Hospital das Seixas

Camino Primitivo

LugoGalicia

Compound toponym. Hospital, from the Latin hospitale, specifically designates a medieval Jacobean hospice —⁠same formula already seen at Hospital de Bruma (Camino Inglés) and at Hospital da Condesa (Camino Francés). Das Seixas, the Galician plural of seixa (from the Latin saxum, 'rock, stone'), describes the stony terrain of the place.

Saxum, 'rock, large stone', gave in Galician the word seixo / seixa with characteristic palatalisation of the -x- cluster. In toponymy it is one of the most productive stone appellatives of the northwestern quadrant: Seixo, As Seixas, Seixalbo, Seixedo, Seixido. The word is preserved as a common appellative to designate flat stones, slabs, stony soils. The Galician Primitivo hospice, founded at some point between the 12th and 14th centuries, attended pilgrims at one of the most solitary stretches of the Camino: the climb from Lugo toward the heights of Palas de Rei, crossing a rugged scrub and stony-soiled landscape. The original hospice has vanished —⁠it was deconsecrated in the 18th century like so many others⁠— but the toponym preserves the double trace: the medieval charitable function and the geographical description. The hamlet is tiny, barely a group of houses around a rural chapel. The pilgrim crosses it after San Román da Retorta, before entering the Palas de Rei council and descending toward Melide.

Evolution of the name

  1. hospitale + saxum medieval Latin 12th — 14th centuries
  2. Hospital das Seixas medieval Galician from the 13th century

Reflections, to the letter

The place name keeps two memories and both are still in plain sight. Hospital, for the pilgrims' hospice the Order of Malta, the Hospitallers of Saint John, once held here, of which stretches of wall still stand. And das Seixas, the stones, for the ground underfoot on the climb up the Serra do Careón, scattered with quartz outcrops and boulders, among them the one that bears the hospital's own name. The name is simply the terrain, read aloud.

Languages of origin

Themes

Origin status

confirmed

Glossary

Palatalisation
A phonetic shift in which a sound is articulated against the palate. In Castilian: Latin nn → ñ (annus → año); preserved initial pl- (planus → plano) versus Asturleonese palatalisation to ll- (Llanes).

Sources

  • Navaza, G. — Toponimia de Galicia

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Camino Primitivo

  1. ··· toward Santiago
  2. O Pedrouzo
  3. Arzúa
  4. Ribadiso
  5. Castañeda
  6. Boente
  7. Melide
  8. Hospital das Seixas
  9. Ferreira
  10. San Román da Retorta
  11. Lugo
  12. Soutomerille
  13. Castroverde
  14. O Cádavo
  15. ··· toward the start