The republican soldier who saved a valuable medieval document from the battle

It was owned by the son of a republican soldier in the Spanish Civil War.

Kept carefully in his house in Barcelona.

On the table in the room next to the living room.

Wrapped in a white conservation foam and a cloth, as his father had kept it for decades in a loft of the house, since the end of 1938. “They were going to throw it on a pyre of books that they had made on the floor, I saw it , and I put it in my backpack”, the soldier told his parents after returning home alive;

and, many years later, he related the anecdote to his children.

Everyone in the family knew “the history of the Brihuega codex”, but had never seen it.

Never until that republican soldier died, and they emptied the house, and the attic.

On May 5, María Méndez, director of the old book department of the Catalan auction house Soler y Llach, led a lieutenant from the Historical Heritage group of the Central Operative Unit (UCO) to the home of the son of that militiaman. of the Civil Guard.

"The man, who wanted to preserve his anonymity, had sent me a photograph and I had already gone to examine it previously," says Méndez.

“After listening to his story, I realized that the piece did not only have a monetary value, but that it mainly had a historical, archival and memory value”, she explains to argue why she put him in contact with the agents of the armed institute.

The soldier's son, now 80 years old and in a wheelchair, asked Méndez to put the book on the table in the living room.

The three of them looked at it: a codex from the mid-13th century, with 70 pages of parchment and walnut wood covers, in which the Archbishop of Toledo, Rodrigo Ximénez de Rada, granted in 1242 the charter to the town of Brihuega (Guadalajara). ).

Another detail of the jurisdiction of Brihuega recovered. CIVIL GUARD (Europa Press)

"

", reads in romance.

"It comes to say that all the men who live in Brihuega or in its terms (Christians, Moors and Jews who lived in Brihuega in medieval times) are under the rules, rights and privileges granted by said document," says Alba, the archivist of this municipality, moved by the discovery and the return of the codex.

"It is a very advanced document for her time, since it speaks of the equality of men in the Middle Ages," she warns.

The piece exactly coincided with the detailed description made in 1887 by the archeology professor Juan Catalina García in his book

, thanks to which all the people of Brihuega knew of its existence and its subsequent disappearance.

A charter that was in the municipal archives of Brihuega, which his father had saved from burning and had preserved and kept as a treasure ever since.

Since that legendary battle of Guadalajara, in the cold month of March 1937, which marked the first victory of the Republican side and prevented the rebels from surrounding Madrid.

The young republican soldier put the codex in his bag and carried it for months, until after passing through a concentration camp he returned to his parents' house in Barcelona.

"He gave it to him as a war trophy," his son repeated the story to the lieutenant of the Civil Guard 85 years later, in the living room of his house.

“I think he would have wanted me to go back to where he came from and he would be proud,” he told the agent.

Last Friday, the jurisdiction returned to his town with a solemn act attended by the entire town.

a unique piece

"We were aware of the discovery because the UCO agents called us to tell us that they had located it," says Luis Manuel Viejo, mayor of Brihuega.

"It is a document that has always been very present in the memory of our neighbors, who now recover part of their historical memory, as well as a heritage asset and dignity as a people," adds the socialist alderman.

Since Alfonso VI reconquered Brihuega from the Muslims and ceded it to the Toledan miter, the archbishops were its managers for nearly 700 years, and they all had a special relationship, especially Ximénez de Reda, who ordered the construction of the three main churches of the town and restore the castle and its wall, in addition to donating two charters, one short and the one now recovered, long, which is very important because it reflects the equality of the towns, and in that sense it is a unique piece, "explains the mayor.

The codex has already been delivered to a restoration company to analyze its condition and cleanliness.

Soon it will also be digitized, so that whoever wants it can access his study.

Regarding its new site, it remains to be decided: "Either in the history museum or in the synagogue that we are now restoring and that was also a mosque and church of San Simón, a sacred place for three different religions and cultures."

It will remain, however, a treasure.

Not only for the Republican soldier and his family, but for all citizens.

50% off

Exclusive content for subscribers

read without limits

subscribe

I'm already a subscriber