Etymology of La Rioja

In the first written appearances of this toponym in the 11th century, the westernmost area of the present-day Spanish region is designated under the same name; therefore, the primitive Rioja was the territory around the basins of the rivers Tirón and Oja, with some divergences in its exact location by different authors.

In medieval times, the name would spread eastward through the diocese of Calahorra, successively taking over the basins of the tributary rivers of the Ebro, Najerilla, Iregua, Leza, Cidacos, and so on, until it reached the Alhama in the east.

It is also written in Latin and it mentions a disappeared town called Irahuri located in rivo de ogga, which Bermudo Gutierrez and his wife Godina donated to the monastery of San Millán.

Ego quidem senior Veremudus Gutier et uxor mea dompna Gutina, placens nobis, promto corde, spontanea voluntate, ut pro anime nostre remedium concedimus et confirmamus ab honorem sancti Emiliani presbiteri et tibi, presenti patri Alvaro abbati, cum ceteris monachis ibi Deo servientibus, in Rivo de Ogga, in villa Irahuri nostras comparaciones, solares et divisas, integrum et libero.According to Eduardo Aznar Martínez,[Note 4] Irahuri is a village that has disappeared and is difficult to locate, probably near the Oja River, whose name comes from the Basque language.

There is also a reference prior to the fuero written in the year 1084 for some and in 1087 for others, in which there is evidence of a donation to the abbot of San Millán Don Blas of the monastery of San Sebastián, which is in the valley of Ojacastro, and then adds:[14] Et confirmo bobis illum locus beremun in summitate fluminis oggensis postium, cum omnibus suis pertinentiis....The interpretation of this text is doubtful, since for Felipe Abad León and Eduardo Aznar Martínez it is clear that fluminis oggensis refers to a river and not to La Rioja.

[10] According to Ramírez Pascual,[Note 6] the name Rioja would have arisen orally at a time prior to these documentary mentions, in which it was transcribed in different ways (rivo de ogia, rivo de Oia....) because medieval scribes were trying to translate into Latin a name that was already in what can be considered Romance in order to capture it in cultured texts, which forced them to break down the toponym into several words or modify it in search of the archaic origin of the term, as is done today.

Rege Aldefonso regnante in tota Aragon et in Pampilonia et in toto rivo de Oia usque Belforato.From the 13th century, this author found three deeds in which La Rioja is mentioned.

There is also another text in Latin from the year 1228, where the demonym riojano appears for the first time, written as riogeñ and riogensi, referring to an archpriest of the diocese of Calahorra called Martino Pascasii.

The word would have come from the elements rivus (ablative rivo which in Spanish would be río) and the evolution ogga, ogia, ogie, oga, which ends in Oja.

[10] Several authors have proposed this etymological theory based on tradition or ancient documentation, such as Ángel Casimiro de Govantes in 1846,[34] Pascual Madoz in 1850, Ildefonso Zubía in the 19th century, López Barrón in 1900, Julio Santamaría in 1926, Agustín Urcey Prado in 1932, Justiniano García Prado in 1952 and Menéndez Pidal in two works of 1926 and 1962 gave this Oja a natural etymology, which would be given by the leaves shed mainly by the beeches, holm oaks and bushes of the surrounding valley, which would cover its waters at certain times of the year.

[Note 11][10][35] Joaquín Peña in 1973, as Felipe Abad León subscribes, after reviewing the medieval documents he found in which the toponym Rioja appears, reached the same conclusions.

Thus, the latter, in his 2005 work, argues that the earliest medieval writings he has studied never speak of a river called Oja, but rather mention it as ilera, illera or glera because it was a rocky ravine that remained dry for long months of the year.

Some quotations from the Middle Ages interpreted by other authors as references to the river Oja are in fact, due to their context, Latin translations of the ever older word Rioja.

On the other hand, he also rejects the idea that the term Oja comes from the leaves that carry its waters, since it lacks them almost all year round, making it a stony riverbed.

This is defended by Eduardo Aznar Martínez in 2010, even finding the Basque toponym Val de Oiaco Harana in Villalobar, which literally means 'the valley or hollow of the Oja', from which he deduces that this would be the noun used by the Basque-speaking community in the area to refer to the riverbed.

He also believes that it was Santo Domingo de la Calzada who was responsible for the toponym Rioja beginning to spread eastwards in the Middle Ages to eventually end up denominating a much larger territory.

[46] After this, the author continues discussing the arrival of Prince Oco, son of King Darius, to Montes de Oca, which is why, according to him, the mountains would be called that way, originating the name of La Rioja.

[48] The gastronome and writer from Guipuzcoa José María Busca Isusi pointed to a possible origin in the union of the voices erri and hotza, which would be translated as 'cold land'[10] and which would have derived in errioxa.

The linguist and expert in these themes, Benito Izquierdo, rejected other previous theories, both the most vulgar for him, finding the etymological origin in the river Oja, and the more complex ones, which look for it in terms such as Erriogía.

