page_title: Alcalá de Henares
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Alcalá de Henares / History
caption_attribution_description: Español: Mosaico romano de las Cuatro Estaciones de la Casa de Baco en Complutum (Alcalá de Henares, Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid). Fines del siglo IV d.C. En sentido antihorario desde arriba a la derecha: primavera, verano, otoño e invierno. El estilo es similar al de las villas de Quintanilla de la Cueza, Palencia. En la foto está montado en una pared del Museo Arqueológico Regional en Alcalá, cedido por el Museo Arqueológico Nacional en Madrid. English: The Four Seasons (late 4th century), a mosaic from the ‘House of Bacchus’ (Casa de Baco), a domus in the Hispano-Roman town of Complutum (now in Alcalá de Henares, near Madrid). Counterclockwise from top right: spring, summer, autumn and winter. It is now in the Regional Archaeological Museum, Alcalá.
context_page_description: Alcalá de Henares is a Spanish city in the Community of Madrid. Straddling the Henares River, it is located 35 kilometres to the northeast of the centre of Madrid. As of 2018, it has a population of 193,751, making it the region's third-most populated municipality.
  Predated by earlier settlements on the left bank of the Henares, the city has its origins in the Complutum settlement founded in Roman times on the right bank of the river, that became a bishopric seat in the 5th century. One of the several Muslim citadels in the Middle Mark of al-Andalus was established on the left bank, while, after the Christian conquest culminated circa 1118, the bulk of the urban nucleus returned to the right bank. For much of the late middle-ages and the early modern period before becoming part of the province of Madrid, Alcalá de Henares was a seigneurial estate of the archbishop of Toledo.
  Its historical centre is one of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites.
  The city has a long university tradition. Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros founded the Complutense University in Alcalá de Henares in the late 15th century. The city currently hosts the University of Alcalá.
context_section_description: The city boundaries have been inhabited since the Chalcolithic phase of the Bronze Age. Romans conquered the area in the 1st century BC, and built the town of Complutum near a previous Carpetanian settlement, Iplacea. With 10,000 inhabitants, it reached the status of municipium and had its own governing institutions. It played an important role, located on the Roman road connecting Emerita Augusta and Caesaraugusta.
  After the downfall of the Roman Empire, under the Visigoths, it declined, although it also became a pilgrimage destination in remembrance of the Saints Justo and Pastor.
  When the Moors arrived in 711, they subdued the Visigothic city and founded another site, building an al-qalʿa, which means "citadel" in Arabic, on a nearby hill, today known as Alcalá la Vieja (Old Alcalá). On 3 May 1118, it was conquered by the Archbishop of Toledo Bernard de Sedirac at behest of Castile.
  Soon after, on 10 February 1129, Alfonso VII gifted Alcalá to Raymond de Sauvetât, also Archbishop of Toledo, becoming an archiepiscopal property for centuries to come. Raymond granted the town an old fuero (charter) in 1135.
  The Christians preferred the Burgo de Santiuste ("Saint Just's borough") on the original Roman site, and the Muslim one was abandoned.
  Under Christian rule until the end of the Reconquista, the town had both a Jewish and a Moorish quarter and a renowned marketplace. Its central position allowed it to be a frequent residence of the Kings of Castile, when travelling south.
  At some time in the 1480s, Christopher Columbus had his first meeting with the Reyes Católicos, King Ferdinand II of Aragon and his wife Queen Isabella I of Castile, who financed the travel for the Discovery of America.
  The Cardinal Cisneros granted the town a new fuero in 1509.
  Despite being largely ruined, the town acquired the status of city in 1687 after long negotiations.
  In decadence since the mid-18th century, Alcalá de Henares experienced a relative demographic and economic upturn in the second half of the 19th century, based on its newly acquired condition of military outpost, to which an embrionary industrial nucleus was also added.
  The population steadily increased from 1868 to 1939. The population was still agrarian to a large extent, with a high level of illiteracy and living in bad conditions. Seeking for social change, Republican and later Socialist movements grew in force in the city. The leading figure in the later movement was Antonio Fernández Quer who became the first municipal councillor from the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party in the province of Madrid in 1903. Emerged in reaction to Socialist advances, Social catholicism also took hold in the city since 1905, founding a number of organizations such as Centro Católico de Acción Social Popular and the Mutual Obrera Complutense.
  Following the 1936 coup d'etat that sparked the Spanish Civil War, putschist elements seized key posts around the city. However, following the botched coup in Madrid, Rebel forces in Alcalá eventually surrendered to Republican Colonel Ildefonso Puigdendolas and his troops on 21 July. Alcalá, that reportedly became a Soviet power base during the conflict—a "republic within the republic" where the Republican national government held a tenuous grip—was the place were POUM leader Andrés Nin was transferred to and presumably tortured and killed in June 1937 by NKVD agents.
  The city suffered severe damage during the Spanish Civil War.
  Thousands of prisoners were held in different camps in the city after the end of the war. From March 1939 to February 1948, at least 264 individuals were executed in Alcalá by the Francoist authorities.
caption: Roman mosaic of the four seasons, the House of Bacchus, Complutum
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