About Quixote's Route
(Ángel Ligero Móstoles)

Mr. Ligero writes the following in the section «Quixote's Route» in the 1st volume of his book «La Mancha de Don Quijote»:

"If there have been many difficulties for the researchers to find Cervante's true birthplace, which keeps on being problematic, it is not less rambling to state exactly a route well fitted to Don Quixote, as it is still an unknown the origin of the «Hidalgo» and which was intentionally hidden in the dark by the author so that the cities of La Mancha compete for it as «did the seven Greek cities for Homer».

It has not been a problem for me thanks to several slips of the author, the diabolic Cide Hamete Benengeli, which provides very reliable tracks to be on the right trail without error.

The fact is that there are few places to fix one's attention on, because it is «a place near El Toboso», and the two first trips began towards the «Countryside of Montiel» without going through El Toboso itself, so it is mandatory to focus on a town located in the south of it and to look for any exisiting data related to the families of Gutiérrez Quijada or Pedro Barba, from whose lineage by a straight male line Don Quixote was descended (Cervantes, chapter 49th of the 1st part of «Don Quixote»)."

Mr. Ligero shows clearly and documentally in this work, chapter «Genealogy», the existence of this lineage in Alcázar de San Juan and adds, as a perspective full of common sense and logic, that in the third trip, in his way to Saragossa, Don Quixote did pass through El Toboso, taking advantage of the occasion to stop and visit his Dulcinea.

Ligero goes on writing:

"It has not lost attention and become an argueing debate, as all Cervante's writings, the so called "Countryside of Montiel", and as it has been written so much about it to make the most of this or that place for the glory of the Hidalgo Don Quixote, that we have to clarify as best as we can in line with everything else limited and separated, the opportunism that have hurt so much to the opinion and Cervantes himself.

«Therefore our resplendent adventurer was walking as he talked to himself and saying:

- Who doubts that in the coming times, when the true story of my famous actions comes out, that the wise person who writes them will not say the following, when he tells about this my first trip early in the morning? - As soon as the ruddy Apollo had stretched on the wide and spacious earth the golden threads of his beautiful hair [...] when the famous knight Don Quixote of La Mancha, leaving his idle feathers, get on his famous horse Rocinante and began to ride through the ancient and known Countryside of Montiel. And it was true that he was walking through it.» (Cervantes, chapter 2nd of the 1st part of «Don Quixote»)

Cervantes was not lying, as the Countryside of Montiel began at the local district of Alcázar de San Juan, and knowing as we now know that this place was the hidalgo's one, nothing opposes geographically with the assertion of what Cervantes fictionalized. In times of Saint James, between 1150 and 1200, Alcázar was included in it."

Mr. Ligero goes on providing data that show the link of Alcázar to the Countryside of Montiel, as can be seen in some documents he studies.

"He consultado diferentes mapas y estudios sobre el tema y me ha parecido el más ajustado el incluido por el ilustre académico manchego don Manuel Corchado Soriano, aunque se queda algo corto en los trazos de la parte Norte, pues si bien lo deja en tierras de Alcázar, no en la misma ciudad, como corresponde, pues siempre las regiones incluían a las ciudades o villas al hacer los trazados territoriales de ellas puesto que los poblados eran tan importantes en la economía, como las propias tierras.

En los amojonamientos que se hicieron en 1280 entre las Órdenes de Santiago, Calatrava y las de San Juan, documento en los archivos de Alcázar, se hizo la división desde los Cerros de Corral de Almaguer y pasando por las sierras de Campo de Criptana dejaron el último mojón en Santa María de Guadiana, siendo desde ese punto hacia el oeste para las Órdenes de San Juan, sin que en el citado documento se limitara la parte de las de Calatrava, sin duda porque estarían ya concertadas con las de San Juan.

En el mapa citado vemos incluidos a los ríos Guadiana, Záncara y Gigüela, y muy notablemente la venta de Quesada, términos pertenecientes a Alcázar. Incluso en 1700 la anotada venta Quesada pertenecía a ellos, como lo demuestra el documento:

«A veintiún días del mes de Junio de 1703, del Hospital de Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles trajeron un hombre muerto los alcaldes de dicha villa (Alcázar), que no se reconoció su edad, señas, nombre ni apellidos, respecto de la corrupción, que tenía la cara consumida, y a este tenor lo demás de su cuerpo; pues lo hallaron muerto cinco leguas desta dicha villa junto a la Venta Quesada, término della, en un sembrado de centeno y se enterró en la Iglesia de Santa María...» (54)

Another important document which proves that Alcázar belongs to the Countryside of Montiel:

«Sepan cuantos esta carta de testamento vieren como yo, Doña Ana Mónica Ramírez de Arellano, estante en esta villa de Alcázar, y mujer de D. Gregorio de Contreras, sargento mayor de milicias destos prioratos de San Juan, ciudad de Alcázar y Campos de Montiel, por su Majestad; estando en forma...»

No ofrece ningún interés el resto del testamento e incluye otro de su esposo (Libro de Protocolo, 55).

«Sépase por esta pública escritura de poder, como yo, Don Gregorio de Contreras, sargento mayor en estos prioratos de San Juan, y del partido de Villanueva de los Infantes y de las milicias y residentes en esta villa de Alcázar, otorgo y doy mi poder cumplido, el que de derecho se requiere y mas pueda y deba valer, a Juan Rubio Morcillo, vecino de Villanueva de los Infantes y escribano del Rey nuestro Señor y perpetuo de comisiones de la dicha villa y su partido, especialmente para que en mi nombre y representando a mi persona, pueda hacer y cobrar y recibir y demandar en juicio o fuera de él, cuatro mil y ochocientos reales del tesorero que es de la dicha villa de Villanueva, y de aquella persona o personas que en cualesquiera forma y manera lo deban pagar; los cuales los tengo de haber por razón de mis soldados deste presente año de mil y seiscientos y cuarenta y seis...» (Libro de protocolos, 56)."

Mr. Ligero adds that, although Mr. Gregorio de Contreras holds this position twenty years after Cervantes' death, in fact the "Brotherhood" militias existed in Alcázar since they had been founded during the Catholic Kings's reign in 1496 and it was responsibility of the units which where here present the safekeeping and the order in the region.

Ligero poses intelligently and simply a three-unknown quantity equation: "a place near El Toboso", "the two first trips towards the Countryside of Montiel" and the "Hidalgo's genealogy". Having solved the two latter, the first one is found by itself. But it is in the Hidalgo's genealogy where Ligero reaches documentally the figure which serves him as an image for his character: Mr. Alonso de Ayllón, Mrs. Teresa Mendonza's husband.