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Last modified: 2019-09-16 by ivan sache
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Flag of Los Corrales - Image from the Símbolos de Sevilla website, 31 May 2014
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The municipality of Los Corrales (4,029 inhabitants in 2014; 6,706 ha; municipal website), is located 100 km south-east of Seville, on the border with the Province of Málaga.
Los Corrales was already settled at the Roman times, as evidenced by the remains of a fortress located in Cortijo de Repla; the ruins could belong to the town of Ilipa or Ilipula Minor, shown on the Antonine Itinerary. During he Muslim period, the area, located on the border with the Christian states, was unsafe and nearly totally deserted. After the Christian reconquest, the area was controlled by Osuna, which forbid grazing and permanent settlement.
The first permanent settlement was established around 1570, on the right bank of the brook of Fuente Mala. The colonists were mostly shepherds who built enclosures (corrales) to keep cattle; the village was soon known as La Puebla de Los Corrales, the name being subsequently shortened to Los Corrales. The soil was very poor; accordingly, only 10 households could settle the place, whose growth was extremely slow.
Ivan Sache, 31 May 2014
The flag and arms of Los Corrales are prescribed by a Decree adopted on 9 August 1995, signed on 25 September 1995 by the Mayor and published on 11 November 1995 in the official gazette of Andalusia, No. 142, p. 10,637 (text). The symbols do not appear to have been officially registered.
The symbols are described as follows:
Flag: Rectangular, in proportions 11 x 18, made of three parallel stripes perpendicular to the hoist, the first, red and the third, yellow, each of 1/6 of the flag's width, and the second, blue, of 4/6. In the center the local coat of arms.
Coat of arms: Spanish shield. Per fess, 1. Azure a horse passant or, 2. Or three gyrons gules a bordure or and gules of three orders, for the Girón lineage, Dukes of Osuna. The shield surmounted by a Royal crown closed [detailed description skipped]
The municipality previously used a coat of arms described as "Per pale, 1. Quarterly, 1. and 4. Gules a castle proper, 2. and 3. Or a lion rampant gules, inescutcheon azure a pomegranate open proper, 2. Or three gyrons gules a bordure checky or and gules. Grafted in base, Azure a fleur-de-lis or. The shield surmounted by a Royal crown closed." The design breaks the rules of heraldry, showing the castle (for Castile) proper on gules and the pomegranate (for Granada) proper on azure; moreover, the lion (for León) should be purpure armed and langued gules and crowned or, on argent.
New symbols were proposed on 22 August 1994 by Juan José Antequera Luengo. The designer decided to remove the quarter showing the arms of Castile and León, as well as the heraldic references to Granada and the Bourbon dynasty, since several other Spanish municipalities could use them, and to avoid the unnecessary use of elements of the national coat of arms.
The proposal was partially rejected on 27 March 1996 by the Royal Academy of Córdoba. The Academy did not object the use of the horse in the first quarter, which is "simple and meaningful". The Academy recalled that a horse saliant (white and with a bridle) was used as the crest on the arms of the Dukes of Osuna, as a tribute to the legendary feat achieved by Count Rodrigo González de Cisneros, the first of the lineage to be nicknamed "Girón". The Academy further recalled that the arms of old lords, when used in modern municipal heraldry, should not be altered in any way. Here, the arms used in the second quarter are a generic representation of the arms of the Girón lineage; they are indeed described by Argote de Molina (Nobleza del Andaluzía, 1588) as the proper arms of Rodrigo González de Cisneros; the checky bordure represents the genuine arms of the Count's lineage, while the gyrons were added to the arms after the aforementioned feat. However, the Dukes of Osuna did not use the generic arms, but the gyrons with a chief per pale Castile and León and a bordure charged with the quinas of the Portuguese Royal house. The chief of Castile and León was granted by Henry IV to his aide-de-camp Pedro Girón, Master of the Order of Calatrava, lord of Ureña and Osuna, and the stem of the Ducal house. The Portuguese Royal arms reflect the marriage of the last heiress of the Girón-Cisneros lineage, Teresa Téllez-Girón, with the Portuguese noble Martín Vázquez de Acuña.
The Academy rejected the proposed flag, which features the rejected coat of arms.
Juan José Antequera Luengo proposed on 28 October 1999 to accept the recommendation of the Academy and to replace the second quarter of the arms with the genuine arms of the Dukes of Osuna. The Municipal Council does not appear to have corrected the symbols in use, though.
[Juan José Antequera Luengo. Heráldica oficial de la provincia de Sevilla]
Ivan Sache & Klaus-Michael Schneider, 31 May 2014
