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Covaleda (Municipality, Castilla y León, Spain)

Flag of Covaleda - Image by Ivan Sache, 29 May 2011

Presentation of Covaleda
Symbols of Covaleda

See also:

Presentation of Covaleda

The municipality of Covaleda (1,891 inhabitants in 2010; 10,566 ha; municipal website) is located in the north-west of Soria Province, on the border with La Rioja, 40 km from Soria.

Covaleda was mentioned for the first time in the Chronicles of Fernán González, recalling that the villagers contributed to a battle won over the Moors on 10 June 929. The next mention is dated 1260, when King Alfonso X granted a charter to the village, which recognized the collective ownership of the surrounding mountains; the charter was subsequently confirmed by John I and Philip II. Gonzalo de Ayora's Chronicle claims that the villagers of Covaleda contributed in the 11th century to the resettlement of Ávila and to the building of its fortifications.
The water saws (sierras de aguas), aka vertical saws (sierras verticales), are primitive sawmills used in the past to saw timber. Today superseded by modern sawmills, they have been preserved as a part of the village's heritage.
Pico de Urbién (2,229 m asl), which dominates the village and forms the border with La Rioja, is the most significant element of the Covaleda natural environment, which has been described in several literature works, such as Antonio Machado's La Tierra de Alvagonzález, Gerardo Diego's Cumbre de Urbién, and Virgilio Soria's Urbién.

Ivan Sache, 29 May 2011

Symbols of Covaleda

The flag of Covaleda is prescribed by a Decree adopted on 1 June 1998 by the Soria Provincial Government, signed on 4 June 1998 by the President of the Government, and published on 15 June 1998 in the official gazette of Castilla y León, No. 111 (text).
The flag is described as follows:

Flag: White flag made of mat or shiny silk, of 1 m x 1 m, that is, a square of 1 m in size. In the axis of its two diagonals is placed the municipal coat of arms in full colors.
Coat of arms: Gules a lady argent riding a horse holding a sword in canton a castle or masoned sable port and windows azure. The shield surmounted with a Royal crown closed.

The coat of arms of Covaleda (image) is prescribed by a Decree adopted on 28 May 1996 by the Soria Provincial Government, signed on 4 July 1996 by the President of the Government, and published on 16 July 1996 in the official gazette of Castilla y León, No. 136 (text).
The coat of arms is described as follows:

Coat of arms: [Per pale,] 1. Argent a pine proper, 2. Gules a castle or masoned sable ensigned with a royal effigy azure and sable. The shield surmounted with a Royal crown closed.

The dexter quarter represents the local pinewoods, while the effigy shown on its sinister part belongs to Alfonso VII (also shown on the arms of Soria).

The Royal Academy of History approved the design of the arms, as representing the "Land of the Pines" and the town of Soria. However, the realistic details should be removed from the description of the arms, to be shortened to "a pine proper" (Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia, 1997, 194, 2: 388).

Beforehand, the municipality used the arms of Castilla y León, with the name of the municipality appended, as adopted on 30 December 1983 by the Municipal Council and approved on 23 February 1984 by a Decree of the Government of Castilla y León published on 5 March 1984 in the official gazette of Castilla y León, No. 10 (text).

The Royal Academy of History refused to review the proposed flag since "it contains a coat of arms not previously reviewed by the Academy" (Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia, 2000, 197, 2: 362). This is quite odd, since the Academy indeed validated the coat of arms in 1997 - unless the flag proposal included other arms, which seems to be equally odd.

Ivan Sache, 16 January 2014