Rihonor de Castilla, the Village that is Half Spanish and Half Portuguese

Border towns and territories often have a turbulent history, being the object of both military and political confrontations over their possession, and frequently changing hands. When it comes to regions, the most characteristic examples are perhaps Alsace and Lorraine, which have alternated between being part of France and Germany. And if we talk about towns, in Spain we have a classic case: the town of Olivenza in Badajoz, which went from being Leonese to Portuguese, Castilian, and Spanish, changing several times. The most challenging case is Rihonor de Castilla, with one half in Spain and the other in Portugal, where it is called Rio de Onor.

Visiting this place is a curious experience, although a priori it may not seem particularly attractive for the typical tourist due to its lack of monumental or artistic heritage—beyond the rural, which can be interesting for the ad hoc traveler—and, moreover, currently, only about thirty retirees and fifty Portuguese, all related, live there. However, if you consider its unusual administrative situation and, above all, its history, it is sure to arouse the interest of more than one visitor.

As mentioned, Rihonor de Castilla and Rio de Onor form a single entity where their respective nationalities (povo de cima for the Spanish part, povo de abaixo for the Portuguese, almost like in that TV series by Berlanga) are separated by a border that only appears on maps. It is an imaginary line called La Raya (or A Raia), which was established on October 5, 1143, by the Treaty of Zamora, signed between the monarchs Alfonso VII of León and Afonso I of Portugal to recognize the independence of the Portuguese kingdom after the Battle of Ourique, fought four years earlier.

In that conflict, the Portuguese troops led by Count Afonso Henriques conducted an expedition through the Alentejo, corresponding to the former taifa states of Badajoz and Seville, and crushed the Almoravid army that stood in their way, despite being outnumbered. The usual providential legend tells that Afonso had a vision of Jesus Christ surrounded by angels promising him victory over the infidel. It was July 25, 1139, and the next day, Afonso was acclaimed by his people as Rex Portugallensis (king of Portugal).

His namesake from León recognized him because in 1135 he had crowned himself Imperator totius Hispaniae, a unifying idea of the peninsular kingdoms under a single crown that, conceived in the 9th century by Alfonso III, the last holder of the Kingdom of Asturias (Adefonsus totius Hispaniae imperator, Magnus imperator, etc., there were several formulas), and adopted by his successors in León, claimed the restoration of the Visigothic state as a way of justifying the creation of that monarchy out of nothing. And, of course, an emperor needs vassal kings, so there was hardly any opposition to the creation of Portugal (how could there be if Jesus Christ himself had intervened?), and Pope Alexander III ratified it in the bull Manifestus Probatum.

Well, the Treaty of Zamora established a border of a thousand and a quarter kilometers that, with slight situational variations, remained more or less stable over the centuries. The cases of the aforementioned Olivenza (occupied by Spain in 1801 during the War of the Oranges), Táliga (a parish of the former that also remained in Spanish hands), and the Coto Mixto (a territory formed by the villages of Rubiás, Meaus, Santiago, and Montealegre) were exceptions.

With these exceptions (not all, because the Coto Mixto would be abolished), the final borders were agreed upon in the Treaty of Lisbon of 1864, negotiated by the delegates of Queen Isabella II of Spain and King Luís I of Portugal, coming into effect in 1868. However, in 1926, the Border Agreement was signed in Lisbon, granting the inhabitants of the border areas the same benefits as those of the other territories specified in the previous treaty.

And so, Rihonor de Castilla remained there, in no man’s land. Or rather, in everyone’s land. In a corner that, since the territorial restructuring of 1833, belongs to the Spanish province of Zamora and is located within the municipality of Pedralba de la Pradería (Sanabria region, whose famous lakes could be the base tourist attraction point; Puebla is ten kilometers away), a classic repopulation area during the Reconquista. It is an eminently rural place, surrounded to the south by the Sierra de la Culebra, with the Portuguese city of Braganza being the nearest important city, twenty-one kilometers away.

In the Portuguese administration, it is the freguesia (part of a concelho or municipality, in this case, that of Bragança) of Rio de Onor, named after the river that runs through it (Fontano in Spanish). The truth is that this is its real name, the historical one, and, in fact, it appears in Spanish censuses as Rionor; both the interspersed “h” and the “de Castilla” complement were added in the Franco era to Castilianize it.

The linguistic question is another peculiarity to add, as the locals speak Spanish and Portuguese interchangeably, but with a dialect that barely survives: Rihonorés, a dialect of Astur-Leonese with Portuguese influences that joins those in other villages in the area like Pedralba or Ungilde, although in these latter places it is more similar to Castilian.

Language is practically the only thing that indicates the dual nationality of the place, as the civil guards and guardiñas (from the Fiscal Guard) who once did their job asking for a passport to cross from one side of the village to the other—except for the locals—disappeared with the approval of the Schengen Agreement, and only a stone landmark remains to remember it. The last time this crossing was closed was in 1974, when after the Carnation Revolution there were fears that Francoist troops would enter Portugal to restore the dictatorship; it was a simple chain that did not prevent the passage of people or tractors but did block cars, and surprisingly, it was not removed until 1990.

As José Saramago wrote:

“How are things going here? Do you get along with the Spaniards?” The informant is an old woman of great age who never left here, and for that reason, she knows what she’s talking about: “Yes, sir. We even have land on the other side”. This imprecision of space and ownership confuses the traveler, and he remains confused when another less old woman calmly adds, “And they also have land on this side”. Speaking for his buttons, which do not answer him, the traveler asks for help to understand. In the end: where is the border? What is this country called here? Is it still Portugal? Is it already Spain? Or just Rio de Onor and that’s it?

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This article was first published on our Spanish Edition on November 13, 2018: Rihonor de Castilla, el pueblo que es mitad español y mitad portugués

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