Mount Carmel and the Spanish Navy would, on the face of it, have little in common. One is a mountain range in northern Israel and the other isn't. But such are the ways of religious developments that Carmel and the navy have a great deal in common: Our Lady of Carmel, the Virgen del Carmen, whose day was yesterday and for whom today there will be fireworks and flotillas transporting her image.
The Carmelite Order was founded some time in the twelfth century. No one knows for sure by whom or when exactly. What is generally accepted is that this founding was on Mount Carmel. (If it weren't, then explaining the name of the order becomes rather tricky.) Given the uncertainties surrounding the order's background, it is somewhat surprising that 16 July can so definitively be identified as the day when the Carmelite Simon Stock had his vision of the Virgin and the brown scapular and was thus to be responsible for a summer fiesta. There again, dates for feast days are rarely hard and fast: take Christmas as just one example.
Making the leap from Mount Carmel to the navy is equally uncertain. How did she become patron of the sea and also the patron of the navy? Well, Mount Carmel is a coastal mountain range, but then so is the Tramuntana, which has its own version of the Virgin, the one of Lluc. Mere proximity to the sea doesn't necessarily seem to have anything to do with the choice of patron. Maybe it all stems from the prayer to the Blessed Mother of Mount Carmel. One line goes: "O star of the sea, help me and show me you are my mother." As the Virgin is also patron of protecting people from harm and from dangerous situations, including those at sea, perhaps here are further reasons why the navy co-opted her as patron.
But how did she come to be looked upon as a protector from danger for those at sea? That line in the prayer unlocks the clue, as also in fact does the proximity of the sea. For the Carmelites, she was, among other things, their Stella Maris. "Ave Maris Stella" are Latin words in the hymn for fiestas devoted to seafaring. In the Old Testament, the title of Star of the Sea (or Estrella del Mar in Spanish) and its application to the Virgin stems from the prophet Elijah, conveniently on Mount Carmel, conjuring up a small cloud over the sea. As you might guess, it rained and drought came to an end. From such biblical legends are saints made, patronage created and fiestas organised.
This all helps to explain why the dedication is made to Our Lady of Carmel by the Spanish Navy every 16 July, though it has only officially been made since 1901. This was a time when the navy and the whole Spanish military apparatus were still reeling from the losses at the hands of the Americans three years before. The navy probably needed all the protection it could get.
The hymn that will be sung at naval ceremonies is not the same as the one quoted above. The naval version comes from a work written and composed in 1870. "Hail, the star of the seas. Of the iris seas, of eternal bliss. Hail, O Phoenix of beauty. Mother of Divine love."
Coming to the fiesta flotillas bearing the image of the Virgin, they are in a way the most important of the flotillas, given the Latin words of the hymn for such events: more so than those for Sant Pere (Saint Peter), even with his patronage of fishermen. In Puerto Pollensa, though, the two are combined - Peter and Our Lady. Both will appear this evening, as the resort's fiestas reach their climax of procession, flotilla, demons on the loose and fireworks.
Most of the flotillas took place yesterday - the day of Virgen del Carmen - but Puerto Pollensa opts for the Sunday of the fiestas to have its flotilla, as also does Sa Rapita.
Showing posts with label Virgen del Carmen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Virgen del Carmen. Show all posts
Sunday, July 17, 2016
Tuesday, July 07, 2015
Christopher And Simon: Fiestas in July
As the deep heat of summer takes over, the fiestas' season moves on from Saint Peter as one of the chief saintly focal points to Saint Christopher. Maybe some thought should be given to his being made the patron saint of Mallorca's tourists. He is, after all, the saint of travellers, while he has saintly responsibilities for a specific aspect of tourism - driving. The car-rental agencies of Mallorca should offer replicas of Saint Christopher medallions to their clients on Friday this week.
10 July is the day of Saint Christopher, otherwise known in Catalan as Sant Cristòfol, a saint around whom there is some historical confusion. Was he martyred as a result of his death during the reign of Emperor Decius or Emperor Maximinus Dacian? Was he in fact also Saint Menas? Does his name of Christ bearer imply someone more of mythical origin than factual? It is often the way with saints. Doubts surround their stories.
Despite Saint Christopher being one of the better-known saints, he isn't universally celebrated by the Catholic Church. His place in the liturgy was removed in 1970, as it was felt that he was not to be fully in the Roman tradition. Being dropped from the liturgy doesn't, however, prevent his commemoration where it has long been a tradition - the Church is flexible in such matters. In Mallorca, there has been such a tradition, and so Cristòfol is the featured saint this week in Arenal and the tiny village of Biniali, some eight kilometres outside Binissalem but actually in the municipality of Sencelles.
