The French Riviera is a perhaps unlikely place to have been the making of a Mallorcan winter saint, but back in the early fifth century, the Riviera certainly wasn’t what it became and nor did anyone refer to it as the Riviera. It was mainly the British who dubbed it thus at the start of the nineteenth century.
Less than two kilometres from Cannes is a small island that had it not been for religious involvement (with periods of interruption) might well have been overrun by a Riviera crowd who made the Côte d’Azur a tourist destination decades before anyone in Mallorca had seriously considered tourism as an economic possibility. Mallorcan eyes, it should be said, looked to the Riviera as something of a model to follow when the island’s tourism industry was, in effect, born at the end of 1905.
But this island could only have coped with so much or so little tourist invasion. The second largest of the Lérins Islands, it isn’t large. Quite the opposite. Approximately 1.5 kilometres by 400 metres, the Île Saint-Honorat would fit into Mallorca (3,640 square kilometres) thousands of times. The closest it ever really got to exploitation was when a Mademoiselle de Sainval, who was apparently a wealthy actress, lived on the island after acquiring it from the state following the French Revolution.
There still is a monastery, the original having been founded by Saint Honoratus, known in Mallorca as Sant Honorat. He was to become the Archbishop of Arles in 426, his holy reputation having been forged on the island, where he lived as a hermit. Until, that is, he obtained disciples and therefore established the monastery.
Around 1300, a monk from the the Lérins Islands called Raimon wrote about the life of the saint. There was a linguistic association for Mallorca in that Raimon used the Occitan language. It was translated into Catalan as well. Towards the end of the fourteenth century, 1394 to be precise, a member of the noble class, Arnau Desbrull, sought and gained permission to build a hermitage dedicated to Honoratus. This was to be on the Puig de Randa, which had already acquired a spiritual reputation thanks to Ramon Llull a hundred or so years earlier.
Blessed in 1397, the location of this hermitage was chosen “with great wisdom”, according to one writer. It was sheltered from the Tramuntana (north) and Mestral (northwest) winds and was like “a balcony of heaven above the Earth”.
“Just below extends the great plain of Campos and Llucmajor. And further away, the immense sea with the island of Cabrera, which stands out among the mist, as if asleep on the waves.” Once blessed, groups of hermits would appear and disappear, “like bonfires that rise and then go out”. This, the puig above Algaida with three sanctuaries, was one of Mallorca’s most spiritual places. Perhaps only Lluc rivalled it.
The current church was built between 1654 and 1661. The Diocesan Congregation of Saint Paul and Saint Anthony claimed the inheritance of the hermitage and entered into an agreement with the forerunner of the town hall in Algaida and the village rectory.
Algaida’s cossier dancers.
Honorat was to become Algaida’s patron saint, the winter patron if you like, as Sant Jaume (Santiago) was the summer saint. But Honorat came first, in terms of fiestas at any rate, as it wasn’t until 1871 that fiestas for Jaume were celebrated. It doesn’t appear to be known when Honorat became the patron. I’ve been unable to find any confirmation, though the founding of the hermitage perhaps offers a clue. Algaida’s cossier dancers have long been linked with the fiestas, as they have been with Sant Jaume, but their precise origins are unknown. It is believed they formed parts of rituals for the fertility of the land; Honorat was invoked for protection against drought and floods.
The feast day is January 16, which is the same day as the eve of Sant Antoni. Because the fiestas for Antoni are so widespread, Honorat can be overlooked. But there are similarities between the two saints and certain associations, such as the congregation of saints Paul and Anthony. Both Antoni and Honorat were hermits, even if they were separated by a considerable distance - the Egyptian desert to the French Riviera. This said, the devotion of Antoni in Mallorca owes much to the founding of the Hospital Brothers of Saint Anthony at what came to be known as Saint Antoine l’Abbaye in the Dauphiné in southeastern France towards the end of the eleventh century.
Grilled sobrasada sizzling over the bonfires during a traditional 'torrada' at Sant Antoni celebrations in Mallorca.
Both saints clearly have French roots and a common linguistic (cultural) background because of the two locations. The devotion of both was introduced to Mallorca by the Catalan-Aragonese conquerors. But while Antoni has assumed a status as the unofficial patron of Mallorca, he isn’t a municipal patron; parishes, yes, such as Sa Pobla, but not whole towns or villages. Honorat differs in that he is a patron - that of Algaida.
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