A mysterious little settlement known as Balàfia lies quietly in the heartland of Ibiza. Nestled in the hills of Sant Llorenç, this unique architectural complex consists of seven houses and two towers, all huddled on either side of a winding central passageway. While its location is deeply rural, Balàfia displays an almost urban compactness in regard to the meticulous interlocking of its buildings, walls and patios.  A further anomaly involves the site’s incorporation of several unrelated family groups within a single community, consituting the sole example of a multi-familial rural settlement to exist in medieval Ibiza. At that time, demographic patterns tended toward dispersion, with individual farmsteads being widely spread out across the countryside. The custom was for each family unit to set up its own household, separate and well removed from other branches of the same family. Even the island’s churches did not generate proper villages around them until the 19th century. The fact, therefore, that various families ended up establishing themselves on a single hilltop is quite exceptional.

The site’s singularity has long aroused the interest of island historians, yet, due to a frustrating lack of written records, it remains an enigma. It is impossible, for example, to pinpoint when Balàfia came into existence, or why. Several hypotheses have been put forth by leading researchers, but, without documented proof, none can be considered definitive. Let us sift through some of the possibilities.

 

Solid Facts

Historian Francisco Torres Peters informs us that the place name Balàfia appears only twice in island records. The first mention comes in 1235 and supplies the most specific information we have to date; while the second, appearing in a property register 200 years later, merely names one of the site’s  landowners, a certain Pere Guasch of Balàfia, without providing any details about the settlement itself. 

 

Our attention, for now, will centre on ‘Exhibit A’, a land grant drafted on 10th September, 1235 and written on parchment, as high medieval usage would dictate. (Paper was phased into European book-keeping between 1200 and 1400.) Before we begin our analysis of its contents, a brief sketch of contemporary events will provide necessary context. 

The year 1235 marks what is known in island history as the Catalan Conquest, a lesser military manoeuvre within the greater ‘Reconquista’ waged by Spanish Christians against Islamic Moors. In August of that year, a Catalonian naval offensive was launched to reclaim Ibiza from the Moors. Undertaken on behalf of James I of Aragón, the campaign was coordinated by one of the king’s top warlords, Guillem de Montgrí, who engaged the services of two fellow warrior knights, Pere of Portugal and the Count of Roselló. The battle was fought and concluded in a single day, 8th August: hence, the yearly fire-works display in commemoration of the date. Recompense for the victory was the island itself, scrupulously divided amongst the lords in fair feudal fashion. To Pere of Portugal fell the fief of Xarc, in which Balàfia was located, and over which the Portuguese prince now wielded complete power. He was at liberty to dispose of the land, its farms and its inhabitants any way he chose.  

 

Land Grant

From the document in question we may surmise that Pere wished to establish a number of his newly acquired serfs – vanquished Muslims – on better tracts of land. Ambiguous wording, however, leaves ample room for interpretation. Employing the royal ‘we’, he speaks of endowing “our Saracens of Balàfia” with two large farmsteads (Gebilalqueren and Benmaymon) as well as one smallholding (Benimarzut) within the fief of Xarc (today Santa Eulària). Pere specifically names seven of these recipients: Ablon, Mucatil, Zahale, Abdelle, Abenduet, Mohamet and Abenhaten, while implying the inclusion of others with the fuzzy phrase “and all the rest…” 

What remains unclear is what the term Balàfia actually referred to. Was it the ensemble of houses we know today? Or perhaps a pre-existing Moorish farmstead? Readers will have noticed that all the place names contained in Pere’s bequest are of Arabic origin, Balàfia included – a circumstance that could hardly have been otherwise after three centuries of Moorish rule. 

Historian Torres Peters feels that the 13th-century usage of the place name ‘Balàfia’ probably designated an extension of land containing a number of farmsteads:

 

 I deduce that the toponym does not denominate any particular farmstead, but rather a larger region or territory within Xarc. It is possible that, at some later date, it may have become identified with a particular farmstead or ‘possession’, the term used in Majorca to designate large holdings. 

 

Based on these insights, one might conclude that Pere of Portugal simply transferred some farmers from one area of his fief to other, presumably more fertile, tracts within the same fief. 

