pilgrim shares the way with those arriving by another route.

From the Latin corticata, on cortex 'bark'; the sense is debated —⁠'the bark-covered', an enclosure, or a place of stripping bark⁠—⁠. Pliny already named an insula Corticata.

The base of the name is secure, but its sense is not. Cortegada comes from the Latin corticata, formed on cortex, 'bark', and from there the scholars part ways. Fernando Cabeza Quiles reads it as 'the bark-covered', a building roofed with bark or straw. Others tie it to the medieval verb corticare, 'to strip bark from trees'. And a third path relates it to cohors, the enclosed ground. Gonzalo Navaza also warns of the ambiguity of the corti- family, which points as much to tree-bark as to the cortizo, the beehive. Pliny the Elder already named an insula Corticata, so the word is ancient; what has been lost is the certainty of what it meant.

Evolution of the name

insula Corticata Latin Pliny, 1st century AD
Cortegada Galician from the 10th century

Reflections, to the letter

Cortegada is born of the Latin corticata, from cortex, 'bark' —⁠but there the agreement ends⁠—⁠. A place of bark-covered things? Of stripping bark from trees? An enclosed ground? It even crosses with the cortizo, the beehive. Pliny already wrote of an insula Corticata, so the name is very old; its sense, on the other hand, was lost along the way. While you ponder it, enjoy: it is a thermal town on the Miño, and its spa flows sulphurous waters at thirty-eight degrees.

Sources

Xunta de Galicia — Toponimia de Galicia, «Comparten Cortegada e Cortizada a mesma orixe?»
Cabeza Quiles, F. — Toponimia de Galicia (Vigo: Galaxia, 2008)
Navaza, G. — Fitotoponimia galega (A Coruña: Fundación Barrié, 2006)

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Camino de la Geira y los Arrieiros

Evolution of the name

Reflections, to the letter

Languages of origin

Themes

Origin status

Sources