Last modified: 2019-09-14 by ivan sache
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![[Flag]](../images/e/es-cr-hr.gif)
Flag of Herencia - Image by Ivan Sache, 18 May 2019
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The municipality of Herencia (8,847 inhabitants in 2014; 22,674 ha; municipal website, unofficial website) is located on the border with the Province of Toledo, 60 km north-east of Ciudad Real.
Herencia was chartered on 16 April 1238 by Ruiz Pérez, Commander of
Consuegra, commissioned by Ferrant Ruiz, Prior of the Order of Saint
John for Castile and León. At the time, the village counted 150
inhabitants; the charter set up differences between the settlers and the
knights, shared the orchards and the vineyards, and ordered the building
of a bread oven. The population of the village was increased, although
not dramatically, from 1300 onward, by colonists coming from Andalusia.
Herencia was granted the status of villa in 1359 by King Peter I the
Cruel. In 1575, the town counted 500 households, that is, some 2,000
inhabitants. The Council Granary was created in 1568 to regulate the
price of grain according to the available yield, and, therefore, to
prevent hunger on poor harvest's years.
Herencia is self-styled "en un lugar de la Mancha" (in a place of Mancha), a straightforward reference of the first sentence of Cervantes' "El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha", "En un lugar de la Mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme,..." (In a certain village in La Mancha, which I do not wish to name...). The lack of geographical specification of Don Quixote's home place conveniently allows several places in La Mancha to claim to be "the" place, and to present their windmills as those actually attacked by the ingenious gentleman.
Ivan Sache, 18 May 2019
The flag of Herencia is prescribed by an Order issued on 16 February
2010 by the Government of Castilla-La Mancha and published on 2 March
2010 in the official gazette of Castilla-La Mancha, No. 42, p. 10,267 (text).
The flag is described as follows:
Flag: Rectangular panel in proportions 2:3, made of two equal vertical stripes, at hoist, red with a white Cross of St. John, at fly, yellow.
The coat of arms of Herencia is prescribed by an Order issued on 16 February
2010 by the Government of Castilla-La Mancha and published on 2 March
2010 in the official gazette of Castilla-La Mancha, No. 42, p. 10,266 (text).
The coat of arms is described as follows:
Coat of arms: Quarterly, 1. and 4. Gules a castle or masoned sable port and windows azure, 2. and 3. Argent a lion rampant purpure armed and langued gules crowned or. Inescutcheon oval azure a tower or masoned sable on a base vert attacked from sinister by an armored knight holding a lance argent riding a horse rampant of the same a Muslim argent couchant. The shield superimposed to a Cross of St. John argent. The shield surmounted by a Royal crown closed.
This is a "rehabilitation" of the coat of arms "of immemorial use",
which had the inescutcheon charged only with an armed horse-rider.
[Ramón José Maldonado y Cocat. 1973. Heráldica municipal de la provincia de
Ciudad Real. Cuadernos de Estudios Manchegos 4, 84-109]
Ivan Sache, 18 May 2019