HISTORICAL CONTEXT: Settlement

   Human remains have been found in the municipality of Miajadas since prehistoric times. In 1908, Mario Roso de Luna informed the Royal Academy of History about the discovery of underground archaeological ruins on the banks of river Búrdalo, near San Bartolomé’s hermitage. Nevertheless, José Ramón Mélida, referring to Roso de Luna in his Monumental Catalog of Spain. Province of Cáceres (1924), indicated that his attempts to locate these ruins were unsuccessful.

   There are also remains of Roman times: Los Canchales and La Dehesilla, studied by José María Fernández Corrales and Antonio González Cordero, highlighting the anthropomorphic tombs carved in the rock.

   However, the origin of the current population core dates back to the Middle Ages. The lands that are now part of the municipality of Miajadas were reconquered by the Christians between 1232 and 1234. The protagonists of these operations were the Bishop of Plasencia and the Grand Master of the Order of Alcátara, who acted in the service of King Ferdinand III the Saint. This monarch integrated this territory into the Community of Villa and Land of Medellín, left, at first, under direct rule of the Crown.

   Professor Julián Clemente Ramos, echoing the book Unpublished Stories of Plasencia by Domingo Sánchez Loro, points out that, after the Reconquest, the site of Miajadas was a dangerous deserted area where criminals lurked around assaulting travellers. This place was donated in 1920 by King Sancho IV to Pedro Sánchez de la Cámara, who made it pastureland and later, in 1926, left it to the Bishop and the Cathedral Council of Plasencia after his death, due to his lack of descendants. From then on, the Cathedral of Plasencia leased the pasture to several families dedicated to stockbreeding who settled in huts and, progressively, in houses that formed a village.

   In 1445, King John II turned Medellín and its lands into a county and handed it over to his vassal Rodrigo de Portocarrero. Then a lawsuit broke out between the Count of Medellín and the Diocese of Plasencia for the control of Miajadas. The Count finally won and, since then, Miajadas experienced a remarkable growth of inhabitants who mainly worked in bovine livestock breeding and cereal crops.

  Miajadas was a village dependent on Medellín until the year 1734. At that time, and from a legal standpoint, Miajadas stopped being a “place” to acquire the title of “villa”. Miajadas was no longer under the authority of Medellín and had jurisdictional autonomy to appoint its own mayors, judges and other members of their municipal government.

   There are several books and articles that, when referring to this fact, erroneously establish the date of concession of “villazgo” on December 23rd, 1656. According to these publications, it was King Felipe IV who gave the title of Villa in recognition of the help of people from Miajadas in the wars taking place during his reign. But this is not true, since Miajadas obtained its Villa condition on January 28th, 1734 from King Philip V, the first Spanish king belonging to the Bourbon Dynasty.

   On March 21st, 1809, a battle that is part of the episodes of the Spanish Independence War (1808-1813) was fought in the site of the “Degollada”. Under the command of Captain Henestrosa, the Spanish Army and the popular guerrillas defeated a detachment of the Napoleonic Army that was heading from Trujillo to Medellín.

   On December 3rd, 1833, the Royal Decree of November 30th establishing the metropolitan territory of Spain in 49 provinces was published in the Gaceta de Madrid. Extremadura was divided into two provinces then: Cáceres and Badajoz. The provinces of Extremadura ceded some towns to other provinces in Castilla and Andalusia, but it also received some other towns not linked yet to Extremadura and, even, there were exchanges of neighbouring towns between Cáceres and Badajoz in order to define interprovincial borders in the fairest way possible. For this reason, Miajadas was separated from the ancient Community of Villa and Land of Medellín and was administratively and judicially to the Province of Cáceres, instead of remaining in Badajoz like the rest of towns in the above mentioned Medellín County. Finally, in April 1834, Miajadas joined Trujillo’s jurisdiction.