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Santorcaz (Municipality, Community of Madrid, Spain)

Last modified: 2017-01-29 by ivan sache
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Flag of Santorcaz - Image by Ivan Sache, 26 July 2015


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Presentation of Santorcaz

The municipality of Santorcaz (833 inhabitants in 2014; 2,814 ha) is located in the south-east of the Community of Madrid, on the border with Castilla-La Mancha (Province of Guadalajara), 50 km of Madrid and 25 km of Guadalajara.

Santorcaz claims to be "one of the oldest municipalities in the Community of Madrid", having been established by the Iberians, as Metercosa.
The village was originally known as Oppidum Santi Torcuati, a name derived from St. Torquatus of Acci, 1st bishop of Guadix (Acci) and locally believed to have been born in Santorcaz. The castle of Torremocha was one of the summer residences of the Archbishops of Toledo; Archbishop Carrillo jailed there a young priest who had disobeyed him, Gonzalo Jiménez de Cisneros, subsequently famous as Cardinal Francisco Cisneros. The castle was subsequently transformed into a state jail, where revolted nobles, such as the Princess of Éboli, Juan de Luna, Rodrigo Calderón, the Duke of Hijar and the Marquis of Ayamonte, were locked for a while. Ruined in the 19th century, the castle was used as a stone quarry.
[Presentation by José Carlos Canalda]

Under the name of Pueblanueva del Rey Sancho, Santorcaz was the main "character" of the legendary TV series Crónicas de un pueblo (1971-1974; presentation; episode No. 1). According to Antonio Mercero, who directed most of the series, the program was initiated by Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco. The "chronicles" spread the Francoist vision of rural Spain, inhabited by villages united against "those from the towns", placed under the authority of a venerated school teacher and with little feminine presence.

Ivan Sache, 26 July 2015


Symbols of Santorcaz

The flag (photos, photo) and arms of Santorcaz are prescribed by a Decree adopted on 23 June 1994 by the Government of the Community of Madrid and published on 22 July 1994 in the official gazette of the Community of Madrid, No. 172, p. 6 (text), and on 19 August 1994 in the Spanish official gazette, No. 198, p. 26,569 (text).
The symbols are described as follows:

Flag: In proportions 2:3, divided into four quarters with the colours of the coat of arms, swapped. In the center, the municipal coat of arms.
Coat of arms: Quarterly, 1. Azure a mitre argent in base a bishop's crozier per bend sinister, 2. Gules a tree eradicated argent, 3. Gules a castle argent, 4. Azure a well coping from which hangs a chain attached to a ? all argent. The shield surmounted by a Royal Spanish crown.

The Royal Academy of History validated the proposed arms, modelled on those represented on a coloured glass-window of the parish church. In spite of its relative complexity, the design is acceptable for the sake of tradition, not that old, but always respectable.
The Academy validated the proposed flag "without any inconvenience".
[Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia, 1995, 192:1, 164-165]

Ivan Sache, 26 July 2015