Jimena History
Jimena has a rich prehistoric legacy visible in the Cueva de la Graja cave paintings, which attest to the shepherds that populated the Sierras Meridionales between the fourth and third millennium BC. There are numerous historic settlements that demonstrate how the area was subsequently populated, especially Cerro Alcalá, an important reference for the prehistoric, ancient and medieval heritage of the town.
Some researchers have linked Cerro Alcalá with the Ossigi referred to in written sources. Numerous epigraphic and construction findings show that this settlement would have had some kind of Roman status as a Municipium.
During the Arab dominion there was an intense occupation of Jimena by small rural towns and farmhouses. It had several fortifications for refuge, Fuente del Moro, Cerro Alcalá and that referred to in the chronicles as San Istibin or San Astabin, a name retained by nearby Santisteban. According to the chronicles, this was one of the castles where the Banu Hábil rebelled against the power of the Cordovan emir. Jimena (Xemena) would have been another of these castles or a fortified farmhouse after the Christian conquest.
Jimena was conquered by Fernando III on the day of Santiago in 1234 and integrated into the lands of the Council of Baeza. In 1284, it became the property of Don Pedro Ruy de Berrio. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries it was a small Lordship until, in 1434, King Juan II handed it over to the Order of Calatrava, which constituted the Torres, Canena, Jimena encomienda and the Recena inheritance.
In the sixteenth century, Jimena, aligned with Baeza, participated in the community conflict in Castilla under Carlos V, even serving as a hideout for community members. Following these battles, it was sold by Emperor Charles V to his secretary, Don Francisco de los Cobos. It subsequently belonged to his descendants, the Marquises of Camarasa, until the extinction of the seigneurial privileges in 1812.