Alcalá la Real

Camino Mozárabe

JaénAndalucía

Two-member compound. Alcalá, from Andalusian Arabic al-qalʿa (القَلْعَة, 'the castle, the height fortification'), from classical qalʿa with the specific sense of fortification atop a hill. La Real is a Castilian epithet added by Alfonso XI after the reconquest of 1341 to distinguish this Alcalá from the other peninsular ones (Alcalá de Henares, Alcalá de Guadaíra, Alcalá del Júcar) and to underline the direct royal belonging as opposed to noble seigneury.

The Mota Fortress, limestone ridge at 1,029 metres altitude dominating the frontier between the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada and the Crown of Castile, was a strategic place during two hundred years of Reconquista. The original 10th-century Muslim fortress was refortified by the Nasrids in the 13th century as an advanced watchtower towards the north. Alfonso XI conquered it in 1341 after eight months of siege in the context of the Battle of Río Salado (1340), one of the decisive moments of the Reconquista. The denomination la Real imposed after the conquest converted Alcalá into a direct royal place without noble intermediation, exceptional legal privilege in medieval Castile. The city became head of the frontier with Granada and maintained royal garrison until 1492.

Evolution of the name

  1. al-qalʿa Andalusi Arabic 8th–14th centuries
  2. Alcalá la Real medieval Castilian from 1341

Reflections, to the letter

The name is an order to climb: al-qalʿa, the fortress on the heights. You obey it on cresting the Cerro de la Mota, at 1,029 metres, where the six walled hectares of the Fortaleza de la Mota fuse into the bare rock at the summit. From its towers you grasp why the Castilians added la Real: to hold this hill was to hold the frontier with Granada.

Languages of origin

Themes

Origin status

confirmed

Glossary

Nasrid-Castilian frontier
Military and administrative limit between the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada (last peninsular Muslim state) and the Crown of Castile, in force between 1238 and 1492. It traced a line of approximately 800 kilometres from the Atlantic (Tarifa) to the Mediterranean (Vera), dotted with some three hundred fortresses, watchtowers and strongholds on both sides. Alcalá la Real was the Castilian head of the central sector of the frontier (Jaén province) between 1341 and 1492. The frontier generated a peculiar military and economic culture of two hundred and fifty years: the frontera del Granada.
Oppidum
A pre-Roman fortified settlement on high ground, typically Celtic or Proto-Celtiberian. The Cantabrian coast abounds in oppida that gave rise to later cities: Gigia/Xixón on the Santa Catalina hill.

Sources

  • Corriente, F. — Diccionario de arabismos
  • Toral Peñaranda, E. — Alcalá la Real

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Camino Mozárabe

  1. ··· toward Santiago
  2. Espejo
  3. Castro del Río
  4. Baena
  5. Luque
  6. Alcaudete
  7. Frailes
  8. Alcalá la Real
  9. Atarfe
  10. Pinos Puente
  11. Granada
  12. Quéntar
  13. La Peza
  14. Guadix
  15. ··· toward the start