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Carriches (Municipality, Castilla-La Mancha, Spain)

Last modified: 2020-03-28 by ivan sache
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Presentation of Carriches

The municipality of Carriches (271 inhabitants in 2018 vs. 921 in 1950; 1,867 ha) is located 50 km north-west of Toledo and 30 km west of Torrijos.
Carriches belonged to Santa Ollala, part of the County of Orgaz, until granted the status of villa on 27 November 1749 by King Ferdinand VI.

Carriches is the birth place of the microbiologist César Nombela (b. 1946), President of the CSIC (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas; 1996-2000) and Rector of the Universidad Internacional Menéndez Pelayo since 2013. The scientist was awarded on 7 March 2015 the title of "Preferred Son" of Carriches.
[EFE, 7 March 2015]

Ivan Sache, 8 September 2019


Symbols of Carriches

The flag of Carriches (photo, photo, photo, photo) is prescribed by an Order issued on 21 May 1997 by the Government of Castilla-La Mancha and published on 6 June 1997 in the official gazette of Castilla-La Mancha, No. 26, p. 3,135 (text).
The flag is described as follows:

Flag: With the proportions of the Spanish flag, composed of two horizontal stripes of same size and an acute triangle at hoist covering all the flag's width. The upper stripe, yellow, the lower stripe, blue, and the triangle, red, charged with two white keys in saltire.

The coat of arms of Carriches is prescribed by an Order issued on 21 May 1997 by the Government of Castilla-La Mancha and published on 6 June 1997 in the official gazette of Castilla-La Mancha, No. 26, p. 3,135 (text).
The coat of arms is described as follows:

Coat of arms: Per pale, 1. Or a branch of holly oak vert fructed proper, 2. Azure two caldrons or chequy gules with six snakes vert three on each handle a bordure argent five ermine spots sable. Grafted in base, gules two keys argent in saltire. The shield surmounted by a Royal crown closed.

The Royal Academy of History proposed to simplify the proposed arms. Designed from scratch, the arms allude to the local devotion to the Virgin of the Holly Oak and to Apostle St. Peter, the parish church's namesake, and include the arms of the Guzmán, Counts of Orgaz, once lords of the village.
While the selected charges are "perfectly acceptable", the resulting composition deserves critic. The charges are in excessive number, resulting in four divisions of the shield. The design is unbalanced, the Guzmán caldrons and the Froilaz ermines being compressed in a single quarter adjacent to much simpler ones. Including feudal arms for places that were neither capitals nor of sininficance for the represented domains does not appear to be fully justified.
The Academy prooposed to reduce the arms to "Per pale, 1. Or a branch of holly oak proper in pale, 2. Gules two keys argent in saltire. Grafted in base, azure a caldron chequy or and gules. The shield surmounted by a Spanish Royal crown". The design would gain in balance and harmony and the ordering of the quarters would be more logical.
[Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia 194:2, 400. 1997]

The Virgin of the Holly Oak is venerated in the Cerco chapel, erected on a mount planted with holly oaks where the Virgin appeared to a shepherd in the 14th century. The Virgin was proclaimed Perpetual Mayor of Carriches on 14 June 2014.
[Jesús Sánchez de Haro, Carriches Official Chronicler, 3 September 2014]

Ivan Sache, 8 September 2019