Last modified: 2020-04-03 by ivan sache
Keywords: menasalbas |
Links: FOTW homepage |
search |
disclaimer and copyright |
write us |
mirrors
![[Flag]](../images/e/es-to-mn.gif)
Flag of Menasalbas - Image by "Rf1789", Wikimedia Commons, 10 September 2019
See also:
The municipality of Menasalbas (2,702 inhabitants in 2018; 17,944 ha; municipal website) is located 40 km south-west of Toledo. The municipality is composed of the town of Menasalbas and of the village of Las Navillas (60 inh.).
Menasalbas might have emerged in the 12th century during the resettlement organized by King Alfonso VII, as a settlement located near brook Villapalos; nothing has remained from this putative settlement but a necorpolis, beleived, however, by some scholars to be of Visigoth origin, that is, much earlier.
The area was resettled by the Order of the Temple, headquartered in the castle of Montalbán, or, later, by the lord of Montalbán. Mensalabas was first mentioned in a document signed in 1155 by Alfonso VII; a Mozarab document dated 1229 lists the village as Mēnaš Albaš.
In the 16th century, the villagers struggled against their abusive lord, the powerful Juan de Pacheco, Marquess de Villena and Duke of Escalona. Mensalbas was granted the title of villa in 1565 by Philip II. The town was incorporated in 1831 to Navahermosa.
In March 1837, the heroic defense of the town against the Carlist troops led by Basilio Gómez was acknowledged in the official gazette of the Province of Toledo.
Ivan Sache, 10 September 2019
The flag of Menasalbas (photo,
photo) is prescribed by an Order issued on 12 November 2001 by the Government of Castilla-La Mancha and published on 23 November 2001 in the official gazette of Castilla-La Mancha, No. 122, p. 13,348 (text).
The flag is described as follows:
Flag: Rectangular, in proportions 2:3, divided in four equal parts by two lines, horizontal and vertical, green at upper hoist and lower fly, white elsewhere. Superimposed in the center with the crowned coat of arms.
The Royal Academy of History approved "without any inconvenience" the proposed flag, whose proportions are not clearly stated (2:3 and 1:2).
[Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia 198:3, 564. 2001]
The coat of arms of Menasalbas is prescribed by Decree No. 124, issued on 6 December 1984 by the Government of Castilla-La Mancha and published on 13 November 1984 in the official gazette of Castilla-La Mancha, No. 47, p. 1,204 (text).
The coat of arms is described as follows:
Coat of arms: Or a rock vert charged with three batons wavy sable in chief a bull passant sable. The shield surmounted by a Royal crown closed.
The coat of arms, designed by Ventura Leblic García y José Luis Ruz Márquez, was approved on 30 July 1982 by the Municipal Council. It alludes to th etymology of the town's name, menas albas, "white veins", referring to the granitic rocks that were used by the Mozarab colonists as a geographical reference, and to cattle-breeding, a main source of income since the earliest ages.
[Municipal website]
Ivan Sache, 10 September 2019
