Calvià () is a municipality and resort town on the island of Mallorca, part of the Spanish autonomous community of the Balearic Islands. It is located in the southwestern part of the island of Mallorca, between the Serra de Tramuntana and the Serra de Na Burguesa. The municipal seat is the town of Calvià Vila.
Calvià has an approximate area of . It is bordered on the north by the municipalities of Puigpunyent and Estellencs, Palma de Mallorca, the island's capital to the east, Andratx to the west and to the south by the Mediterranean Sea.
According to the 2008 census, the municipality had a population of 50,777 inhabitants, of whom 18,046 were foreigners. Today, it is the second most populated area of the entire archipelago Balearic after Palma, and also an area that has the largest number of tourists in the islands. Its population is scattered around the different urban centers created as a result of tourism development and twentieth century urbanization.
The historical epic that marked the most important local culture and traditions regarding the rest of Mallorca is the landing in Santa Ponça on 10 September 1229 of King James I of Aragon, and the subsequent conquering of Muslims who had invaded in the year 903. Since 1248, Calvià has had its own parochial church, Sante Ihoannes Caviano. Despite the popularity and use of the official shield locally, the municipality has no flag.
Toponymy The origin of the place name is subject to conjecture but is believed to be from the patronymic Latin calvianum, derived from the personal name of Calvius. According to the philologist Antoni Maria Alcover, it comes from the word Caluus, meaning "burn" or "be hot", testament to the arid land that contains no vegetation. The official name is Calvià (with a grave accent), but in Castilian, Calviá (with an acute accent) is used.
Officially, the adjective to refer to inhabitants of Calvià is calvianenc or calvianenca. However, more widespread use in both Catalan and in its Castilian translation is calvianer / calvianera. This is used by agencies such as the Institut Calvianer d'Esports del Ajuntament de Calvià and the Asociación Calvianera.
Heraldry The municipality does not have a flag but has a distinctive coat of arms, defined as an azure blue shield with a paschal lamb holding a flag with a St George's Cross, capped by a crown. The coat of arms was approved on 25 June 1976 emblazoned with De azur y el cordero de plata que empuña en su mano derecha una bandera de aquel metal, cargada con cruz de gules. Al timbre corona real, cerrada..
History Ancient era
Calvià first appears in history as a village 2,000 years BCE, although the area was first populated in the Neolithic Era. Later, sailors coming from the east stopped in the Balearics on their way to the Iberian Peninsula, where they sought metals. They came from Italy, from other Mediterranean islands, and from the Near East, and constructed small settlements along the coast. Historians call this period the "Cave Culture", because caves were frequently used as habitations and burial areas. Some vestiges of this area have been catalogued in an archaeological excavation called the Puig de sa Morisca Archaeological Park, which conserves remains of what was a talaiot in diameter. It is located on a small mountainous elevation in Calvià's Santa Ponsa district.
The Roman era lasted from 123 BCE until the 4th century CE, but left no significant vestiges. Among the few archaeological remnants of this era are the remains of a Roman villa in Santa Ponça known as Sa Mesquida, which has an oven that was used to make ceramics, the horse-shoe shaped Naveta Alemany and the Turó de Ses Abelles.
In 425, the area was invaded by the Vandals, who ended up settling. Lack of remains or written record means little is known about this area other than the decline that began with the destruction of Pollença. The Byzantine general Flavius Belisarius ordered the conquest of the archipelago in 534, bringing an end to this era.
The first Muslim arrivals were in 707. They quickly ended the Byzantine domination and established their own hegemony. Until 903, the island was part of the Umayyad Caliphate.
Middle Ages
In 903, the Almoravid general Isam al-Jawlani conquered the island on behalf of Abdullah ibn Muhammad al-Umawi, Emir of Córdoba. The city of Palma passed from the Almoravids to the Almohads, eventually becoming part of one of the taifas. Calviá was part of the administrative division Juz' d' Ahwaz al-Madina.
In 1229, after the Conquest of Mallorca by King James I of Aragon, colonists brought the Catalan language and culture, which survive to the present time. In the division of the conquered territory, Calvià formed part of the medietas magnatum that the king granted to nobles Guillermo II de Montcada, Hugo de Ampurias, Nuño Sánchez and Berenguer de Palou, all of whom had participated in the conquest. Calvià in particular was granted to Berenguer de Palou, Bishop of Barcelona, becoming part of the Barony of the Bishops of Barcelona. There were many tensions among the conquering nobles who were granted various feudal rights; these were resolved through a pariatge or condominium under which feudal rights were shared. Therefore, the surroundings of the municipality are also known as the comarca of the Pariatge. Ultimately, though, the rights accrued to the Bishopric, which held them until 1834 when the Spanish Church lost many of its feudal properties. The conquerors came, in various proportions from a variety of places. Thus, and according to the Llibre del Repartiment ("Book of Distribution"), the conquered lands were distributed among people from CataloniaLa forja dels Països Catalans (39.71%), Occitania (24.26%), Italy (16.19%), Aragon (7.35%), Navarra (5.88%), France (4.42%), Castile (1.47%) and Flanders (0.73%). Owing to the extermination or expulsion of the greater part of the prior local populace, there were not enough laborers to cultivate the land. In 1230 a set of privileges called the Franquezas de Mallorca were granted in order to attract new settlers to cultivate the countryside. Most of these new settlers of Mallorca came from Catalonia, more specifically the northeast and, within the east, from Ampurdán. As a result, the dialect spoken today (Mallorquí) is an eastern Catalan dialect.
