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Huerta de Rey (Municipality, Castilla y León, Spain)

Flag of Huerta de Rey - Image from the Escudos y Banderas de la Provincia de Burgos website, 4 February 2014

Presentation of Huerta de Rey
Symbols of Huerta de Rey
Submunicipal entities

See also:

Presentation of Huerta de Rey

The municipality of Huerta de Rey (1,088 inhabitants in 2010; 9,800 ha; municipal website) is located in the southeast of the Province of Burgos, on the border with Province of Soria, 80 km of Burgos. The municipality is made of the villages of Huerta de Rey, Hinojar del Rey (81 inh.), Peñalba de Castro (98 inh.) and Quintanarraya (133 inh.).

Huerta de Rey, resettled by King Alfonso III (866-910), was in the 10th century the capital of a big alfoz (group of villages) encompassing Tornillos, Villa Quemada, Rocalla, Quintaniella, Oleros, Pérex, Rodiella, Piniella de Reposteros, Vexares, Espinosiella (mentioned in the Cantar de Mío Cid chanson de geste), Pumaejos, Sant Yagüe, Las Aceñas and Molinterrado. The village, known in the Arab chronicles as Warfa, was sacked in 920 and 934 by Abd-ar-Rahman III, and, once again, by Al-Mansur. King Alfonso VI transferred Huerta de Rey to the Santo Domingo de Silo monastery, which was confirmed in a Bull signed on 9 April 1148 by Pope Eugene III. On 22 June 1637, Philip IV granted the title of villa to Huerta de Rey. The village was partially destroyed by a blaze in March 1918.

Huerta de Rey, as the world's capital of people with "rare or less common names", organized in August 2008 the 1st International Meeting of Rare Names. More than 200 villagers bear odd names such as Sindulfo, Aniceto, Marciana, Alpidia, Ercilio, Bienvenida, Firmo, Anacleta, Atolia, Canuta, Arón, Hermógenes, Onesiforo or Sicilio; at the end of the 19th century, a municipal clerk fed up with administrative errors due to the high number of villagers sharing the same name, proposed to draw names from the liturgic calendar. The philologist Josep Albaigés i Olivart made a record of all the rare names used in Huerta de Rey since 1928, prefaced by the local and rare-named philologist Hermógenes Perdiguero.
` [El Comercio Digital, 9 August 2008].

Ivan Sache, 29 March 2011

Symbols of Huerta de Rey

The flag and arms of Huerta de Rey are prescribed by a Decree adopted on 29 December 1997 by the Burgos Provincial Government, signed on 15 January 1998 by the President of the Government, and published on 27 January 1998 in the official gazette of Castilla y León, No. 17 (text).
The symbols are described as follows:

Flag: Quadrangular flag with proportions 1:1, yellow with a red bend. In the middle of the flag is placed the municipal coat of arms in full colors.
Coat of arms: Quarterly, 1. and 4. Gules a castle or masoned sable port and windows azure, 2. Or Child St. Pelagius proper holding dexter the martyr's palm, 3. Or two wolves passant sable per pale. The shield surmounted with a Royal Spanish crown.

Child St. Pelagius is St. Pelagius of Cordova (c. 912-926), said to have been martyred by Caliph Abd-ar-Rahman III.

Ivan Sache, 29 March 2011

Submunicipal entities

Hinojar del Rey

Flag of Hinojar del Rey - Image by "Totemkin" (Wikimedia Commons), 20 February 2015

Hinojar del Rey (unofficial website) is the site of the Visigothic necropolis of El Barranco; 28 out of the 80 tombs were excavated in 1931 by Martínez Santa-Olalla. In 1938, S. González excavated another two tombs in Ribota.
Hinojar was first mentioned in 1073, as Fenollare. In 1075, Febnolgare was listed among the possessions of the Bishop of Burgos. Fenojar was transferred to the Bishop of Osma by Alfonso VIII in 1194, solving a dispute that had lasted more than 100 years. Hinojar del Rey was incorporated in 1591 to the Arauces / Arauzos partido, a group of 14 villages with more than 4,000 inhabitants and Arauzo de Miel as its capital.

Hinojar del Rey is the birth place of Saturnino Navazo. A professional football player in Deportivo Nacional (Madrid), Navazo served in the Republican army during the Civil War and exiled to France. Captured by the Nazis, he was deported to Mauthausen, where he was appointed kapo and organizer of football plays among prisoners. Navazo saved the life of Siegfried Meir (b. 1931), a young Jew who had been transferred from Auschwitz to Mauthausen. After the liberation of the camp and to prevent separation. Navazo adopted Meir and "renamed" him Luis Navazo; the two men were allowed to settle in Revel, a town near Toulouse (France), where Navazo passed away in 1986. Meir moved to Ibiza, where he became a successful hotel manager. A close friend of the French singer Georges Moustaki (1934-2013), he co-authored with him the book Fils du brouillard (2000) and subsequently published Ma résilience (2013).
[Diario de Burgos, 16 June 2013]

The flag and arms of Hinojar del Rey are prescribed by a Decree adopted on 25 January 2011 by the Village Council, signed on 27 January 2011 by the Mayor, and published on 8 February 2011 in the official gazette of Castilla y León, No. 26, p. 9,681 (text).
The symbols are described as follows:

Flag: Rectangular, in proportions 2:3, quartered. First and fourth quarters red, second quarter, white, third quarter, yellow. In the center the coat of arms, in height 50% of the flag's height.
Coat of arms: Quarterly, 1. and 4. Gules (red) a three-towered castle or masoned sable (black) port and windows azure (blue), 2. Argent a lion gules, 3. Or nine pallets gules. Grafted in base argent a pomegranate proper. All over an escutcheon azure (blue) three fleurs- de-lis or. The shield surmounted with a Royal Spanish crown.