In addition to this he contributed a new one that gave as origin the Basque word arrioxa, which is translated as 'much stone', synonymous of Glera, which is the name that formerly received the river Oja.

[Note 19][10] A more current theory is that of researcher Eduardo Aznar Martínez, presented in his work on Basque language in La Rioja in the antiquity, published between 2010 and 2017.

Justiniano García Prado lists the following: Beronia, Ruconia, Cantabria, Celtiberia, Carpentania and Meltria,[10] and Casimiro de Govantes also mentions Veled Assikia.

The reason why he chose the name of his region of origin to baptize the new city was explained in a letter written on July 20, 1591 addressed to Philip II, which reads as follows:[54] And after having discovered more than fifty leagues long and thirty wide, and having found such a settlement as I could desire, on the banks of a river that comes out of Famatina...

[57] The Peruvian city would receive its name due to the request of one of its founders, the Spanish Riojan Don Juan José Martínez de Pinillos y Larios, born in Nestares.

This institution initially had economic objectives, but its founding statutes already showed clear political intentions for La Rioja, using terms such as "País Riojano" (Riojan country), which would later be translated into a request for the creation of an administrative framework for the region.

[63] However, the first official request seeking to provide La Rioja with a political-administrative framework was issued in 1808 by the town council of Logroño in the midst of the war of independence.

[62] It was circumscribed, according to a text of the time, to the area "from the river Tirón to the Alhama, including the city of Alfaro and all the mountain ranges whose waters flow into the Ebro", a phrase which clearly refers to the seven riverbeds which delimit La Rioja.

The document reads as follows: "Your Majesty is requested that, following the system of making your children happy, you dispense to the Riojanos the grace that this Province be considered as such, according to the old demarcation, and that, ceasing all subsequent distributions, it be governed by itself...".

Thus began the design of the new political map of the country, a task which, after the war of independence, was put on hold until the military uprising of General de Riego in 1820 and the beginning of the Liberal Triennium, where it was once again raised.

In his own words, it is described as "La Rioja, a country naturally enclosed by the great range of mountains, called Iduvedas to the south and by those of Oca to the west, (...) with seven rivers that rise and fall within it (...) circumstances all of which are more appropriate to form the province .....".

Cover of the 1761 book entitled Historia del venerable, y antiquissimo Santuario de Nuestra Señora de Valvanera , in the province of La Rioja, by Benito Rubio. [ 1 ]
Map of La Rioja divided into Upper and Lower Rioja ( Spanish : La Alta y Baja Rioja ), drawn up by Tomás López in 1769. [ 3 ] The dividing line between the two riojas is located at the Iregua River. The canon and scholar Juan Antonio Llorente criticized it in 1805, as it had the error of omitting or leaving out several villages which were also Rioja, especially in La Rioja Baja and were an integral part of the 7 valleys which with their respective rivers run from the Tirón in the west to the Alhama in the east and which are all entirely Riojan. [ Note 1 ] [ 4 ]
Italian map of La Biscaia . Alava, Vizcaya, Guipúzcoa, Navarra and La Rioja appear written with the spelling " Rioxa ". Year 1696.
Map of the Casa de San Meder . Part of Álava and Navarra and part of La Rioja appear under the text "part of rioja " ( Spanish : parte de la rioja ) with the current spelling. Year 1678. [ 22 ]
Cover of the book entitled: Diccionario geográfico-histórico de Españ a, by the Real Academia de la Historia. Section II: "Comprises La Rioja or the entire province of Logroño and some towns in the province of Burgos." It is the work of Ángel Casimiro de Govantes and in it, among many other things, describes one of the theories about the etymology of the place name Rioja (1846). [ 33 ]
A page from the Becerro Galicano of San Millán de la Cogolla in which La Rioja is mentioned, with the name transcribed as rivo de Ogga . Year 1082. [ 42 ]
Cover of the book entitled: Compendio historial de la provincia de La Rioja, de sus santos y milagrosos santuarios. Work of Mateo Anguiano Nieva . In it, among many other things, he describes a theory about the origin of the place name Rioja . There are two editions of this work, one from 1701 and the other from 1704. [ 30 ]
Municipality of Ojacastro at present.
Location of the province of La Rioja in Argentina.
Manuscript title page from 1649 of the book entitled Istoria de la vida y milagros del glorioso S[ant]o Domingo, abbad de Silos, natural de la pronvicia de la Rioja , by Alonso del Corral. [ 58 ]
Emblem of the Real Sociedad Económica de La Rioja , 1790.
Cover of the document sent by the Sociedad Riojana de Amigos del País to the national congress requesting that a separate and independent province be formed in La Rioja, 1820. [ 69 ]
First issue of the regional newspaper La Rioja , year 1889. In 1938, during the Spanish Civil War , Franco decreed its merger with the other newspaper of the province called Diario de La Rioja (1900) and changed its name to Nueva Rioja . In 1981 it would be renamed again La Rioja . [ 84 ]