Last modified: 2019-10-14 by ivan sache
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The municipality of Garaballa (72 inhabitants in 2015; 7,188 ha; unofficial website) is located 110 km south-east of Cuenca.
Garaballa was known to the Arabs as Garbaya.
The Tejeda Virgin is said to have been found in 1205 in a linden
(tejo) by a shepherd named Juan. Whether the statue was found in a
tree or in a cave is still a matter of conjecture. Anyway, the
inhabitants of the Sierra de Cuenca erected a small chapel to protect
the statue. The Trinitarians Discalced subsequently built a church and a
monastery close to the place where the statue had been allegedly found,
near river Ojos de Moya and the border with the Kingdom of Valencia,
then a Moorish state.
In 1516, a flood suppressed the church and the convent, leaving only the
statue and the Holy Sacrament, which were transferred to the parish
church of Garaballa. The church of the new convent was achieved in 1581,
while it took another two centuries and a half to complete the building
of the monastery. The Marquesses of Moya were allowed to be interred in
the main chapel of the new church, on which they placed their family arms.
On 7 June 1639/1693, following a long drought period, the inhabitants of
Moya were allowed to bring the Tejeda Virgin to the town, for a
celebration that lasted, "night and day", for the next nine days. A
"very sweet rain" then fell down for seven hours, so that it was decided
to pay tribute to the Virgin every seven years.
The Tejeda Virgin is carried to Moya in a procession that gathers
thousands of pilgrims. In 1927, the St. Bartholomew church of Moya,
hosting he statue, was destroyed by a blaze that left only the head of
the Virgin. Restaured by Mario Pérez, the statue was broken into pieces
during the Civil War, its fragments being hidden by the Republican Mayor
in his home.
Ivan Sache, 25 June 2019
The flag of Garaballa is prescribed by an Order issued on 16 October
2006 by the Government of Castilla-La Mancha and published on 25 October
2006 in the official gazette of Castilla-La Mancha, No. 221, p. 21,9169 (text).
The flag is described as follows:
Flag: Rectangular in proportions 2:3, made of two vertical stripes of equal size separated by a serration of three pieces, at hoist blue with a white cross, at fly, white with an uprooted green pine.
The coat of arms of Garaballa is prescribed by an Order issued on 16
October 2006 by the Government of Castilla-La Mancha and published on 25
October 2006 in the official gazette of Castilla-La Mancha, No. 221, p.
21,916 (text).
The coat of arms is described as follows:
Coat of arms: Per fess serrated of three, 1. Argent two pines vert eradicated in saltire, 2. Azure a church argent masoned sable surmuonted by a Trinitarian cross argent surrounded by two branches of lily argent in base wavy argent and azure. The shield surmounted by a Royal crown closed.
The Royal Academy of History rejected the proposed symbols. The
combination of different heraldic charges in the flag and in the arms
(for instance, two trees on the flag but only one on the arms)
constitutes a "severe anomaly".
[Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia 203:2, 194. 2006]
Ivan Sache, 25 June 2019