Ivan Sache, 20 February 2015

Peñalba de Castro

Flag of Peñalba de Castro - - Image from the Escudos y Banderas de la Provincia de Burgos website, 1 March 2015

Peñalba de Castro is located at the foot of the ruins of the old town of Clunia, which was established on the Alto del Castro (1023 m) hill, covering an area of 100 ha.
Clunia was mentioned by Pliny as located "at the end of Celtiberia" (Celtiberiae finis). Ptolemy lists the town as inhabited by the Arevaci. Accordingly, the town must have been situated in the median valley of Duero.
During the Sertorian War (83-72 BC), Quintus Sertorius was besieged by Pompey in Clunia in 75 BC; Pompey lifted the siege because of the harsh winter. He eventually seized the town in 72 BC, after Sertorius' death. Clunia joined the towns that revolted in 56-55 BC against Quintus Caecilius Metellus Nepos; the revolt was suppressed the next year by Lucius Afranius, Pompey's legate.

The Roman town of Clunia was established at an unknown date; the oldest excavated remains date back to Tiberius' period (14-37). Whether the Roman town was built on the very site of the Celtiberian town is a disputed issue.
General Servius Sulpicius Galba proclaimed himself Emperor in Clunia in 68, after Nero's suicide. The town was then known as Clunia Sulpicia; there is, however, no historical evidence that this title was granted by Galba himself.
Clunia was the capital of the Coventus Cluniensis, one of the seven judicial districts of Hispania Citerior Tarraconensis province. The town was located on the Roman way connecting Caesar Augusta (Zaragoza) and Asturica Augusta (Astorga).
[Celtiberia Historica website].

The flag and arms of Peñalba de Castro are prescribed by a Decree adopted on 4 June 2009 by the Village Council, signed on 5 June 2009 by the Mayor, and published on 22 June 2009 in the official gazette of Castilla y León, No. 116, p. 18,828 (text).
The symbols are described as follows:

Flag: Rectangular, in proportions 2:3, made of two equal vertical stripes. At hoist a red stripe charged with a golden castle with three towers masoned in black and with blue port and windows. At fly a yellow stripe charged with a red Celtiberian rider. Beneath the rider the name of the town in Celtiberian alphabet, on a single line, in red letters. The charge's height is 60% of the flag's height.
Coat of arms: Per pale, 1. Gules (red) a castle or with three towers masoned sable (black) port and windows azure (blue), 2. Or a Celtiberian rider gules. Beneath the rider the name of the town in Celtiberian alphabet, on a single line, in letters gules. The shield surmounted with a Royal crown closed.

The municipal administration used in 1876 a coat of arms, whose exact design has been lost. The coat of arms featured a castle representing Castile.
The Celtiberian rider and writing are featured on the reverse of a coin (image) minted in Clunia during the Sertorian period (80-72 BC).

Ivan Sache, 1 March 2015

Quintanarraya

Flag of Quintanarraya - - Image from the Escudos y Banderas de la Provincia de Burgos website, 2 March 2015

Quintanarraya (webpage) was first mentioned on a document of the Arlanza monastery dated 1048. The village was granted in 1073 by King Alfonso VI to the Santo Domingo de Silos abbey. The village was then known as Quintana de Annaya, Annaya being a common anthroponym in Castile at the time.
The village is crossed by the Mills' Canal, used in the past to power several mills.

The flag and arms of Quintanarraya are prescribed by a Decree adopted on 12 November 1998 by the Government of the Province of Burgos, signed on 30 December 1998 by the President, and published on 10 December 1998 in the official gazette of Castilla y León, No. 236 (text).
The symbols, which were validated by the Chronicler of Arms of Castilla y León, are described as follows:

Flag: Castilian, in proportions 1:1. Tierced, or with upper double distribution, the 1st field gules, the 2nd azure and the lower or (yellow). All over in the middle of the flag is placed the full, crowned coat of arms of Quintanarraya.
Coat of arms: Per fess, 1. Azure over waves argent and azure a sledgehammer attached to a millstone to hit a stone, all argent. 2. On a base vert and gules a holly oak proper a boar sable an eagle volant of the same. Mantled in base purpure two crosses per saltire the one or the other argent a wheat spike sable in between. The shield surmounted with a Royal crown closed.

The Royal Academy of History rejected the proposed arms, which "totally differs from the models and traditional standards" and should be re-designed from scratch. Moreover, the odd device represented in the 1st quarter does not match any known mechanism.
The proposed flag, which contains the rejected arms, should also be re- designed from scratch.
[Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia, 2000, 197, 2: 344]

Ivan Sache, 2 March 2015

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