{"id":1321,"date":"2015-07-28T16:26:19","date_gmt":"2015-07-28T16:26:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www2.altipla.cat\/montmelo-montornes-una-linia-de-terme-amb-molta-historia\/"},"modified":"2025-01-23T22:05:55","modified_gmt":"2025-01-23T21:05:55","slug":"montmelo-montornes-a-border-line-with-a-lot-of-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.altipla.cat\/en\/montmelo-montornes-una-linia-de-terme-amb-molta-historia\/","title":{"rendered":"Montmel\u00f3 \u2013 Montorn\u00e8s, a border line with a lot of history."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Altiplana<\/p>\n

Over the past year, Altipl\u00e0 has been carrying out some rather special expert work, which has consisted of studying the Territorial boundary line between Montmel\u00f3 and Montorn\u00e8s del Vall\u00e8s<\/strong>. This boundary line has been the cause of disputes between these two municipalities since the 14th century, the date of the last \u201cboundary demarcation\u201d agreed upon by both.<\/span><\/p>\n

Within the framework of the current municipal boundary delimitation work in Catalonia, the latent conflict has been reopened. Montmel\u00f3 has filed a contentious-administrative appeal against the decision made by the Generalitat, which largely sided with Montorn\u00e8s, and this is where Altipl\u00e0 comes in, having been commissioned by the Montmel\u00f3 City Council to carry out the expert study of the boundary line.<\/span><\/p>\n

In order to prepare the report, we had to work with very old documentation, especially from the 16th to the 19th centuries, documentation provided to us by the local historians of Montmel\u00f3, belonging to the Montmel\u00f3 Study Center (CEM)<\/strong><\/a>. The dispute at that time concerned the collection of tithes from those lands, which were disputed by the Monastery of Saint Peter of the Puel\u00b7les<\/strong>, on the Montmel\u00f3 side, and the Carthusian Monastery of Montalegre<\/strong>, on the Montorn\u00e8s side.<\/span><\/p>\n

History of the litigation<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

It seems that the origin of the dispute lies in the boundary demarcation carried out in the 14th century, agreed upon by both municipalities. A boundary survey was conducted along the axis of the Bes\u00f2s and the Congost, but major floods in the 15th century washed away the markers and significantly altered the rivers' courses. This is where the disputes began\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

The documentation under study has been primarily rulings issued over the centuries, such as that of the General Bailiff of Catalonia from 1600 or that of the Captain General of Catalonia from 1820. Various boundary demarcations or \u201csights,<\/strong> as they were called at the time, and which consisted of work carried out by surveyors or experts who recognized landmarks on the ground and determined whether they were accurate.<\/span><\/p>\n

It should be noted the \u201cvisura\u201d carried out in 1665 by the Chancellor Fabrici Pons, at the Royal Audience<\/strong>, published by the CEM, which very accurately describes each of the municipal boundary markers.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Altiplana<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Also noteworthy is the plan, or \u201cunscaled draft,\u201d carried out in 1747 by Matheu Puig i Ferin, a renowned royal geometer, belonging to the Royal Land Registry Tribute<\/strong>. This document is official in nature, as it was prepared for cadastral purposes. Matheu Puig and his son, who shared the same name, were very prolific surveyors of the era and carried out topographical work in many parts of Catalonia.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Altiplana<\/p>\n

In 1819 a new lawsuit began between the two towns, this time in the Matar\u00f3 Regency<\/strong>, in the person of the corregidor Baron de la Barre. The experts sided with Montmel\u00f3, and the Baron ordered a trench to be dug along the boundary line, which outraged the landowners. The claims of the Count of Darnius, a major landowner in Montorn\u00e8s, prompted the intervention of the Captain General of Catalonia, who revoked the Baron de la Barre's decision and sided with Montorn\u00e8s. This Captain General's decision was highly controversial, as he ignored the surveyors and geometers and did not base it on technical arguments.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Altiplano<\/p>\n

It can be considered that those events of 1819 were pivotal and marked a turning point in the history of the border line. As a result of that decision, Montorn\u00e8s began collecting the taxes on those lands, and all subsequent rulings relied on the tax collection to uphold Montorn\u00e8s's position.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since that fateful year of 1819 (for Montmel\u00f3) until today, the official boundary line has always been that of Montorn\u00e8s, even though Montmel\u00f3 has continued to claim what it believed was right.<\/span><\/p>\n

Expert witness work<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The work of Altipl\u00e0 has consisted of interpreting this historical data from a topographic point of view, and also the Reconstruction of the boundary line<\/strong> claimed by Montmel\u00f3, which had never before been surveyed with topographical precision.<\/span><\/p>\n

Based on the descriptions of milestones and the maps found, it has been possible to obtain the historic boundary line of Montmel\u00f3 with an accuracy of about 20 meters<\/strong>. The final result is very good considering the precision of measurements in the 18th and early 19th centuries.<\/span><\/p>\n

Among the plans found, we highlight, for the precision of their measurements, some of the sketches discovered at the Monastery of Sant Pere de les Puel\u00b7les, dating from the 18th century. These sketches consisted of measurements between benchmarks carried out by a surveyor. The unit of measurement used is the cane<\/strong>, an old Catalan unit of measurement, which, as its name indicates, consisted of a \u201ccane\u201d or rod, the length of which could vary depending on the region.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Altiplana<\/p>\n

It has been a very rewarding experience to be able to carry out work of this nature. We are grateful.
\nwith the help of local historians Angel Pi\u00f1ero and Josep Humbert, of the Montmel\u00f3 Studies Center, without whom this work could not have been carried out.<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Altipl\u00e0 ha estat realitzant aquest darrer any uns treballs pericials for\u00e7a especials, que han consistit en l\u2019estudi de la L\u00ednia de Terme entre Montmel\u00f3 i Montorn\u00e8s del Vall\u00e8s. Aquesta l\u00ednia de terme ha estat causa de litigis entre aquests dos municipis des del segle XIV, data a la qual es remunta el darrer \u201catermenament\u201d consentit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4750,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_breakdance_hide_in_design_set":false,"_breakdance_tags":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sense-categoria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.altipla.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.altipla.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.altipla.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.altipla.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.altipla.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1321"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.altipla.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4751,"href":"https:\/\/www.altipla.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1321\/revisions\/4751"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.altipla.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.altipla.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.altipla.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.altipla.cat\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}