:''There are other meanings for
Amaya.''
![PeñaAmaya005](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Pe%C3%B1aAmaya005.JPG)
Amaya is the name of a
village
A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...
(pop. 67 ()) in the municipality of
Sotresgudo,
Burgos
Burgos () is a city in Spain located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is the capital and most populated municipality of the province of Burgos.
Burgos is situated in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, on the confluence of t ...
, in
Castile-Leon,
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
.
The name of the village has Indo-European roots and means "am (ma)" or "mother". The suffix io-ia is also used to form action names or toponyms, implying that the meaning of Amaya or Amaia is "mother city", as it will be called later "the capital". Other hypothesis is that the name derives from the
Proto-Basque
Proto-Basque ( eu, aitzineuskara; es, protoeuskera, protovasco; french: proto-basque), or Pre-Basque, is the reconstructed predecessor of the Basque language before the Roman conquests in the Western Pyrenees.
Background
The first linguist wh ...
or
Basque
Basque may refer to:
* Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France
* Basque language, their language
Places
* Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France
* Basque Country (autonomous co ...
word ''Amaia'', meaning "the end".
[Patrick Hanks, ''Dictionary of American Family Names'' (2003), p. 32.]
Amaya was one of the main villages of the
Cantabri
The Cantabri ( grc-gre, Καντάβροι, ''Kantabroi'') or Ancient Cantabrians, were a pre-Ancient Rome, Roman people and large tribal federation that lived in the northern coastal region of ancient Iberia in the second half of the first mille ...
Celtic tribes, and played a key role in the
Cantabrian wars
The Cantabrian Wars (29–19 BC) (''Bellum Cantabricum''), sometimes also referred to as the Cantabrian and Asturian Wars (''Bellum Cantabricum et Asturicum''), were the final stage of the two-century long Roman conquest of Hispania, in what to ...
during the
Roman conquest of Hispania, and later, during the
Visigothic Kingdom
The Visigothic Kingdom, officially the Kingdom of the Goths ( la, Regnum Gothorum), was a kingdom that occupied what is now southwestern France and the Iberian Peninsula from the 5th to the 8th centuries. One of the Germanic peoples, Germanic su ...
, as the capital of the
Duchy of Cantabria
The Duchy of Cantabria was created by the Visigoths in northern Spain. Its precise extension is unclear in the different periods, but it seems likely that it included Cantabria, parts of Northern Castile, La Rioja, and probably western areas ...
.
Amaya is mentioned in the ''Chronicle'' of
John of Biclaro
John of Biclaro, Biclar, or Biclarum (''c.'' 540 – after 621), also ''Iohannes Biclarensis'', was a Visigoth chronicler. He was born in Lusitania, in the city of ''Scallabis'' (modern Santarém in Portugal). He was also bishop of Girona.
Earl ...
, as a town captured by the
Visigoth
The Visigoths (; la, Visigothi, Wisigothi, Vesi, Visi, Wesi, Wisi) were an early Germanic people who, along with the Ostrogoths, constituted the two major political entities of the Goths within the Roman Empire in late antiquity, or what is kno ...
ic king
Liuvigild
Liuvigild, Leuvigild, Leovigild, or ''Leovigildo'' (Spanish and Portuguese), ( 519 – 586) was a Visigothic King of Hispania and Septimania from 568 to 586. Known for his Codex Revisus or Code of Leovigild, a law allowing equal rights between the ...
in 574.
According to the Muslim chroniclers, in the year 714,
Musa ibn Nusair
Musa ibn Nusayr ( ar, موسى بن نصير ''Mūsá bin Nuṣayr''; 640 – c. 716) served as a Umayyad governor and an Arab general under the Umayyad caliph Al-Walid I. He ruled over the Muslim provinces of North Africa (Ifriqiya), and direct ...
sacked Amaya for the second time after
Tariq
Tariq ( ar, طارق) is an Arabic word and given name.
Etymology
The word is derived from the Arabic verb , ('), meaning "to strike", and into the agentive conjugated doer form , ('), meaning "striker". It became popular as a name after Tariq ...
did the year before.
Peter
Peter may refer to:
People
* List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name
* Peter (given name)
** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church
* Peter (surname), a sur ...
, the provincial ''dux'', led his people into refuge in the mountains, and after the local noble
Pelayo of Asturias
Pelagius (; ; ; ; ''c''. 685 – 737) was a Hispano-Visigoth nobleman who founded the Kingdom of Asturias in 718. Pelagius is credited with initiating the ''Reconquista'', the Christian reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula from the Moors, and estab ...
in the neighbor region of
Asturias
Asturias (, ; ast, Asturies ), officially the Principality of Asturias ( es, Principado de Asturias; ast, Principáu d'Asturies; Galician-Asturian: ''Principao d'Asturias''), is an autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in nor ...
started a rebellion against the Berber garrison, Dux Peter as other western Galician nobles supported the election of him as new King or ''Princeps'' in the lead against the common enemy.
In the first stages of the
Reconquista
The ' (Spanish, Portuguese and Galician for "reconquest") is a historiographical construction describing the 781-year period in the history of the Iberian Peninsula between the Umayyad conquest of Hispania in 711 and the fall of the Nasrid ...
, the city was part of the
repopulating efforts of the
Kingdom of Asturias
The Kingdom of Asturias ( la, Asturum Regnum; ast, Reinu d'Asturies) was a kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula founded by the Visigothic nobleman Pelagius. It was the first Christian political entity established after the Umayyad conquest of V ...
in the border region of
Bardulia
According to some sources, Bardulia is the ancient name of the territories that composed the primitive Castile in the north of what later became the province of Burgos. The name comes from ''Varduli'', the name of a tribe who, in pre-Roman and Ro ...
, the primitive territories of
Castile. After the campaigns of
Alfonso I of Asturias
Alfonso I of Asturias, called the Catholic (''el Católico''), (c. 693 – 757) was the third King of Asturias, reigning from 739 to his death in 757. His reign saw an extension of the Christian domain of Asturias, reconquering Galicia and Le ...
(739-757) against the
Moors
The term Moor, derived from the ancient Mauri, is an exonym first used by Christian Europeans to designate the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages.
Moors are not a distinct or ...
, the city lay an abandoned in the largely empty buffer zone between Moors and Christians known at the time as "The Desert of the Duero" and was part of the
repopulation campaign carried out a century later, during the reign of
Ordoño I of Asturias (850-866).
At that time it was an important and significant place, as a very old saying states: "Harto era Castilla pequeño rincón, cuando Amaya era la cabeza y Montes de Oca el mojón" (A very small corner was
Castile, when Amaya was the head and
Montes de Oca the boundary stone).
Amaya seems to have been a short-lived bishopric, which, no longer being a residential diocese, is today listed by the
Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
as a
titular see
A titular see in various churches is an episcopal see of a former diocese that no longer functions, sometimes called a "dead diocese". The ordinary or hierarch of such a see may be styled a "titular metropolitan" (highest rank), "titular archbish ...
.
[''Annuario Pontificio 2013'' (Libreria Editrice Vaticana 2013 ), p. 830]
References
{{Authority control
Archaeological sites in Castile and León
Populated places in the Province of Burgos
Towns in Spain