HISTORY

This antique Moslem farm-house was given to Pedro de Vilaragut in 1249 and it depended on the jurisdiction of Palma’s castle.

The new accesses have exposed a Roman village with oil mill and necropolis.

The term, divided by the Vernissa, includes the lands of the antique village of Cotalba, where the monastery of San Jerónimo of Cotalba is. Founded in 1388, there, the first community of the antique Corona of Aragon was settle in. From here several crops of monks set off to create others in Mallorca and Cataluña. This monastery has deeply marked the history of the village; overcoat, for having been constituted in its gentleman from 1424. The monks administrated its term, named local authorities and they collected, in their monastery, a part of the fruits that picked. At the end of the Ancient Regime, its inhabitants took part of the general desire to see the lordly exactions finished. In spite of the daily contact with the monks, there was a certain distance. In fact, its inhabitants didn’t use to access to the monastic stance and the monastic vocations were very rare among them.

The traditional orchard is irrigated by the common irrigation ditch with Rótova, from the Vernissa. In addition to the agriculture, where the viticultural expansion of the XIX century detached, the mines and the ovens of plaster, placed at the castle’s mountain, have been a traditional resource for some families, even though they were abandoned about 1955. Also there are stone pits of black marbles.

During the franquismo´s years it suffered a stagnation of the population and they had to emigrate towards France and Gandía. In the last decades, it has experienced an important urban and population transformation. The elders still remember the constant fight between the family of the Garcia’s, which had dominated from ancient, and their opponents, the Balbastre’s, which made rich by working the mines of plaster.

Ecclesiastically, it has never had a parish church and it has a church devoted to Our Lady of the Rosary. In this area the same way as the sanitary, it is dependent on Rótova.

INFORMATION OF INTEREST

It is located between Ador’s and Falconera’s saws. The municipal term divides the Vernissa River. The surface is fundamentally plain, excluding its zone more on the south due to Ador’s saw. The higher zones are: Alfahuir’s or Palma’s castle (305 m), Cister (293 m) and Carrero (223 m). As we have said before, the Vernissa River crosses the term bordering on Rótova.

It occupies a surface of 6.2 square kilometres and it has more than 400 inhabitants.

Climate is mild, with soft winters and warm summers.

Nearly the whole town is surrounded with trees, carobs and fruit trees. As for the cultivation, the orange trees and the vegetables detach. The virgin zone is covered by pines and mountain.

To eat the cocas of dacsa and the almond pies and sweet potato detach.

Its inhabitants are known under the name of alfuirenys.

FIESTAS

Sant Antoni del Porquet

It is the closest weekend to Saint Antoni date. There is mass and blessing animals and delivery of blessed, open-air festival with dinner and dance and the “cremà” of a bonfire made of firewood and pieces of junk made of wood that they pick up with all of the neighbour’s help.

Carnivals

Carnivals are celebrated in February. The neighbours disguise and parade for the whole town accompanied of a band of street musicians. At night, there is a fancy-dress ball.

St. Vicent Ferrer

It is celebrated the communicant’s fiesta, the priest gives communion to sick and disabled persons accompanied by his parishioners and the band of music in procession.

Local Holidays

The local holidays are celebrated the first week of September, they are devoted to Our Lady of the Salud (the women’s party), the Christ of the Amparo (the men’s party), Aurora (young people’s party), and Our Lady of the Rosary (town’s patron lady).
There are despertaes, songs to the Aurora, pasacalles, games and greasy poles for the children, Valencian ball plays, open-air festivals and cordaes.

CULTURE AND PATRIMONY

BELL TOWER OF THE CHURCH OF NUESTRA SEÑORA DEL ROSARIO

Materials: Bricks and blocks of stone.
Measures: 3.5 m wide for 20 m high approx.
Date: 1930
Description: The bell tower is placed close to the façade. It is a square plant and it consists of three sections high.

MOORISH TOWER

It is the interior of a particular house in the Barranco Street.
Date: XlV century.
Description: Arab architecture. It is a big dimension tower with square section and covered with gabled roof. Although nowadays it is a part of a particular house, at first it mustn’t be thus, since it has a similar structure to the existing at Cotalba’s village, next to abandoned houses for ten Moorish families according to the census of 1373. Nowadays, it is still possible to observe it in front of the door of the convent. If it is like that, and since Alfauir and Cotalba appear as farm-houses dependent on the castle of Borró, we can suppose that both towers have a similar chronology not only for this reason but, besides, for the similarities in its formal structure. The function, possibly, was the defence in case of attack, since the inhabitants of the adjacent houses could shelter in.


MONASTERY OF SAN JERÓNIMO DE COTALBA

Municipal term of Alfahuir XIV-XVIII Century
Authors: diverse and anonymous. They are documented the Teacher Francesc Padilla in the works of the church, 1689, and the Father Llopis in the work, the cloister of the siblings of the school, 1693.
It is an immense building of proportions approximately square, only the tower of the homage and the head of the church stick out the square, distributed around a central cloister.
It has numerous and varied dependences of times and different styles, as Gothic in the tower of the homage, Mudejar influences in the lower cloister and the external aqueduct, rebirth in the superior and Baroque cloister in the church and the façades.
With regard to the date of foundation of the monastery, must be said that in the base of the tower of the homage, noon face, meets a commemorative tablet with an inscription that says: El gran señor Don Alfons, hijo del infante Pere, duque de Gandía, marqués de Villena, conde de Ribagorza y de Dénia, fundó este monasterio en honor de Dios y de San Jerónimo, en el año MCCCLXXXVIII.

The monastery of San Jerónimo of Cotalba, nowadays, is open to the public.