Since 1248, Calvià has had its own parish church, Sante Ihoannes Caviano, dedicated to Saint John the Baptist. In 1285, during the reign of James II of Aragon, second son of James I, it gained the status of a villa. This meant it would have its own mayor, named by the king or governor. The mayor would execute orders from higher levels of government and would also maintain public order and administer justice. Nonetheless, he did not have the power to administer the villa, which fell within the purview of the jurados de prohombre, (a medieval office that was essentially a district overseer).
In the Middle Ages, various watchtowers were built to defend against Mediterranean piracy.
To sustain the parish and its clerics, the king and the tenured landowners of the jurisdiction ceded one fourth of the diezmos paid to them by those who cultivated the land. This was, in turn, divided into four parts, three of which were granted to the rector of the parish and the fourth to the parish priest or vicar.
James II of Majorca reigned over the islands for more than two decades and made great efforts to guarantee the viability of his kingdom. He undertook a broad policy of agrarian colonization, with the creation of rural nuclei; increased the royal revenue; favored the creation of consulates in North Africa and in the kingdom of Granada; created a new monetary system for the kingdom; promoted the creation of textile industries; increased royal power relative to that of the nobility and Church; and promoted the construction of palaces and castles such as the Royal Palace of La Almudaina, the La Seu Cathedral in Palma, and the Bellver Castle. The opening of the trials of the Knights Templar and the later suppression of the order allowed the Crown to take over their revenues in the islands.
The health system consisted mainly of physicians of Jewish origins, so-called Xuetas, descendants of Mallorcan Jews who had converted to Christianity, but continued to form a largely endogamous community. The nearest hospital to Calvià was in Sant Elm, founded in 1303 by Jaime II. Fundamentally it was dedicated to merchants and sailors of the ships that were heading from Palma to Barcelona. They also used it as a refuge in bad weather.
Modern era
From the 13th century to the mid-20th century, the region was almost entirely agricultural. The first area to be cultivated was along the banks of the Bay of Santa Ponça; at the time, the area was referred to as the terme de Santa Ponça; the expression terme de Calvià came far later. Despite the long coast, people turned their backs to the sea, deriving their living from the dry and none-too-fertile land.
Agriculture was based on latifundia—large estates—from the 14th century into the 20th. Most of the land was owned by a small number of nobles. In 1863, continuing a longstanding pattern 66.3% of the land was owned by four proprietors. At a slightly earlier date, Pedro Caro, 3rd Marquis of la Romana owned , including all of Bendinat, Peguera, as well as an additional in the municipality of Andratx. The Marquis of Bellpuig owned in Santa Ponça, the largest latifundium in Mallorca at the beginning of the 19th century. On the other hand, there was a small group of peasants known as els roters, to whom the nobility had ceded land near the sea. These roters cultivated cereals, and lived in miserable conditions.
In the 16th century, Calvià itself largely escaped the plague that decimated the population elsewhere, although other nearby municipalities such as Andratx suffered the scourge of the epidemic. Still, the population suffered other epidemics associated with the era and their way of life, particularly malaria which only a few escaped, such as the priest or the few artisans who did not work in Ses Rotes. The daily wage of a farm laborer was between four and six sous (a dozen eggs cost one-and-a-half sous). In that era there were also Arab slaves, although not in the maritime zones, where they were seen as liable to escape or to collaborate with pirates. In the 18th century a severe drought and bad cereal harvest led to a long period of famine. On 28 November 1715, Philip V of Spain abolished the fueros and privileges of the Balearics, as the Nueva Planta decrees extended the administrative organization of the Kingdom of Castile, prohibited the Catalan language, and required the use of Castilian Spanish in the islands. In 1748 the wretchedness of the municipality had become so severe that chronicler Pere Xamena Fiol described it as follows:
The economic system rooted in latifundia underlay the Caciquism that made moot the theoretically democratic Spanish constitutions the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century. In Restoration Spain the power of the dominant classes remained intact. Both major political parties of the time, the Conservative Party led by Canovas del Castillo and the Liberal Party led by Sagasta relied on a system where day laborers and smallholders beholden to the caciques and voted accordingly, producing an orderly alternation of the two parties in power, the turno pacífico. In the late 19th century, hunger and poverty sparked emigration to the Americas, especially to Cuba and Argentina, as well as to France and Algeria.