Ordizia’s old part is once again the stage of a new edition of the Medieval Fair.

In this occasion (the fourteenth one), the Medieval Fair will receive more than 60 craftsmen and workshops, major figures of the event.

The celebration and the music arrives and Ordizia adorns itself for the occasion, and between this racket of organized disorganization the craftsmen arrives, they are going to adorn the streets and show their products and how they do them. The market is a great theater, a putting in scene that is going to happen during this weekend at the historical part.

The group of Animation throughout both days of market will make representations of diverse mythological tales. On the other hand the presence of the royal group of medieval horsemen with its mounts and clothes that gives a great colorful light to this medieval market with their costumes is assured; as well as the presence and demonstrations of archers belonging to the Ordizia’s Club of Shot with Arch that will seat their place in the outdoor fronton.

The whole Ordizia’s Major Square and its surroundings will transform themselves to shelter this market that tries to create the genuine environment of the medieval epoch, giving to the market a playful cultural character.

The market is the great theatre that transforms streets and squares, filling with diverse scents, light, color… Every place, every personage, acrobats, clowns, musicians, artists, together with food products and craftsmen who realize demonstrations of their skills,  manage to transport ourselves to older times and make us enjoy it all whatever age you may have also by observing old instruments that they guard in their memory.

Ordizia’s historical part changes to become a great theatre that transports us to older times, keep our imagination alive and manage us to enjoy this medieval feeling only by walking throughout this atmosphere. The organization of the market that runs at the expense of Ordizia’s Town hall, has the support of the Food Association of Craftsmen of Navarra, association was created in 1994 and takes as an aim the defense and promotion of the products food-processing craftsmen.

Ordizia’s medieval market offers five different type of products:

1. Nourishment: Idiazabal’s cheese, Roncal’s cheese, duck’s products, cider, sausages, honey, sweets and cakes….

2. Crafts’s stalls, completing a sample of different trades: potters, manufacturers of paper, shoes, salves, manufacturers of leather, masks, engravers of wood, goldsmiths of silver ….

3. Street animation: The medieval environment complements itself with theatrical performances, clowns, storytellers, musicians and the magician who bewilders children and adults with his tricks and his aspect. Throughout the day different passes are taking place without fixed schedule, which keep the market alive, begin with the proclamation and throughout two days delight us so much with their music and their small theatrical acts.

4. Decoration: The market is decorated with multitude of hung elements, as shields, banners, etc … As well all the stalls of the craftsmen and they themselves are decked to the old usage, besides the product we will be able to see the demonstration of their works and the tools that were in use long ago. In this paragraph the market brought a few years ago an interesting innovation and it is the reproduction idealized of two of the four entry doors that long ago had the fortified Village of Ordizia.

5. Other activities: On the other hand the presence of the royal group of medieval horsemen with its mounts and clothes that gives a great colorful light to this medieval market with their costumes is assured; as well as the presence and demonstrations of archers belonging to the Ordizia’s Club of Shot with Arch that will seat their place in the outdoor fronton. We will continue relying on the participation of the local groups as the pilgrims of the choir of the society “Larrun-Arri”, as well as the Band of Music “Beti Argi”, who will be in charge of playing more music on the medieval fair. To those local groups add also the dantzaris of the group Jakintza and Urdaneta, taking part approximately 40 , as well as the Band of Ordizia’s Music school which will be accompanied also for a few drums.

Also they will install workshops in different places. To the workshop of ceramics for children that it will be in main square they join several workshops: of traditional games, calligraphy,  paper arts…. Regarding stalls there will be tanners of leather, blown of glass, lace of lace-bobbins, hewn stone, forge, beside the iron-work of horses realized in the same moment.

Brief  history of the medieval Ordizia

Ordizia has been since its foundation (1268) place of treatments, interchanges and trade, in fact its traditional wednesday’s weekly fair comes confirmed by decree of the Queen Juana the year 1512. Ordizia also is located inside the Guipuzcoa’s interior route of the Santiago’s Way, and in this way not only bloomed the ecclesiastic life, but also the trade.

And as all the places of public’s agglomeration the jongleurs, musicians, quacks, clowns, magicians, small companies or individual persons, couldn’t being absent,as that could take advantage of these places by a few minimal earnings to insure themselves.
The different performances of the company Trikumailu are inspired in the life of these jongleurs, traders and storytellers reflecting the legends of Santiago’s Way and Euskal Herria’s legends.

The great annual fair with its foreign merchants, variety and abundance of products, was a good occasion to buy and sell, of good eating and drinking, of meeting friends and amusing without measure. Clowns, jongleurs, jugglers, acrobats, ballerinas and storytellers were joining in the markets and fairs to show their skills.

As it was announcing to be in those fairs “Remove the wash from strings, here they come the jongleurs! “, this way was promising to be the arrival of those companies full of the most mixed and rare prominent figures, with their multicolored clothes and varied shows they were interrupting the gray monotony and the daily routine of the villages and villas.