Una iglesia para las cosechas, un granero para los señores. El hórreo medieval de estilo Villaviciosa (Asturias): reinterpretación etnoarqueológica y social.

Abstract

The Asturian granary -so called hórreo- is one of the most important examples of medieval wooden architecture in Europe. Ethnographic studies have traditionally considered the hórreo as the cultural manifestation of an egalitarian rural community. This article propose a renewal interpretation, with a new analytical protocol that can be used for vernacular architecture. We believe that the hórreo is a document of material culture. Therefore, it can be analyzed from specific disciplines such as Archaeology, Archaeology of Architecture, Ethnoarchaeology, Household Archaeology. We pay attention to diachrony, historical contexts and the influence of social class structures in the development of cultural systems. In this point of view, this study prove that Asturian "Villaviciosa style" hórreo was a creation of rural elites in the 14-16th centuries. Its designs responded to a certain historical context: climate cooling, manorial harvests increase, consolidation of rural elites and renewal of their architectures of power. As an architecture of dignity, its decorative repertoire expressed the ideology of social hierarchies (ecclesiastical iconography, symbols of the nobility).