The precious Castle of Cuellar It is in Ciudadela, at the top of Cuéllar (Segovia). An ideal place to escape for the weekend.
History.
Archaeological finds show that Cuellar it was a Celtic city. It is very likely that the Romans and Visigoths also passed through it, but no trace of its stay has been found. In the first centuries of the Arab occupation, this territory, like other large areas of the Duero plateau, was practically uninhabited. It is known that in the 977th century there was a population and that in XNUMX the Moorish leader almanzor Cuéllar devastated by slaughtering or deporting all its inhabitants to Córdoba.
Again it arose, and now definitely, with the repopulation of Alfonso VI, at the end of the XNUMXth century, under the auspices of Count Ansúrez.
In 1112 the Council was already functioning and at this time the Community of Villa y Tierra was born, becoming Cuéllar a powerful municipality, the center of a wide region. Its territorial and livestock importance, together with the generous privileges granted by the king Alfonso X el Sabio (1256 and 1264) made Cuéllar become a prominent wool export center and also achieve a prominent place in politics, holding sessions of the Cortes of Castile (1297) there. Even doña María de Molina, on the death of her husband, Sancho IV, made the town her Court for the government and defense of the rights of her son Fernando.
Also in Cuéllar the bishops of Ávila and Salamanca declared the marriage of Pedro I of Castile with Mrs. White, after which he married Juana de Castro (1354).
In the reign of the Trastamaras it continued to be an important scene in the Castilian political concert. Queen Eleanor, wife of Juan I of Castile, in September 1383.
Since the time of Count Ansúrez, Cuellar It had been disputed by kings, infants and nobles, and so John II gave it to his daughter Isabel, although the truth is that his brother Henry IV He disposed of the town and fortress to deliver them in 1464 to his valid Don Beltrán de la Cueva, Duke of Alburquerque.
On the death of the king, crowned as his successor Isabel la Católica and due to the new horizons opened with the emergence of the modern world, Cuéllar was displaced from the political and court centers, her importance limited to the prosperity derived from agriculture and livestock. , and this despite the role of illustrious men who were born in the town and who climbed high positions as the third Duke of Alburquerque, winner of the comuneros in Villalar, diplomat in England and trusted person of Carlos I y Felipe II.
Also important is the chapter he wrote Cuellar in the Indies. Here were born among others: Diego Velazquez, conqueror of Cuba; Juan de Grijalva, discoverer of a large part of the bosom of the Mexican Gulf; and Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas, the first general historian of the Indies.
In the first half of the seventeenth century Cuellar suffers the effects of the economic depression that affects all Castilla and whose origin is influenced by poor harvests, emigration to America, and wars. In the XNUMXth century the economy recovered thanks to the better exploitation of agriculture with large areas of communal use and without the nobility and clergy enjoying large properties.
The XNUMXth century and the first decades of the XNUMXth were of authentic decadence. During the War of Independence, the French troops wreaked havoc in the Villa with regard to the artistic heritage of convents, churches and castle.
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