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Saucelle (Municipality, Castilla y León, Spain)

Flag of Saucelle - Image after "Daarbos86" (Wikimedia Commons), 26 February 2014

Presentation of Saucelle
Symbols of Saucelle

See also:

Presentation of Saucelle

The municipality of Saucelle (383 inhabitants in 2012; 4,599 ha; municipal website) is located in the northwest of the Province of Salamanca, 100 km from Salamanca. The municipality is made of the villages of Saucelle and Salto de Saucelle (2 inh.; locally known as Poblado del Salto de Saucelle).

Saucelle originates, according to most historians, in a Celtiberian town known as Ocellum Vettonum (The Vettones' Small Eye) or Ocile. The local tradition, however, claims that Saucelle comes from sauce, "a willow"; Saucelle would have been named by its re-settlers as an area planted with small willows (saucillos).
In the early Middle Ages, Saucelle was part of the deserted terra de nadie, a buffer zone separating the Christian and Muslim states. After having expelled the Moors, the Kings of León Ferdinand II (1157-1188) and Alfonso IX (1188-1230) commissioned the Order of Saint James to re-settle the area. Saucelle was mentioned for the first time, as Salzelie, in 1220, when the Council of Ledesma abandoned its rights on the village to the Order of Saint James, which would rule it for the next 650 years. Saucelle was listed as a villa depending on the commandery of Peñausende in a document dated 19 March 1509.

Ivan Sache, 26 February 2014

Symbols of Saucelle

The flag of Saucelle (photo) is prescribed by a Decree adopted on 7 April 1995 by the Government of Province of Salamanca, signed on 26 May 1995 by the President of the Government, and published on 9 June 1995 in the Spanish official gazette, No. 137, pp. 17,360 (text).
The flag is described as follows:

Flag: Quadrangular, divided per bend sinister argent and or, charged with the municipal coat of arms surmounted by the Royal crown closed of the reigning Spanish monarchy.

The Royal Academy of History found no objection to the proposed flag, which includes the recently approved coat of arms. However, the Academy recalled that it had pointed out that the waves in the 2nd quarter of the shield were not correctly represented on the submitted design: they should totally fill the lower third of the quarter.
[Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia, 1997, 194, 1: 202]

The coat of arms of Saucelle is prescribed by a Decree adopted on 26 March 1993 by the Government of the Province of Salamanca, signed on 20 December 1993 by the President of the Government, and published on 11 January 1994 in the official gazette of Castilla y León, No. 6 (text).
The coat of arms is described as follows:

Coat of arms: Per pale. Dexter quarter, at the viewer's left, or a willow [sauce] eradicated proper. Left quarter, at the viewer's right, argent a lake represented by irregular waves azure ensigned by a cross gules of the Order of Saint James [crown not mentioned].

Ivan Sache, 14 March 2015