Rabanal del Camino

Camino Francés

LeónCastilla y León

From the Castilian rabanal, derived from rábano (Latin raphanus) + collective suffix -al: 'radish-bed, place where radishes abound'. The qualifier del Camino distinguishes it from other peninsular homonyms.

The suffix -al over plant names is one of the most productive formants of Castilian-Leonese toponymy: Pinar, Robledal, Castinçal. Rabanal follows that pattern over the noun rábano 'raphanus sativus', a garden plant abundant in the early medieval orchards of the Leonese sierra. The qualifier del Camino, added in the 14th century, distinguishes this hamlet from the other peninsular Rabanals (Rabanal Viejo in Asturias, Rabanal de Fenar in León). The hamlet was one of the most visited stops of the late medieval Camino because of the nearby Templar monastery of Foncebadón; after the Templar dissolution, the Camino kept the traffic but lost the infrastructure, prompting the 20th-century Benedictine foundation that today reoccupies the site.

Evolution of the name

  1. Rabanal Castilian / medieval Leonese from the 12th century
  2. Rabanal del Camino Castilian from the 14th century

Reflections, to the letter

The name says what the soil once yielded: Rabanal is rábano, radish (from Latin raphanus), plus the suffix -al, which across León marks the place where a plant grows thick. Radish beds were thick here: a sharp root with edible leaves and a short cycle that held up in these high sierras. The tag del Camino was added in the fourteenth century to set it apart from the map's other Rabanales. If the pilgrim's supper comes with sliced radish and salt, he is chewing the place-name.

Languages of origin

Themes

Origin status

probable

Glossary

Collective suffix
An ending that adds to a noun the sense of 'a place where the named thing abounds'. In Castilian-Leonese, -al is the most productive: pinar, robledal, castañar, encinar, olivar, rabanal.
Derivative
A word formed from another by means of suffixes or prefixes. Rabanal is a derivative of rábano; not a compound nor a loanword.

Sources

  • Quintana Prieto, A. — El Bierzo histórico
  • Martínez Díez, G. — Los Templarios en los reinos de España

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Camino Francés

  1. ··· toward Santiago
  2. Molinaseca
  3. Riego de Ambrós
  4. El Acebo
  5. Manjarín
  6. Foncebadón
  7. El Ganso
  8. Rabanal del Camino
  9. Santa Catalina de Somoza
  10. Castrillo de los Polvazares
  11. Murias de Rechivaldo
  12. Astorga
  13. San Justo de la Vega
  14. Santibáñez de Valdeiglesias
  15. ··· toward the start