The origins of Oviedo

Abstract

Since its very inception, Oviedo’s origins have been the object of a steady historiographical tradition that, without any remarkable gaps continues up to today. The most commonly adopted perspective, almost without exceptions, has been to assume, to dress up the facts and to comment foundational stories dating from the origins. Our perspective is different. We take profit from the already numerous published archaeological memoirs and reports on the excavations developed inside the medieval enclosure, subjecting them to criticism and contrast. The study of these sources has allowed us to ask and answer the questions, whose results are the mirror against which literary and documentary evidence is projected. Our journey begins systematically analyzing the archaeological and toponymical records on the territory surrounding the original settlement, a hill known as Obetao, weighing up its importance for the future dwelling nucleous. After this, we study the documentary evidence and early plot divisions –as much as they might be recovered- related to the emergence and evolution of old Oviedo’s core: Saint Vincent’s abbey foundation and King Fruela’s role; King Alfons the 2^nd’s work (791-842), creating the bishop’s complex and the cathedral’s quarter, and the first and unique settlement enclosure; the great sectors of the early medieval population: palaces, monasteries and private estates. The study of the beginnings of the urban development inside the limits of the early medieval settlement let’s us conclude that it is possible to consider Oviedo to be a town only from the advanced 12^th century onwards, according coherently to other historical phenomena like the granting of the city charter, coin currency and demographic growth, all of which only find an adequate historical ground through this new perspective.