page_title: Biescas
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Biescas / History
context_page_description: Biescas is a municipality of northeastern Spain close to the border with France, in the midst of the Pyrenees in the province of Huesca. The name seems to provide from the term bizka, which means "hill" in a Proto-Indo-European language.
  The town of Biescas is located at 875 meters altitude on the banks of the Gállego river. The municipality extends along a small plain and includes the canyon to access to the Tena Valley. At 72 km north of the main city Huesca, Biescas is a communication hub between the regions of Jacetania and Sobrarbe. The town is strategically located to crossing the Gállego river, as a link between the valleys of Tena and Ara.
context_section_description: The oldest pieces of evidence from human presence in the Biescas municipality are Neolithic cists from the plain of Santa Engracia, which are estimated to be from the III millennium BC. One of them has been restored.
  Biescas began to form as a village in the Middle Ages, given its strategic location as a crossroads. The first document of its existence is a citation in the Cartulary of San Juan de la Peña, between 1020 and 1030 AC. In a document of 1391 it appears cited with the name of Biescas Sobirón.
  Biescas has always been a town endowed with royal privileges and had two ecclesiastical parishes: San Salvador and San Pedro. Although in the old ages it also had two other temples, the San Torcuato and St. Stephen churches. It is also documented that the hermitage of Santa Elena was reconstructed by King James I in 1253 and endowed with privileges by King Ferdinand in 1484 and King Charles V in 1525.
  In the sixteenth century, King Philip II ordered to fortify the Santa Elena canyon to protect his kingdoms of possible threats from beyond the Pyrenees. To this end, The Castle of San Pedro was built in neighboring Jaca together with other defenses still visible in the valleys of the Aragon and Gállego rivers. In this context, on 6 and 7 February 1592 eight hundred people from Béarn invaded and occupied Biescas and the Tena Valley for eleven days, before being defeated in the Gorge of Lutherans battle.
  During the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) Biescas was almost razed. At the beginning of the conflict the town was quickly conquered by the rebel side and was involved in the Battle of Sabiñánigo, between September and November 1937. In this battle the 43rd and 27th divisions of the army of the Spanish Second Republic launched an offensive against the rebels, specifically against the I brigade of the 51st National Division and local volunteers such as the Valley Tena Panthers. Biescas was recovered by Republican troops at the beginning of the offensive. It is estimated that during the course of the Battle of Sabiñánigo, the total number of deaths (soldiers and civilians) was around 6,000 people.
  In August 1996, 86 people died due to a flood in Las Nieves camping.
caption: Romanesque apse of San Salvador church in Biescas
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