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Last modified: 2020-11-14 by ivan sache
Keywords: quintanilla vivar | vivar del cid |
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The municipality of Quintanilla Vivar (77 inhabitants in 2010; 1,338 ha) is located in the center of the Province of Burgos, 10 km of Burgos. The municipality is made of the villages of Quintanilla Vivar (capital) and Vivar del Cid.
Quintanilla Morocisla was founded in 882 by a few families led by
Munio Cixilia, a colonist of Visigothic origin; the resettlers must
have came from León. In 1103, King Alfonso VI confirmed the Burgos charter and extended it to the villages forming its alfoz (group of villages), including Quintanilla; the village was documented in 1124 as Quintaniella de Munio Cisla.
Vivar del Cid is named for the famous hero Rodrigo Díaz, aka El Cid Campeador (1041/1054-1099), although there is no historical evidence
he was born in Vivar. A warlord serving different Christian and
Moorish rulers, Rodrigo Díaz is the hero of the first Spanish cantar de gesta (chanson de geste), El Cantar de mio Cid, written in 1195-1207, and of the French classic tragedy Le Cid, written by Pierre Corneille (1636). Rodrigo Díaz appears as a champion of the Christian cause, which he was not totally, since he acted as a mercenary for Moorish leaders after disputes with King Alfonso VI and
eventually ruled over a large principality around Valencia, nominally
only on the King's behalf.
Ivan Sache, 12 March 2011
The flag and arms of Quintanilla Vivar, adopted on 6 July 2000 by the Municipal Council, are prescribed by a Decree adopted on 11 October 2000 by the Burgos Provincial Government, signed on 19 October 2000 by the President of the Government, and published on 8 November 2000 in the official gazette of Castilla y León, No. 216, p. 13,660 (text).
The symbols are described as follows:
Flag: Quadrangular flag, with proportions 1:1. Three horizontal stripes, the first yellow (0.30), the second white (0.40) and the third green (0.30). In the middle of the flag is placed the municipal coat of arms.
Coat of arms: Vert a fess wavy argent, in chief a tower and a fence argent a sword and a hoe or, in base a garb of five spikes or a garb of poppies gules fimbriated or ensigned with a cross patty or between two bezants of the same. The shield surmounted with a Royal crown closed.
The Royal Academy of History rejected the proposed coat of arms, which
includes no less than nine charges, some of them represented in odd
perspective view, other scattered over the field or grouped in
incoherent combinations, such as the sword and the hoe.
The flag proposal, charged with the rejected coat of arms, should be
reworked in a joint new proposal of flag and arms.
[Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia, 2002, 199, 3: 452]
The flag in official use (photo) is in proportions 2:3 instead of the prescribed 1:1, with equal stripes instead of the prescribed 3:4:3 proportions.
Ivan Sache, 2 March 2015
Flag of Vivar del Cid - Image from Escudos y Banderas de la Provincia de Burgos, 2 March 2015
The submunicipal entity of Vivar del Cid (340 inhabitants in 2013) is the alleged birth place of the Spanish / Castilian national hero, Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (c. 1048-1099), better known as El Cid. Although the national historiography portrays him as the champion of the Christian Reconquest, modern historians consider El Cid rather as an opportunistic mercenary who served in turn Christian and Muslim rulers. He proclaimed himself King of Valencia in 1094, ruling the area until his death.
There is no firm evidence that Vivar was the actual birth place of El Cid. This was first stated in a late cantar de gesta, Mocedades de Rodrigo, composed around 1360. The most famous El Cantar de mio Cid (1200) calls the hero el de Bivar (the one from Vivar), but "from" might also have meant he had a domain there. The oldest works relating El Cid's life (Gesta Roderici Campidocti, 1188/1190; Poema latino del Cid, 1190; Linage de Rodric Díaz, 1195) are silent about his birth place.
The flag and arms of Vivar del Cid are prescribed by a Decree issued on 10 April 2002 by the Village Council, signed on 24 April 2002 by the Mayor, and published on 6 June 2002 in the official gazette of Castilla y León, No. 108, pp. 7,552-7,553 (text).
The symbols are described as follows:
Flag: Quadrangular, 1:1, tricolor. A silver bend of 3/10 in height, the upper part of the flag red and the lower green. In the heart of the flag is placed the municipal coat of arms.
Coat of arms: Per pale, 1. Gules two swords argent hilted or per saltire charged with a shield argent a three-towered castle masoned sable, 2. Argent a tree eradicated vert ensigned with a goshawk volant in base a fess wavy azure. The shield surmounted with a Royal crown closed.
he swords are not named in the official description of the arms, but their representation allows, beyond reasonable doubt, identification with El Cid's swords, Tizona, kept in the Army Museum in Burgos, and Colada, kept in the Royal Arsenal. The fess wavy azure represents river Uberna.
[María Cruz García López & Alberto Montaner Frutos. 2003. El estandarte cidano de Vivar (Burgos). Emblemata 19, 501-532]
Tizona is of 78.5 cm in length on 45 cm in width. According to the latest scientific investigations, the sword's blade, of top quality, is contemporary with El Cid, while the hilt was changed during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs. The blade is inscribed "ave maria gratia plena dominus tecum e io soi tisona, fue fecha en la era de mile quarenta". The blade is equipped with a small channel in order to introduce air in the wound and speed up death.
Ferdinand the Catholic offered Tizona to the Marquess of Peralta and 2nd Marquess of Falces, as a reward for his contribution to the incorporation of Navarra into the crown. In 1924, Pilar de Dueñas, Countess of Tavira and Marchioness of Falces, bequeathed the sword to her nephew, José María Velluti, 14th Marquess of Falces. Not interested in the sword, he placed it at the Army Museum. His children, Pedro and Olga Velluti, maintained the contract with the museum in 1980. Pedro Velluti died in 1987; two years before, he had bequeathed all his goods to Salustiano Fernández and Jacinta Méndez, a couple of humble fishers from Luarca (Asturias), who had taken care of him during his last years, whereas his sister had "abandoned him". Disinherited Olga became the head of the house of Falces, a title she transfered in 1997 to her son, José Ramón Suárez del Otero; The 17th Marquess of Falces offered for sale Tizona for thousand million pesetas (~ 6 million euros); the Ministry of Culture reduced the price to 5 million peseta, arguing that there was no evidence that the sword was the genuine Tizon described in El Cantor de mio Cid. Aware of the sale, Salustiano and Jacinta reclaimed their part of the sale in 2011, the claim being subsequently maintained by their children. The request was accepted by a court in Madrid in 2010 and confirmed in 2014 by the Provincial Court; the Supreme Court, however, turned down the decision in 2016, mostly because the sword was not explicitly listed in Pedro's last will, and therefore Olga's legitimate property.
[El Español, 23 November 2018]
Colada is of 92.4 cm in length and 4.8 cm in width, without a hilt. Offered by the Catholic Monarchs to the Segovia Alcazar, the sword was incorporated to the Arsenal of the Royal Palace by Philip II. The Count of Valencia de Don Juan, director of the Royal Arsenal in 1898, believed that Colada was actually owned by El Cid and was, indeed, the mythic Tizona.
[El País, 8 March 2011]
Ivan Sache, 3 October 2020
