Fraga
Camino Catalán por San Juan de la Peña
HuescaAragón
Toponym derived from the Latin fraga ('crag, broken terrain, rocky outcrop'), neuter plural substantivised from fragum ('fragment, roar'). The denomination describes the rugged meander of the Cinca river at the level of the town, with vertical limestone walls and fragmented rocks characteristic of the geology of the Lower Cinca.
Evolution of the name
- fraga late Latin 5th–9th centuries
- Fraga medieval Aragonese from the 12th century
Reflections, to the letter
The old town climbs the limestone scarp falling to the Cinca, dropping eighty metres through lanes where houses wedge one above another into the rock. That jagged, broken crag is what Fraga names: Latin fraga, the rough scrubland, the splintered rocky ground. Walking the slope is reading the place-name with your feet.
Glossary
- Battle of Fraga (1134)
- Military confrontation between the army of King Alfonso I the Battler of Aragón and the Almoravid troops commanded by Yahyà ibn Ghaniya, fought on the 17th of July 1134 near Fraga. The Christian defeat was total: the Aragonese army was annihilated and Alfonso I himself died a few weeks later from his wounds. His death without descendants opened the succession crisis that divided the Kingdom of Aragón (which passed to his brother Ramiro II) from the Kingdom of Navarre (which passed to García Ramírez), definitively separating the two crowns after a century of personal union.
Sources
- Marín Royo, L.M. — Fraga: historia y patrimonio
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Camino Catalán por San Juan de la Peña