This unassuming village and its fiestas have, curiously enough, created something of a flashpoint in past years. Its night parties, of which there are two this week, attract many visitors from outside the village and one of them has been the occasion for a spot of bother between youth and forces of the law. In fact, it was a minor clash between some members of the Arran sort-of-revolutionary group with plod. Things are now calmer, however. If you go to Biniali, you certainly won't miss the fiestas, as there isn't exactly a great deal to the village (couple of bars, a tabacs and not a lot besides), but in terms of Mallorcan small community rural authenticity, it doesn't get a lot more authentic than Biniali, except perhaps when the night parties are in full swing.
The day of Sant Cristòfol does require an explanation. His feast day isn't 10 July, which is when it is celebrated locally and elsewhere in Spain. It is in fact 25 July, but Christopher was shunted to 10 July because otherwise he would have clashed with one of the most important, if not the most important, of all Spanish saints, James the Apostle, aka Sant Jaume in Catalan.
More widely celebrated than Christopher is the Virgin or Mother of God of Carmel, known locally as the Virgen del Carmen. The fiestas' title is often abbreviated to simply the Carmen (or Carme) fiestas. Her day is 16 July, but her fiestas tend to be movable, so that the main days fall over a weekend. There are several places in Mallorca which recognise her - Cala Bona, Cala Figuera, Cala Ratjada, Capdellà in Calvia, Porto Cristo, Portol in Marratxi, Puerto Pollensa.
Her story is one that owes almost everything to an English saint by the name of Simon Stock. Simon, who was around from the mid-twelfth century to the mid-thirteenth, joined the Carmelite Order and in 1251, so the story goes, he had a vision of several invocations of the Virgin Mary. And the date when he had the vision was 16 July: hence, the fiestas.
Another saint muscling in on the fiestas' act is Santa Margalida (Margaret of Antioch). She, like Christopher, has a questionable backstory. Indeed, it is even more unlikely than Christopher's as it involved being swallowed by Satan masquerading as a dragon and surviving. Anyway, she lived long enough to, for instance, give her name to an entire town, as in Santa Margalida, and they'll be having a demons' fire-run in her honour this Saturday.
Other saints looming on the July fiestas' horizon or already present include Victoria (not female) in Campanet, plus of course Praxedis, the unknown patron of Petra, and the biggy - good old Saint James, who is all over the place - Alcudia, Calvia, Sa Pobla, to name but three.
10 July is the day of Saint Christopher, otherwise known in Catalan as Sant Cristòfol, a saint around whom there is some historical confusion. Was he martyred as a result of his death during the reign of Emperor Decius or Emperor Maximinus Dacian? Was he in fact also Saint Menas? Does his name of Christ bearer imply someone more of mythical origin than factual? It is often the way with saints. Doubts surround their stories.
Despite Saint Christopher being one of the better-known saints, he isn't universally celebrated by the Catholic Church. His place in the liturgy was removed in 1970, as it was felt that he was not to be fully in the Roman tradition. Being dropped from the liturgy doesn't, however, prevent his commemoration where it has long been a tradition - the Church is flexible in such matters. In Mallorca, there has been such a tradition, and so Cristòfol is the featured saint this week in Arenal and the tiny village of Biniali, some eight kilometres outside Binissalem but actually in the municipality of Sencelles.
This unassuming village and its fiestas have, curiously enough, created something of a flashpoint in past years. Its night parties, of which there are two this week, attract many visitors from outside the village and one of them has been the occasion for a spot of bother between youth and forces of the law. In fact, it was a minor clash between some members of the Arran sort-of-revolutionary group with plod. Things are now calmer, however. If you go to Biniali, you certainly won't miss the fiestas, as there isn't exactly a great deal to the village (couple of bars, a tabacs and not a lot besides), but in terms of Mallorcan small community rural authenticity, it doesn't get a lot more authentic than Biniali, except perhaps when the night parties are in full swing.
The day of Sant Cristòfol does require an explanation. His feast day isn't 10 July, which is when it is celebrated locally and elsewhere in Spain. It is in fact 25 July, but Christopher was shunted to 10 July because otherwise he would have clashed with one of the most important, if not the most important, of all Spanish saints, James the Apostle, aka Sant Jaume in Catalan.
More widely celebrated than Christopher is the Virgin or Mother of God of Carmel, known locally as the Virgen del Carmen. The fiestas' title is often abbreviated to simply the Carmen (or Carme) fiestas. Her day is 16 July, but her fiestas tend to be movable, so that the main days fall over a weekend. There are several places in Mallorca which recognise her - Cala Bona, Cala Figuera, Cala Ratjada, Capdellà in Calvia, Porto Cristo, Portol in Marratxi, Puerto Pollensa.
Her story is one that owes almost everything to an English saint by the name of Simon Stock. Simon, who was around from the mid-twelfth century to the mid-thirteenth, joined the Carmelite Order and in 1251, so the story goes, he had a vision of several invocations of the Virgin Mary. And the date when he had the vision was 16 July: hence, the fiestas.
