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Last modified: 2020-02-22 by ivan sache
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Flag of Peñalver - Image by "Nethunter", Wikimedia Commons, 7 September 2019
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The municipality of Peñalver (187 inhabitants in 2015; 8,131 ha; presentation) is located 40 km of Guadalajara.
Peñalver is said to have belonged to Queen Berenguaria (1180-1246), the
mother of King Ferdinand III the Saint (1199-1252), who was from
Guadalajara. Together with Alhóndiga, Peñalver formed a Commandery of the Order of St. John, established in the 13th century. The vilagers first obeyed the Law of Guadalajara until properly chartered in 1272 by
the Chapter of the Order. The Commander stayed in the castle erected
atop the hill, at the highest point of the village.
Peñalver was granted the status of villa in the middle of the 16th
century, as recalled by the pillory erected on the road to Tendilla. In
1552, the town was purchased by Juan Juárez de Carvajal (1485-1584),
Bishop of Lugo (1539-1561), who was succeeded by his son, Garcia Juárez
de Carvajal. The villagers tabled several legal complaints against their
despotic regime. Subsequent lords of Peñalver were the Marquesses of
Almenara and the Dukes of Híjar.
Ivan Sache, 7 September 2019
The flag of Peñalver is prescribed by an Order adopted on 13 July 2006
by the Government of Castilla-La Mancha and published on 24 July 2006 in
the official gazette of Castilla-La Mancha, No. 150, p. 16,116 (text).
The flag is described as follows:
Flag: Quadrangular in proportions 2:3, made of a red panel charged with a white Cross of St. John. The cross shall be in width 70% of the flag's width.
The coat of arms of Peñalver is prescribed by an Order adopted on 13
July 2006 by the Government of Castilla-La Mancha and published on 24
July 2006 in the official gazette of Castilla-La Mancha, No. 150, p. 16,116 (text).
The coat of arms is described as follows:
Coat of arms: Spanish shield. Gules an eight-pointed Cross of St. John, plain white, centered. The shield surmounted by a Royal crown closed.
The flag is a banner of the municipal arms; Philip II's Relaciones
Topográticas state that "the town never used another coat of arms than
the Cross of St. John, in the time the town belonge to that order".
[Jorge Hurtado Maqueda. 2008-2010. Vexilología local en Guadalajara. Wad-al-Hayara: Revista de estudios de Guadalajara 35-37, 475-505; ]
The Royal Academy of History rejected the proposed symbols. It is not
acceptable that a municipality borrows the distinctive cross of the
Knights of the Order of St. John for its proper use, designing arms
bearing only this charge. Moreover, the Academy recalled "once more"
that the "eight-pointed" cross was used on cloth and shields, but is not
approriate as an heraldic charge. The Masters and Commanders of the
Order never used it in the times of good heraldic practice, but rather
used a plain cross throughout, which constitutes the distinctive emblem
of the Order.
The flag cannot be approved either since it reproduces the rejected arms.
[Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia 203:2, 193. 2006]
Ivan Sache, 7 September 2019
