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Abia de las Torres (Municipality, Castilla y León, Spain)

Flag of Abia de las Torres
Left, as prescribed - Image by "Valdavia" (Wikimedia Commons), 11 April 2011
Right, as used - Image by Ivan Sache, 11 April 2011

Presentation of Abia de las Torres
Symbols of Abia de las Torres

See also:

Presentation of Abia de las Torres

The municipality of Abia de las Torres (178 inhabitants in 2010; 2,716 ha; municipal website) is located 50 km from Palencia.

Abia de las Torres could have been the place called Avia by Ptolemy, who presented it as one of the main fortified towns of the pre-Roman Vaccaei tribe. The only local archeological evidence of such an early settlement, however, is a stele dedicated to a Roman soldier, kept in the parish church's sacristy.
In the 12th century, King Alfonso XII granted a charter to Abia, with equal rights to all the villagers, were they Castilians, Franks, Moors or Jews. The village was ruled by Count Gómez, from the Lara lineage, that would stay there for the next six centuries. Abia was the birth place of Bernardo Manrique de Lara, 5th Marquis of Aguilar and 8th Count of Castañeda. In the 13th century, Queen Urraca founded the Santa María de los Barrios de Abia monastery, depending on the Las Huelgas monastery in Burgos.

Ivan Sache, 11 April 2011

Symbols of Abia de las Torres

The flag and arms of Abia de las Torres are prescribed by a Decree adopted on 27 July 1998 by the Palencia Provincial Government, signed on 28 July 1998 by the President of the Government and published on 10 August 1998 in the official gazette of Castilla y León, No. 151 (text).
The symbols are described as follows:

Flag: Quadrangular flag with proportions 1:1, ultramarine blue. In the middle of the flag is placed the municipal coat of arms in full colors.
Coat of arms: Shield in Spanish shape, quadrangular, rounded-off in base. Per fess, 1. Azure three fesses wavy fimbriated sable, 2a. Gules two cauldrons or checky sable per pale with seven snakes sable fimbriated or as the handle, 2b. Or a castle gules masoned sable, a bordure argent charged with eight ermines. The shield surmounted with a Royal Spanish crown.

The Royal Academy of History accepted the proposed municipal arms, recalling the Marquis of Aguilar, recommending a few modifications. The black lining around the fesses wavy is unheraldic and should be removed. The balance of the design requires the relocation of the cauldrons on each side of the castle. The shield should not be surmounted with a Marquis' coronet, but with the Royal Spanish crown.
Accordingly, the Academy proposed: "Per fess, 1. Azure three fesses wavy argent, 2. Gules a castle or surrounded by two cauldrons checky or and sable, a bordure ermine. The shield surmounted with a Royal Spanish crown".
The Academy validated the proposed flag, rectangular with proportions 2:3, plain ultramarine blue (Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia, 2000, 197, 2: 349).

The flag used on the Town Hall (photo) seems indeed to be as proposed by the Academy, and not as prescribed in the Decree. The amended symbols should have been described in a new Decree, which does not appear in the official gazette of Castilla y León.

Ivan Sache, 11 April 2011