Another saint muscling in on the fiestas' act is Santa Margalida (Margaret of Antioch). She, like Christopher, has a questionable backstory. Indeed, it is even more unlikely than Christopher's as it involved being swallowed by Satan masquerading as a dragon and surviving. Anyway, she lived long enough to, for instance, give her name to an entire town, as in Santa Margalida, and they'll be having a demons' fire-run in her honour this Saturday.
Other saints looming on the July fiestas' horizon or already present include Victoria (not female) in Campanet, plus of course Praxedis, the unknown patron of Petra, and the biggy - good old Saint James, who is all over the place - Alcudia, Calvia, Sa Pobla, to name but three.
Saturday, February 21, 2015
How The Fiesta Of Virgen Del Carmen Came To Be
I was going to highlight this week's Miquel article on Facebook when I realised that Miquel has been moved to a Thursday, so it was too late when I discovered the fact; hence, why I am doing so here. The article is about an English saint, Simon Stock, with whom, I fancy, most English people would be unfamiliar.
Simon, whose surname was derived from a word to mean tree trunk as legend has it that he spent several years of his life as a hermit living inside a hollowed-out tree, lived between 1165 and 1265, though there is a question mark over his birth year just as there is also some debate as to whether he was born in Aylesford, Kent or not. But he was certainly closely associated with Aylesford and this association was confirmed when, Simon having abandoned his hermitic existence, the first general chapter of the Carmelite Order to be held outside the Holy Land convened in Aylesford in 1247; Simon had chosen to join the Carmelites.
Without going into the detail of Miquel's article and so to cut to the chase, the most notable occurrence in Simon's devotion was that of a vision he had in 1251 of one of several invocations of the Virgin Mary, i.e. the Virgen del Carmen, whose scapular, represented in many a religious painting, featured the emblem of Mount Carmel. And it is this vision which led to what I added to the article, as it is of some no small relevance to the fiesta of Virgen del Carmen; in Puerto Pollensa, this is the main fiesta of the year.
The important point in this story was the exact date in 1251 when Simon had that vision. It was 16 July, and as a result of the vision, 16 July has long been allocated as the feast date for the Virgen del Carmen. Therefore, the fiesta that is celebrated in Puerto Pollensa can be attributed to this English saint, Simon Stock. Prior to Miquel's article, I was unaware of this fact and I imagine that there are many others who are equally unaware. Given the close connection between Puerto Pollensa and Britain, it seems somehow appropriate, but more than this there is the curiosity of how a current-day fiesta came into being, as, unlike many others, it wasn't dependent upon a saint's day which is typically defined by birth or death.
Saturday, July 07, 2012
All The Nice Girls Love A Sailor
Hetty King was her name. In 1909 Hetty took the world of the music hall by storm and all the nice girls loved a sailor, primarily because a sailor had a pocketful of cash and a parrot in a cage. Quite what the parrot had to do with anything, I'm not sure. Be this as it may, back in Hetty's day, the loving of a sailor probably didn't usually extend to his going downstairs on a first date, or on any date come to that.
The Virgen del Carmen fiesta in Puerto Pollensa will this year feature a sailors' party. All the nice and not so nice girls will have the chance to love a sailor as will, one supposes, all the nice boys. But Hetty would never have sung about such things, while the chances of there being a genuine virgin over the age of consent at the Virgen fiesta would be pretty slim, one imagines. Not that it follows that a nice girl has, by definition, to be a virgin, though presumably Hetty would have preferred this to be the case.
While sexual behaviour has changed over the past 103 years, so has music. Thankfully, there is no longer the music hall. As Alexei Sayle once put it - "Friends often ask me, 'Lex, why's there no music hall any longer?', and I tell them, 'because it was crap' ". Yet fiesta music still retains some semblance of the traditional. And in a Mallorcan stylie, this means men with bagpipe things and whistley things and a brass band. Yes really, 'appen, the brass band.
Far less traditional are the fiesta DJs. These come in different guises. Regrettably, there are some who seem to think that they are the Hairy Cornflake or Ooh, Gary Davies, as they insist on going all retro and dragging out your favourite discs of the '70s (of which, let's be honest, there can be very few). Better news comes in the form of the current-day DJ, mashing-up, sound clashing, making one hell of a racket and applying so much bass that a tsunami in the nearby bay is threatened.
Better news musically, but not better news if you happen to want a good night's sleep and are anywhere in the vicinity of the sailors' party that will last until five in the morning.
This party, revived this year, was a previous tradition of Virgen del Carmen. Its new incarnation, going as a sailor, is simply a thematic device; the party itself is not new. And staging a party that goes on all night slap bang in the middle of a town is also not new or original. Most places in Mallorca indulge in such parties at least once a year; more often, if you are really lucky or unlucky, depending on your point of view, your age probably, your need for sleep or your need to be up at six o'clock to go to work.
