Last modified: 2015-01-17 by ivan sache
Keywords: fuentes de ropel | zamora |
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The municipality of Fuentes de Ropel (513 inhabitants in 2009, 4,873 ha; unofficial website) is located in the north of Zamora Province, 70 km north-east of Zamora.
Fuentes de Ropel was mentioned for the first time, as Barrio de Fontes
(Fountains' Borough) in a document of the Kings of León dated 14 March
1017. Another document, dated 2 September 1038, lists the village as
Fontes de Rauperio. The modern name of the village was adopted in the
14th-15th centuries. The name of "Fuentes" recalls the hydrological
resources of the area, which were of strategic significance in the
Middle Ages.
Fuentes de Ropel is the birth place of Captain Gaspar de Cepeda (d.
1559), a famous conquistador who served as the Mayor of San Salvador
and the Commander of the Indigenous Peoples in Guatemala; he
bequeathed a part of this great wealth to improve his birth village,
funding the pósito, a kind of grain bank where the farmers would
secure their harvests for the next 400 years, and the Christ Chapel,
where the still vivid veneration for the Indies' Christ developed.
Ivan Sache, 18 October 2010
The flag and arms of Fuentes de Ropel are prescribed by a Decree
adopted on 16 June 2009 by the Municipal Council, signed on 6 August
2009 by the Mayor, and published on 13 August 2009 in the official
gazette of Castilla y León, No. 154, p. 25,825 (text).
Approved by the Chronicler of Arms of Castilla y León, the symbols are described as follows:
Flag: Of quadrangular shape, made of three horizontal stripes, green, yellow and green, respectively, with the municipal coat of arms in the middle.
Coat of arms: Rectilinear on the upper and lateral sides, curvilinear in base, surmounted by the crown of the reigning Bourbon House.
Quarterly, 1. León (Argent a lion purpure crowned and armed or), 2. Vert a fountain or masoned sable and supplying water azure, 3. Vert a two-arched bridge or masoned sable over waves argent and azure, 4. Argent a bunch of grapes leaved proper surmounted by three wheat spikes vert.
The symbols were
designed by Federico Osorio Argúello, author of the book on local
history El Pósito y Obra Pía de la villa de Fuentes de Ropel (2008).
The first quarter of the arms represents León.
The second quarter recalls the significance of water for
the population, as well as the name of the village.
The third quarter symbolizes the location of the village on a
crossroads.
The fourth quarter symbolizes the Tierra de Campos district and the
most significant crops in the village (La Opinión de Zamora, 30 June 2009).
Ivan Sache, 17 October 2010
