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Last modified: 2021-05-16 by ivan sache
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Flag of Cristóbal - Image by Ivan Sache, 16 May 2021
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The municipality of Cristóbal (157 inhabitants in 2019 vs. 842 in 1940; 2,208 ha; municipal website) is located 76 km south of Salamanca and 20 km north-east of Béjar.
Cristóbal, aka Cristóbal de la Sierra, was named for one of his re-settlers in the 12th-13th centuries, and not for a St. Christopher.
The village's heights were already settled in the Prehistoric times, as evidenced by rock engravings dated to the Bronze Age. Remains of two Prehistoric fortified settlements were found close to the confluence of rivers Sangusí:n and Alagón.
The area was settled by the Visigoths, as evidenced by the necropolis excavated on the border with the municipality of Santa MarÃa de los Llanos, which yielded different anthropomorphic tombs.
In the 10th century, river Alagón formed the border between the Christian and Muslim states, transforming the area in a no man's land abandoned by its inhabitants.
After the Christian reconquest, Cristóbal was incorporated to the Marquisate of Montemayor, together with Aldeacipreste, Colmenar, Horcajo, La Calzada de Béjar, El Cerro, Valdelageve, Lagunilla, Valdehijaderos, Peñacaballera, Valdefuentes and Montemayor. The area was re-settled in the late 12th - early 13th centuries, once the border had been moved southwards.
For centuries, flax was cultivated in the plains neighboring Cristóbal, where up to 24 weaver's households were once recorded.
Ivan Sache, 5 December 2020
The flag and arms of Cristóbal are prescribed by an Agreement adopted on 11 September 2020 by the Municipal Council, signed on 18 November 2020 by the Mayor, and published on 25 November 2020 in the official gazette of Castilla y León, No. 245, p. 47,773 (text).
The symbols, which are supported by a memoir redacted by Ricardo Gil Turrión, are described as follows:
Flag: Quadrangular, in proportions 1:1. Quartered, the upper hoist and lower fly quarters, white, the two other, yellow, each quarter charged in the center with a black wolf's head, at hoist looking to the hoist, at fly, looking to the fly. Charged in the center with the municipal coat of arms.
Coat of arms: Spanish shield rounded-off in base. Per pale, 1. Argent an elm eradicated vert, 2. Or four wolf's heads sable looking to dexter, sinister, dexter, and sinister. The shield surmounted by a Spanish Royal crown.
Cristóbal is known as Wolves' Village. Until the 1950s, wolves were common in the mountainous and woody areas surrounding Cristóbal. The bell's tower of the parish church (16th century) has its cornice decorated with four grotesque, zoomorphic heads. Identification is difficult but the animals are locally said to be wolves.
[Municipal website]
Ivan Sache, 5 December 2020
