page_title: Vilasantar
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Vilasantar / History
caption_attribution_description: Galego: Vista da fachada do pazo de Présaras en Vilasantar
context_page_description: Vilasantar is a municipality of northwestern Spain in the province of A Coruña in the autonomous community of Galicia. It belongs to the comarca of Betanzos.
context_section_description: Megaliths are preserved, such as the mámoas de Vilariño, the mámoa de Pedriño or the medorra de Fanegas, in the parish of San Vicenzo de Curtis. Castros such as those in Vilariño or As Corredoiras are preserved from the Castro culture.
  Of the romanization there are remains of the Roman camp of Ciadella, the bigger of those discovered in Galicia, between the municipalities of Sobrado and Vilasantar.
  In the Middle Ages, these lands belonged to the county of Présaras, which had its origin in the Roman praessurae, desert lands offered to settlers to be populated and cultivated. The area was strongly linked to the Sobrado Abbey and Monastery of Santa María de Mezonzo. This last one may have its origin in the Suevian era, because the church retains two capitals of the sixth or seventh centuries and appears in Latin documents as monastery of Mosontio. In the middle of the tenth century, Pedro de Mezonzo, who became the abbot of the convent and bishop of Compostela, joined him.
  In the Modern Age there were numerous hidalgos in the municipality, as evidenced by several manor houses. Vilasantar was established as municipality in 1834. Its population grew until 1950, when it began to fall due to emigration.
  It was an area of great activity during the Civil War and the postwar period. In 1938, the mayor of Vilasantar and neighbor of Présaras, Antonio Iglesias Corral, was executated in Miraz, Friol. In the years following the war, the Guerrilla Army of Galicia took some actions in the municipality, as well as the mythical Foucellas, who acted in the area and lived a time hidden in the house of his cousin in Ru, Vilasantar. In the parish of Mezonzo was born other guerrilla, Manolito Bello.
caption: Pazo of Présaras
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