Only seven ninth-century charters survive in the Tumbo de Celanova. The earliest dates to 842, some fifty-two years after surviving charters begin in the Santo Toribio cartulary, and ninety-four years before the monastery of Celanova was founded in 936. The insights that these seven charters provide can be augmented by information drawn from ninth-century documents belonging to other Galician cartularies such as Sobrado, but if we are prepared to look beyond 900 in search of a more compelling turning point, the Celanova material offers new vistas. A crucial moment in the region's early medieval history was the foundation of Celanova, and it therefore makes sense to use the date of this event, 12 September 936, as a partition of convenience. Fifty-two charters from the Tumbo pre-date the monastery's foundation and many of these describe transactions undertaken by non-elite actors, allowing us to appreciate various aspects of local society in southern Galicia. In the chapters that follow, we return to the village world once again, this time looking at developments after Celanova's foundation, before elite politics and the workings of the public sphere will take precedence: this will allow us to see how and in what ways the presence of Celanova and the status of its leading family shaped the development of local society.

The social landscape

To the extent that ninth- and early tenth-century communities were bound by Christian rites and routines, the social landscape of southern Galicia – all those families, friends and neighbours visible – was also a deeply religious one. Sánchez Pardo has described a ninth-century world populated by a multitude of small local churches, each providing for the needs of the community, forming a fixed devotional locus for villagers concerned for the souls of the departed. Admittedly, a mere handful of ninth-century documents survive in the Celanova collection, but a consolidated culture of worship is presupposed by the many religious books which the priest Beatus gave to a church at Arnoya in 889. These included psalters, antiphonaries and hymn-books, as well as a copy of the Forum Iudicum and Uitas Patrum. These venerable tomes were given to a church that Beatus had recently restored, so this was not a new foundation but a replenishment of the staples needed for settled religious practice: hence the appearance of books, candles and crosses in the charter's list of provisions.