Algorfa
The municipality of Algorfa has its origin in the privilege granted in 1328 by Alfonso II to the natural of the Kingdom of Valencia, by the what granted jurisdiction minor, also called alfonsina, all those owners of rustic property by the fact of constitute in them at least 15 houses and settle equal number of families.
This privilege was in force until the abolition of the jurisdiction of the Kingdom of Valencia by Decree of New Plant, issued after the war in Succession in 1714 with the proclamation of Felipe V as King of Spain. But before the end of the century another Borbon, Carlos IV, at the request of the marquises of Algorfa and Peñacerrada returned to restore the cited privilege alfonsino; the above mentioned measure is fitted in the policy of internal colonization that began the reformism illustrated in the second half of seven hundred.
For these years, the municipality of Algorfa was a extensive agricultural land of dryness, which was among the properties do not linked the lordship of Benejúzar, that holding the family Rosell; went on to this lineage by marriage in 1598 of Jaime Rosell and Desprats, Bayle General of the Governorate of Alicante and first lord of Benejúzar with Isabel Ruiz Ruiz, daughter of the lord of Cox.
On August 16, 1761, the holder of the dominion of Benejúzar, Juan Rosell and Roda, in his last will instituted the progeniture on "the estate so called Algorfa", and other goods in favour of his nephew Francisco Ruiz-Dávalos y Rosell, son of Francisco Dávalos, Lord of Cox and Violante Rosell and Ruiz (daughter of Jaime Rosell), to whom nominated as inheritor of all the free properties. The link was including, besides Algorfa, estates placed within Almoradí and diverse portions of land in Murcia and Orihuela, as well as a house in this population.
The creation of primogeniture was carried out with the obligations that its holders pay each year and perpetuity 167 pounds to religious institutions and charities of Orihuela, as well as the income of the vicarage that the grantor founded in 1755 in the parish of Algorfa and the satisfaction of other charges, although they were a temporary title. The remaining clauses of the foundation refer to the order of succession, set as was customary in such cases, by birthright, with preference of the man on women, and specifically the holder of Algorfa, Juan Rosell instituted the primogeniture in Francisco Ruiz-Dávalos and within his direct descent, in his children Antonio and Josefa.
The latter, with her husband, Ignacio Perez de Sarrio, Lord of Formentera, would achieved the alfonsina jurisdiction for the inheritance of Algorfa, and which meet the requirement of the privilege in 1328, built 16 houses on that property.
The first holder obtained the Marquis’s title of Algorfa on the following year of the primogeniture be creating, with Arneva's previous Vizcounty, by Royal Decree of March 3, 1762. Francisco Ruiz Dávalos, in his last will left the Marquis’s title joined to the primogeniture, newly founded, "to serve as a stamp and honour their holders".
The country estate of Algorfa, with house, cellar and oil mill, had an irrigated area of 508 tahúllas (60 hectares), used to herbaceous crops such as tree (mulberry trees, carob trees and orange trees, among others), and a greater extension of dryness, which was its pasture which is described as "a large portion and largest of white land of field, and crops of planted olive trees, vineyards and fig trees", with an area close to 12,000 tahúllas (about 1,422 Has .).
The farm was leased to a cultivator who in turn was practising the sublease, for what the land was fragmenting into pieces of land for better crop and expansion of the space.
The human presence was increased in this area by means of building houses huts scattered around the area for the cultivation, hence the existence of the parish before the grant of the privilege alfonsino, but without collect the fifteen families of settlers.
By contracts of sharecropping signed in Formentera on May 30, 1790, between Ignacio Perez de Sarrió, Marquis of Algorfa and territorial master of Formentera, and the head of household who were coming to populate this land, the indispensable requirement was fulfilled for obtaining the jurisdiction alfonsina.
The conditions of population establish for all of them the annual payment, the day of San Miguel, of 6 pounds for the rent of the house and the partition of fruits harvested by the enjoyment and cultivation of the land, amen of two in concept of special allowance to deliver to the Marques on that day. The partition of fruits was consisting of the sixth part for the herbaceous utilizations, and the half for the arboreal ones. With the commitment on the part of the colonists, so that the population of Algorfa was not to less "to live continuously in the expressed house" or in its fault "to put a neighbour married who is living in it in order to keep the Marquis satisfied".
There was no one month when by Real Provision given in the city of Valencia on 26 June 1790, his majesty Carlos IV, granted to the spouses Ignacio Perez of Sarrió and Isabel Ruiz Dávalos, Marquises of Algorfa, the privilege alfonsino, on the neighbours of the place recently founded in the inheritance of Algorfa, owned by the expressed marquise.
This way it was the birth of this new population whose beginnings were not easy at all, so the neighbouring villas of Almoradí and Rojales put many obstacles to the municipal independence of newly Algorfa's created place, which was an object of a long lawsuit between the Marquises of Algorfa and the bordering municipalities.