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Last modified: 2020-04-04 by ivan sache
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Flag of Nombela - Image by Ivan Sache, 10 September 2019
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The municipality of Nombela (883 inhabitants in 2018; 12,200 ha; municipal website) is located on the border with the Community of Madrid, 70 km north-west of Toledo.
Nombela was first documented in 1072, and, for a second time, in 1208, when King Alfonso VIII confirmed the allocation of reconquered lands to the rival Councils of Madrid, Segovia and Toledo. Nombela was granted to knight Garcí Yáñez, as a reward for his contribution to the conquest of Cuenca. Alfonso IX's Libro de la Montería lists "el Berrocal de Novela as a good mount rich in bears and boars in winter". In La Descripción y Cosmografía de España”, Ferdinand Columbus mentions Monvela, presented as "the Watch's Mount" and identified to El Berrocal.
Nombela was subsequently incorporated to the Duchy of Escalona; connected to Escalona by a poor road that crossed a brook frozen in winter and constantly looted by the inhabitants of Escalona, Nombela aspired to municipal autonomy. Gonzalo Ruiz, Pedro Delgado, Juan Montero and Alonso Hemández applied to Francisco Pacheco y Bobadilla, Marquess of Villena and Duke of Escalona. Nombela was granted the status of villa on 4 August 1579 by Philip II, separating from Escalona.
Philip II first sought to establish in Nombela a Royal monastery, subsequently erected in San Lorenzo del Escorial, since he enjoyed the area, rich in stones, game, fruit, and its healthy climate, not of mention water that cured all kinds of illness. The 1578 census confirms this, since the oldest of the 300 villagers was 102 years old, while several were aged between 80 and 90. The new municipal status was highlighted the next year by the erection of a pillory made of a Tuscan column standing on four steps and decorated with four lion's heads.
Ancient scholars claimed a Celtiberian Jewish foundation of Nombela, as Chazarón / Chabsalón; Jews from Toledo allegedy founded also Maqueda (Mazeda), Escalona (Alarcon) and La Guardia (Samaria). Antoher tradition says that the first settlement in the area was established by Pyrrhus, a captain of King Nabuchodonosor.
In Philip II's Relaciones, the villagers Juan Herradón, Juan de Robles and Asensio Martín provide an odd explanation of the town name, claiming that the village was once too small to supply watchmen for the castle of Escalona; the "non-watch", non vela would have been the origin of Nombela.
Nombela is also said to have been named for Don Vela, referring to the Aragonese knight that expelled the Muslims in 1199.
[Juan Jiménez Palacios. 1997. Nombela. Temas Toledanos, 88]
Nombela is the Spanish municipality located the farthest from the seashore, here Valencia or Espinho (364 km). The town has another feature that could potentially attract tourists: in September 1852, the serial killer Manuel Blanco Romasanta (1809-1863, aka the Werewolf of Allariz) was arrested in the village. Spain's only verifieid case of clinic lycanthropy, he recognized having killed 13 persons and partially butchered some of them.
[ABC, 17 May 2014]
Ivan Sache, 10 September 2019
The flag of Nombela (photo) is prescribed by an Order issued on 6 May 2003 by the Government of Castilla-La Mancha and published on 16 May 2003 in the official gazette of Castilla-La Mancha, No. 70, p. 8,894 (text).
The flag is described as follows:
Flag: Rectangular panel, in proportions 2:3, red with two horizontal white stripes. Superimposed in the center the crowned coat of arms of the town of Nombela.
The description of the flag was corrected on 9 June 2003 in the official gazette of Castilla-La Mancha, No. 70, p. 8,894 (text), as follows:
Flag: Rectangular panel, in proportions 2:3, red with a white diagonal stripe. Superimposed in the center by the crowned coat of arms of the town of Nombela.
The coat of arms of Nombela is prescribed by an Order issued on 6 May 2003 by the Government of Castilla-La Mancha and published on 16 May 2003 in the official gazette of Castilla-La Mancha, No. 70, pp. 8,894-8,895 (text).
The coat of arms is described as follows:
Coat of arms: Per pale, 1. Or four pallets gules a bordure azure eight crosses argent, 2.Argent two wolves vert [sable on the arms in actual use]. The shield surmounted by a Spanish Royal crown.
The coat of arms was already described in 1997 by the aforementioned Juan Jiménez Palacios. "Argent two wolves sable", are the arms of the town of Maqueda, of which Nombela depended when rueld by the Admiral of Castile, Gutierre de Cárdenas, and his wife, Teresa Enríquez, known as the Sacramento she-wolf. The Aragones bars are a tribute to Infante Vela.
[Juan Jiménez Palacios. 1997. Nombela. Temas Toledanos, 88]
The proposed arms, however, appears to have an historical background. Philip II's Relaciones describe the arms of the town as "those of the Dukes of Escalona", that is, those of the Pacheco lineage. In the 18th century, they were substituted by genuine arms, "four bars, in the bordure eight crosses of Jerusalem two black wolves issuant on a white field". This shield, surmounted by a helmet over two crossed swords, appears on municipal seals used from 1852 to, at least, 1878. Neither these arms nor the old ducal amrs were reported to be used in 1881.
[José Luis Ruz Márquez & Ventura Leblic García. Heraldica municipal de la Provincia de Toledo. 1983]
Ivan Sache, 10 September 2019