The thing with these parties is that there appears to be a view that everyone welcomes them and will want to join in. Current-day DJs might mean that not everyone does. While I happen to think they are a great idea, I also don't happen to live anywhere near where one occurs. I still might think they were a great idea if I did, but then I might also not think they were.
While the night parties are common enough across Mallorca at fiesta time, there has been an increase in the trouble that they attract. Excessive drinking, anti-social behaviour, e.g. taking a leak in the square, and violence have dogged some. Pollensa town has experienced problems and so, most obviously, has Sa Pobla; the Districte 54 party has been dropped again this year, mainly for cost reasons, but it led to all manner of incidents last year having been banned by the previous town hall administration because of the potential ASBO-ism.
Holding an all-night party in an urban setting, be it the town square or wherever, is bound not to meet with everyone's approval. One can argue that, well, it is just one night, but in Pollensa, for example, it isn't. Or hasn't been. There is just the slight hint of double standards about such parties in that there is so much insistence otherwise on limiting noise, or at least trying to.
These misgivings notwithstanding, they are a good thing. They are a real expression of a Mallorcan summer, and the island would be a worse place without them. Noise is an inevitable by-product of summer and especially of a summer where tourism is so central and where the fiesta is also so central.
All the nice girls will love a sailor, come next Saturday night. One hopes that they will still be loving the sailor when he has had more than his fair share of rum and when he starts to think about getting the parrot out of the cage.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
The Virgen del Carmen fiesta in Puerto Pollensa will this year feature a sailors' party. All the nice and not so nice girls will have the chance to love a sailor as will, one supposes, all the nice boys. But Hetty would never have sung about such things, while the chances of there being a genuine virgin over the age of consent at the Virgen fiesta would be pretty slim, one imagines. Not that it follows that a nice girl has, by definition, to be a virgin, though presumably Hetty would have preferred this to be the case.
While sexual behaviour has changed over the past 103 years, so has music. Thankfully, there is no longer the music hall. As Alexei Sayle once put it - "Friends often ask me, 'Lex, why's there no music hall any longer?', and I tell them, 'because it was crap' ". Yet fiesta music still retains some semblance of the traditional. And in a Mallorcan stylie, this means men with bagpipe things and whistley things and a brass band. Yes really, 'appen, the brass band.
Far less traditional are the fiesta DJs. These come in different guises. Regrettably, there are some who seem to think that they are the Hairy Cornflake or Ooh, Gary Davies, as they insist on going all retro and dragging out your favourite discs of the '70s (of which, let's be honest, there can be very few). Better news comes in the form of the current-day DJ, mashing-up, sound clashing, making one hell of a racket and applying so much bass that a tsunami in the nearby bay is threatened.
Better news musically, but not better news if you happen to want a good night's sleep and are anywhere in the vicinity of the sailors' party that will last until five in the morning.
This party, revived this year, was a previous tradition of Virgen del Carmen. Its new incarnation, going as a sailor, is simply a thematic device; the party itself is not new. And staging a party that goes on all night slap bang in the middle of a town is also not new or original. Most places in Mallorca indulge in such parties at least once a year; more often, if you are really lucky or unlucky, depending on your point of view, your age probably, your need for sleep or your need to be up at six o'clock to go to work.
The thing with these parties is that there appears to be a view that everyone welcomes them and will want to join in. Current-day DJs might mean that not everyone does. While I happen to think they are a great idea, I also don't happen to live anywhere near where one occurs. I still might think they were a great idea if I did, but then I might also not think they were.
While the night parties are common enough across Mallorca at fiesta time, there has been an increase in the trouble that they attract. Excessive drinking, anti-social behaviour, e.g. taking a leak in the square, and violence have dogged some. Pollensa town has experienced problems and so, most obviously, has Sa Pobla; the Districte 54 party has been dropped again this year, mainly for cost reasons, but it led to all manner of incidents last year having been banned by the previous town hall administration because of the potential ASBO-ism.
Holding an all-night party in an urban setting, be it the town square or wherever, is bound not to meet with everyone's approval. One can argue that, well, it is just one night, but in Pollensa, for example, it isn't. Or hasn't been. There is just the slight hint of double standards about such parties in that there is so much insistence otherwise on limiting noise, or at least trying to.
These misgivings notwithstanding, they are a good thing. They are a real expression of a Mallorcan summer, and the island would be a worse place without them. Noise is an inevitable by-product of summer and especially of a summer where tourism is so central and where the fiesta is also so central.
All the nice girls will love a sailor, come next Saturday night. One hopes that they will still be loving the sailor when he has had more than his fair share of rum and when he starts to think about getting the parrot out of the cage.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
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