 

The Silence of the Records

At this point we must introduce another vexing lacuna: the name Balàfia appears nowhere in the ‘Memoriale divisionis’, an exhaustive record of the island’s extramural territories, compiled by the warlords immediately after their conquest, with the help, of course, of Moorish officials. As the island’s Doomsday Book, it listed all pre-existing farmsteads by name as well as other vital infrastructures such as mills and wells. We know, for example, that Xarc contained twenty-six farmsteads, five smallholdings, six flourmills and one elusive habitation known as an ‘al-burg’, none of which bore the name Balàfia. The omission throws the gate open wide to conjecture.   

 

Speculation

Island linguist Enric Ribes contributes an interesting datum to the debate. Balàfia, he informs us, derives from an Arabic verb with a variety of definitions ranging from ‘to grant’, ‘to exchange’ or ‘to restore’ (as in restitution to former property or to a former state, e.g. manumission).  This revelation infuses our quest with new layers of meaning, particularly when we stop to consider that there is another Balàfia in Lérida (Catalonia). 

Perhaps, Pere ceded the farmsteads in exchange for some favour performed during the conquest. A reward in the form of land might have been offered to certain ‘Saracens’ to induce them to traffic intelligence, act as scouts or otherwise aid the Catalan invasion. Of course, these individuals would most likely have been living in or around the walled city rather than in remote hills. Nonetheless, pondered in this new light, Pere’s phrase “our Saracens of Balàfia” could perhaps have been a reference to individuals who, in exchange for services rendered were being given land – land that subsequently derived its name from the terms of settlement. 

In keeping with this interpretation is the fact that the Moors receiving the grant – hence landowners – would automatically have been released from the state of slavery that conquest by a medieval invader presupposed. Records corroborate that the vast majority of the conquered Moors did, in fact, become slaves and were sold in foreign markets to clear the way for a Christian occupation, in accordance with the Pope’s directives. Only a small, though undetermined, number of Muslims was allowed to remain in Ibiza under feudal tenancy. Among them, apparently, were Pere’s seven Saracens.    

 

Reality Check

Before getting too carried away, we must heel to higher historical reason. Torres Peters, who has scoured the archives many times over, peremptorily discards the notion that the toponym Balàfia could have originated from a group of hypothetically freed war captives. He unequivocally states:

 

“The Moors to whom the lands in the parchment were granted were already from Balàfia, for which reason we cannot entertain the notion that the name derives from them. The name, obviously, is prior to 1235. As far as the “reward” is concerned, the conditions of establishment laid down by Prince Pedro are bewildering, far more advantageous than those we find in other establishments of property. I believe his only aim was to extract the greatest possible yield from his possessions, even if that meant going against pontifical indications and, probably, the criteria of Guillem de Montgrí [prime mover of the conquest].”

 

Though less dramatic, Peters’ reasoning bears up under scrutiny. Pere of Portual was a shrewd feudal landlord with holdings on Majorca, Minorca and the mainland. He would have had monetary gain uppermost in his mind. To find a motive for his favourable land grant we need look no further than the well-known fact that Moorish farming and irrigation techniques towered head and shoulders above the substantially inferior state of Christian agronomy. In order to make his conquest pay off, the prince understood that he needed to maximize the yield of Ibiza’s poor, limey soil; ergo, the allocation of experienced farmers to the best acreage.

 

A final question remains unanswered. When did the group of houses that today bears the name Balàfia come into being? This, as with all of our queries on Balàfia, is basically irresolvable. In lieu of an answer, Torres Peters, offers these measured words:

 

“In order to answer the question of when the Balàfia complex was built we would have to resort to archaeology. What is beyond doubt is that the towers are perfectly “Christian” and quite posterior to the conquest of 1235.”

 

Perhaps, then, we will have better luck at un-baffling Balàfia by examining its late medieval and early modern periods. For more, please keep reading.

 

Many thanks to: 

· Historian Francisco Torres Peters for maintaining a long volley of e-mails in which he shared the pearls of his research.

· Linguist Enric Ribes for explaining the interesting etymology of the word Balàfia.

· Antoni Ferrrer Abárzuza for his authoritative book: L’Eivissa de Jaume I, Consell d’Eivissa, 2008. 

· Don Joan Marí Cardona for his entry in the Enciclopèdia d’Eivissa i Formentera.