page_title: History of Carmona, Spain
section_title: Middle Ages: Carmona under the rule of the Christian Kings
hierarchical_section_title: History of Carmona, Spain / Middle Ages: Carmona under the rule of the Christian Kings
caption_attribution_description: Plaza San Fernando. Visión del Ayuntamiento y la Iglesia del Divino Salvador. Carmona (Sevilla)
context_page_description: The history of Carmona begins at one of the oldest urban sites in Europe, with nearly five thousand years of continuous occupation on a plateau rising above the vega of the River Corbones in Andalusia, Spain. The city of Carmona lies thirty kilometres from Seville on the highest elevation of the sloping terrain of the Los Alcores escarpment, about 250 metres above sea level. Since the first appearance of complex agricultural societies in the Guadalquivir valley at the beginning of the Neolithic period, various civilizations have had an historical presence in the region. All the different cultures, peoples, and political entities that developed there have left their mark on the ethnographic mosaic of present-day Carmona.
  Its historical significance is explained by the advantages of its location. The easily defended plateau on which the city sits, and the fertility of the land around it, made the site an important population center. The town's strategic position overlooking the vega was a natural stronghold, allowing it to control the trails leading to the central plateau of the Guadalquivir valley, and thus access to its resources.
context_section_description: After the Islamic conquest of the Visigothic Kingdom in 711, Carmona remained under the rule of the Moors until it was conquered by King Ferdinand III of Castile in 1247. From then it was ruled by Rodrigo González Girón, Ferdinand's chief steward. In 1630, Philip IV granted it the status of ciudad (city) in exchange for 40,000 ducats.
  This period in Carmona was marked by several events: the redistribution (repartimientos), of lands and properties after the Reconquista, the city's incorporation into the administrative structure of the Kingdom of Castile, and the survival of the local Islamic way of life through those Muslims who decided to stay on in their native land.
  After taking Carmona in 1247, Ferdinand III of Castile acceded to a pact that allowed Muslims to retain their properties and homes. The city was granted a charter (fuero) as a municipality to regulate its governance, and designated by the king a señorío de realengo (royal manor), making him its lord and placing it under his direct administration.
  In 1252, Alfonso X began the repartimiento and the repopulation of the countryside by Christians, distributing land and homes to nobles or knights of noble lineage, knights and citizens. The king's general policy was to encourage Christian settlers who could become landowners themselves. The disadvantaged and common laborers received lots which included a home and 60 hectares (modern equivalent) of arable land in the vega.
  The text of the repartimiento of Carmona is preserved in a 15th-century copy believed to be a faithful transcription of the original document. Ferdinand III's initial repartimiento overlapped that of Alfonso X, which clearly distinguished two sections, depending on the recipient of the properties distributed: donadíos (large estates) were granted when the beneficiaries were members of the royal family, the nobility, or military orders, and heredamientos (small landed properties) were granted to the settlers themselves.
  The donadíos consisted of houses with large tracts of land, based on a standard establishing a "farm" (250-900 ha) as a unit; the heredamientos were significantly smaller plots. Depending on the category of the recipient, which included caballeros hidalgos (noblemen), caballeros ciudadanos (knights,) or peónes (smallholders), they received a grant more or less valuable. The orders of Santiago and Calatrava and the crown itself benefited most from this administrative process. Ferdinand divided much of the conquered territories between the knights, the Church, and the nobility, endowing them with great latifundias.
  The picture that emerges from analysis of the population distribution of Carmona in this period is of a society with a Muslim majority dominated by a minority of Christians (mainly Castilian-Leonese and to a lesser extent, Aragonese and Navarrese), who controlled the administrative bodies and governmental institutions. Although the percentage of Muslims and Mudéjars dropped significantly for various reasons, including breach of the capitulations that assured their freedom, the persistence of the Muslim population has been well documented by archaeological investigation, and the material culture shows no sign of discontinuity with the period immediately before the conquest. On the contrary, ceramics, manufactories and many other elements from the period are fully within the Islamic tradition. Visible examples of this phenomenon are found in certain features preserved in some houses in the Santiago barrio and in the street Calle Ancha; these are authentic relics of the Moorish builders of the 14th century.
  Alfonso X renewed the Carmona municipal statutes, with the aim of standardising juridically the territories incorporated into the Crown. He granted the city its own jurisdiction, starting from the ancient cora of the Islamic period and segregating only Marchena. It was an extensive territory, much larger than the current demarcation, comprising Fuentes de Andalucía, Mairena, El Viso and La Campana.
  Peter I of Castile, called Pedro the Cruel
  The period in Carmona following 
caption: Plaza de Arriba
exif: {"Image Make": "CAMERA", "Image Model": "CAMERA", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "899Ver1.04", "Image DateTime": "2004:01:06 00:00:20", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Copyright": "Copyright", "Image ExifOffset": "306", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "9112", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8262", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/673", "EXIF FNumber": "3", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2004:01:06 00:00:20", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2004:01:06 00:00:20", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "4697/500", "EXIF ApertureValue": "3", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "51/5", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "173/20", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2032", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1520", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "8988", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0/0", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}