the town the town

Brief history of Pego

Vista de Pego

The term “pegolí” is full of material witnesses which makes us think that the man occupied these valleys from the Middle Paleolithic in a proximate zone at the town called “Benirrames”, and in our valley how the time passed conflicted all the cultures and society to the actual day. The sedentary of the man makes it substitute the caves by habitats in hight which shows deposit of “Ambra”, “La Muntanyeta Verda”, “el Tossal de Bullentó”, etc. The man will keep going down at these hights to dedicate – also the hunting – fishing and farming, the rest they testify of the “Plan” at the Marjal was in Bronze time, with the same culture that has been found left overs in the “Tozal Raso” and “Penya Roja”. The Iberian era we very little know some materials that can confirm one way or the other the social presence of this time.

When the romans came to our valley it was linked to the proximity of “Denia” and it’s port, and it was established a few roman vila on the sides of it’s secondary track that was connected to “Xativa-Denia” on the inside, the track that would go through an old path of Denia by “Rincones”. The romanazation left important prints in “San Antoni”, “Benigámin”, “Tossalet de los Mondes”, “Bullentó”… and more later on a few burials at the “Gaià” with abundant ceramic and objects of tronssean of tge VI-VII century and the others at the match of “Castelló”of the same times.

The muslams took care of the valley of Pego around the year 716, they installed in farmhouses for all the term witness of which is the extensive rural toponymic heritage that we left. They made big transformations farming and created new systems of irrigation that after inherit and would make better the cristians.

When Jaume I decided to conquest the valley, Pego was full of mixed islamic farmhouses which depended of the Castle of Ambra. Conquered the valley started the resettlement with colonists cristians that came from Catalunya mostly.

The monarch granted the rents of the valley at his son the February o 1263 and after the decisive two cards of settlement (1279 and 1286) began to build a villa of Pego walled, with three doors and around sixteen towers that closed it. It was the brith of Pego like an urban helmet and, it was a new creation built upon an old farmhouse of Uxola. Since the year 1325 Pego passed the royal to a place of lordship and it was ruled by noble families like the “Cardonas”, “The Vilanovas”, the “Centelles”, “Borja” y lately los Osuna.

The XI century the cristians lived in the villas and the suburb of the Square (current street Mayor), meanwhile the muslams or mudejar they did it at the farmhouses of Farava, Atzenaeta and Benumeia. After the expultion in 1609 the valley was left nearly empty the town and new colonies had to come from the Beleare Islands to try the next valley’s in Pego.

When the crown was left offsrping directly in 1700 the farmers ‘pegolins’ helped the cause anstrocist, but very soon, before the advance of the power ‘borbó’, ended to be loyal for Felip V, in which after the surrender of Almansa abolish the privilege and establish the Bourbon centralism and ‘castellano’ in all of our lands. Since the XVIII century began the big transformations of intensive farming, most of all at the ‘marjal’, appearing at the end of the century the first documented instructions was cultive of the rice. Now in the XIX century they will start the necessary mechanisims to build up a production that arrived at the maximum in 1930, with the cultive of the oranges.

If the ‘Sucesión’ war finished destroying good part of the towers and medieval walls, the growth of economics and demographics of the second half of the XIX and the beginning of XX would be in charge of destroying the two front principal doors, the one from Maiorasgo and the one from Arrabal or the Plaza, for the broadening of the population. It just stayed and still stands today is the Port de Sala, in led to the fountain and the medieval garden.

The XIX century was a agitated and exalted century and Pego didn’t stay also of important events of the rest of the state. The carlists fights, the politic fights between liberal and moderate, the banditry the insurrectional movements of republicanism, of everything, it is necessary to emphasize the bloody and fraticiadal fight between the Senes and the Gangans that tried to acclaim the famous.