From sewer to Promenade
Around the year 1,200, some squires and small clusters of buildings, convents and country houses with their orchards, began to scatter outside the walls of the Roman era. But the widespread insecurity of those medieval times forced the populations to be protected within a fortified enclosure. This is how, around the year 1287, the construction of a second walled circle began. It was called the wall of Jaume I, because the decision to build it was made during his time, although the works did not begin until eleven years after his death. This wall of Jaume I extended to the left bank of the Rambla, leaving it outside.
The wall of Jaume I the Conqueror was more than five kilometers long, so the city lacked space. The relative political and economic stability had led new religious orders to want to establish themselves in the Catalan capital, or for existing orders to want to erect new convents. This was the case of the Franciscans, who had the convent called Framenors built near the Rambla, next to the beach, that is, outside the wall.
On the other hand, in the fields between the Rambla and the mountain of Montjuïc, a new neighborhood, Raval, was forming in an improvised manner.
After the Black Plague, which devastated the territory in 1347, new population centers had crossed the Rambla and settled near some convents. The bed of the Rambla was then transformed into a sewer up to the Atarazanas.
However, those new nuclei outside the wall were once again completely unprotected in case of a siege or enemy assault. It was again necessary to expand the fortified circle.
Around 1377, in the time of Peter III the Ceremonious, the construction of a third walled enclosure thus began. Once the works were finished, the Rambla was included within the fortified belt, but it continued to be a rambla, around which autumn floods caused all kinds of havoc. In these circumstances, the most affected were the small workshops and shops housed in some sections of the wall that had been pierced and thus used by the artisans.
Faced with all this, the Council of One Hundred decided to divert the natural course of the rambla. And it was not to be a simple task, as the eminent geographer Pau Vila called it a "medieval urban creation".
The appearance of the Ramblas is fixed, according to the chronicles, in the year 1440, just at the time when the old bed of the rambla that passed at the foot of the wall was conditioned as a sports area, transforming it also into a promenade that quickly became the favorite of a large part of the population, despite the presence near the Boqueria portal, of the gallows planted to hang certain condemned to death considered "vile persons". The breadth of this new space allowed citizens to walk peacefully without being disturbed by transport carts.
The aspect of the promenade in the mid-15th century was totally rustic. Not only because of the existence of many orchards and the corresponding huts of the gardeners, but also because of the market stalls attended by farmers, and the various fairs that were installed, with huts, carts, animals, carters, traders, charlatans, fortune tellers, beggars, and curious people large and small.
In summer, hay was weighed. In autumn, grapes were sold. During the Christmas festivities, the pig fair was held on Saint Thomas' Day. And throughout the year, the inevitable gambling tables were seen. Undoubtedly, the center of animation was the Pla de la Boqueria, so called because goat meat was sold there.
The fascination that this new promenade aroused among the people of Barcelona was such that even the Council of One Hundred spoke out in favor of it and attributed to this new promenade the ennoblement of the city "from the iron gate (Portaferrissa)(. . .) to the sea, it has a beautiful and spacious breadth, appreciated by passersby and pedestrians (. . .) in summer as in winter (. . .) both men and women".
In the 16th and 17th centuries, the urban nucleus of Barcelona was saturated, and the new religious institutions that arrived in the city had to settle on the Rambla. The space occupied by a convent was much larger than one would initially think. From an economic point of view, a convent had to function as a kind of autonomous, self-sufficient entity. In addition to the church or chapel, the cloister, refectory, dormitory, and kitchen, the orchard was essential, which was not a decorative or recreational element, like the garden, but the necessary element for daily subsistence.
But the fact that the different convents were aligned in a more or less straight or sinuous manner helped give the Rambla a more urban appearance.
The Jesuits, thus, built the Belén convent in 1553, although it was rebuilt in 1681. The Barefoot Carmelites founded the San José convent in 1586 where the San José market of La Boqueria is today.
Because Ignatius of Loyola had stayed in Catalonia, the Jesuits developed greatly. In 1593, next to the Belén convent they already had, they also founded the Cordelles College, for higher education. Unfortunately, the Cordelles building was sold and demolished during the Napoleonic occupation.
On their part, the Capuchins - one of the various orders inspired by the Franciscan rule - settled in Santa Madrona, the lower part of the Rambla.
