Fiesta de ánimas and carnival of Villafranca de los Caballeros

A SECULAR TRADITION, WHICH HAS ITS ROOTS IN THE RELIGIOUS FESTIVITY OF ÁNIMAS BENDITAS, AND WHICH WILL TAKE PLACE IN VILLAFRANCA DE LOS CABALLEROS SINCE 17 TO 19 FEBRUARY 2023.

Villafranca de los Caballeros celebrates every year a colorful Carnival, full of joy, music and choreographies carefully prepared by the groups and associations. However, this traditional celebration of this town is linked to the Fiesta de Ánimas Benditas y Mayordomías, a fact that gives a character and personality to this very popular festival in Villafranca.

All this, together with the participation of hundreds of people who are encouraged to collaborate in this tradition, make the Carnival of Villafranca a unique and incomparable festival, designed for the enjoyment of young and old from all parts of the region.

A FESTIVITY OF RELIGIOUS CHARACTER OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY, DECLARED OF REGIONAL TOURIST INTEREST, TURNED INTO A PROFANE-RELIGIOUS CELEBRATION THAT IS PART OF THE CULTURAL LEGACY OF THE VILLAFRANQUEROS.

The Council of Trent in the sixteenth century was a great effort of renewal of the Catholic Church to renew itself and stand up to the Protestant world, arming itself with a solid humanist ideology and promoting various reform and propaganda campaigns to make its precepts known.

In this context the confraternities and brotherhoods of souls were born and spread throughout Spain, especially in our Campo de San Juan. All have left a trail of customs and images and memories common in the surrounding villages (mayordomías, flags, drums, bugles, organization of soldiers, calls to religious events, ceremonial care of the deceased, clothing, light).

The organization of these brotherhoods was always soldierly: Captains, Lieutenants, Ensigns, Sergeants, scripts and pikes. The colorful flags and the pageantry of the pages made their military parades more colorful to the sound of the drum roll. This festival is unique in all its surroundings for having maintained the cultural legacy and the essence of an ancient custom worthy of preserving and living with the conviction that it is part of our culture.

A CELEBRATION THAT UNITES THE PROFANE CARNIVAL WITH THE RELIGIOUS FEAST OF THE SOULS, FILLING ITS PARADES, DANCES AND CELEBRATIONS WITH COLOR.

Villafranca de los Caballeros has managed to maintain the organization and protocol of these brotherhoods at the same time as the carnival. Both have been identified as part of the same party. Probably in its origins the colorful parades with flags, drums, impeccable costumes of mayordomos, captains and scripts, were intended to be a counterpoint to the wildness of the carnestolendas prior to Lent. But since a long time of coexistence they have become the two faces of the same festivity.

A DAY OF TOURIST INTEREST WITH A CARNIVALESQUE AND JOKING CHARACTER TO HIGHLIGHT THE RIGOR AND ELEGANCE OF THE FEAST OF SOULS

Along with the joking, vindictive, sly and masked carnival, Villafranca de los Caballeros has lived with rigor and elegance its feast of Souls, in such a way that has managed to maintain with health, this activity that time has swept away in most of the neighboring villages.

MORE INFORMATION

https://carnavalyfiestadeanimas.villafrancadeloscaballeros.es/

Programme:

CARNIVAL AND ANIMAS PARTY 2023 VILLAFRANCA DE LOS CABALLEROS