If for some reason the municipality of Palomar is known in the Albaida Valley and beyond our borders, it is for its particular and genuine poplar festival. This is for Palomar much more than a tree, it is a symbol that identifies it as a town. We could not speak of this municipality of just over 580 inhabitants and not of its 'Plantá del chopo' (Poplar Lifting) A reason that added to the Carrícola Castle, the one that watches the term of Palomar with the name of another municipality, and the Font del Sis, invite you to visit this town and discover it.
HISTORY
In the thirteenth century it was when historians consider that El Palomar was founded and consolidated. With the conquest of James I, these lands fall into the hands of Christians. The new settlers were Catalan farmers and ranchers who, at the time of the foundation, adopted the name that the aboriginal Muslims gave to these lands (al Palombar) but catalanizing it (El Palomar). The repopulation was a long and complex process that lasted throughout the medieval period. Between 1276 and 1277 there is a critical situation that endangers the success of an initial colonization based on the line of new fortified areas. The Christian populations of the route Xátiva-Cocentaina-Xixona register in these moments a high degree of absenteeism as a consequence of the dangers of the Saracen revolt and the precarious rootedness of the first settlers.The abandonment of many lands by the beneficiaries of the first installments will allow the arrival of new settlers, this time with the intention of finding farmland and settle permanently. It is then when the orchard of El Palomar suffers the effects of the massive desertion and many of its plots are without owners circumstantially. From 1278-1279 it is intended to alleviate this situation with new concessions, founding towns and villages. A certain tendency of the villagers to abandon the walled enclosures and establish themselves in the orchards is detected, taking advantage of the arrival of peace. Even so, before the revolt some settlers from the neighboring town of Albaida had already settled in the orchard and, therefore, return now that the situation has been pacified. In this way, the old families who owned land since 1248 are joined by newcomers attracted by the refoundation of new vineyards. With this process, settlements are installed on these lands, more sedentary, interested in securing a family patrimony to survive and transmit it to their descendants.
They are the real settlers, mainly Catalans, and their arrival will be favored by new monarchs and a few decades of relative peace and remarkable prosperity and economic expansion. In this context the establishment of the new Christian farmhouse of the Palomar was located. The original nucleus occupied irrigated land and created a single nucleus in the middle of the green enclosure that closed the double ditch. The Palomar orchard and its ditch was the element that gave life to the population, besides being an element of cohesion and providing the inhabitants with a feeling of collectivity. The first document that makes mention of Palomar dates back to 1327. It is a deed of land sale granted to Huguet Çesplugues in favor of an albaidine buyer. It is spoken here of a farmhouse of the Palomar, located within the term of the Christian town of Albaida, populated by Christians. During the fourteenth century, the farmhouse grew to merit the legal and usual classification of "place" of Palomar. Even so, the first palomarenses depended for almost everything of the Vila de Albaida. This first El Palomar is a small peasant community, a group of houses inhabited by farmers dedicated to agriculture and livestock. At the end of the 16th century, the people of Palomar showed their first wishes for independence. It is December 15, 1603 when D. Cristóbal II of the Milá and Aragón, fourth count of Albaida and first Marquis, promulgates a privilege by which pulls apart the place of the Palomar of the Vila de Albaida, erects it in university and gives it the category of barony. It is in these moments when the Christian order of the Dominicans arrives at the Palomar, of which the house dels Frares is conserved.
This university of the Palomar was formed by a town dedicated to livestock. Then begin the craft activities and emerge the trades of baker, carpenter, butcher, hostess, workers, sheet weavers and even gunpowder manufacturers. As a university, the Council of the Palomar, immediately relies on the construction of a new temple. The Council meets in the Council Room (formerly the recently restored City Hall) and provides Palomar, with a flag, a seal and a war drum, as well as creating and consolidating the festivities. In the eighteenth century, with the decree of New Plant, El Palomar passes from Council to City Council, which causes many problems with the Marquisate of Albaida by the distribution of the right of barracks, the driving of cattle, the tax of the equivalent and the pecha, the contribution of the villagers to the debt of the vila of Albaida prior to the segregation, the water of the ditch of the Portthe delimitation of the legal terms, among others. During the 18th century, Palomar participated in the movement of economic and demographic expansion and practically doubled its population. Social differences were the order of the day. But the evolution of the population went through traumatic instants, as can be seen in the nineteenth century, by the War of Spanish Independence War of the French and the cholera epidemic of 1834-1885. Although in the second half of the century increased its population. Throughout all these centuries, the existence of the Palomar inhabitants proceeded according to the monotonous succession of the seasons. The agricultural work that accompanied them marked the vital rhythm and gave the inhabitants of this small town a markedly peasant mentality: the immense majority of the Palomar inhabitants were farmers. This situation is maintained until the twentieth century, when little by little the town is industrialized and urbanized to become what it is today.
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