History of Quesada
In the Sierra de Quesada, there are numerous shelters with cave paintings, including the Encarejo cave, the Cerro Vitar shelter, the Hiedra cave and the Cabrera cave, in which in addition to the paintings, materials were found including ceramics and lithics that have allowed us to date the first human occupation of these lands to the III millennium BC. During the Bronze Age (II millennium BC), with the arrival of the first Argaric populations, the same shelters and caves of the previous phase were reoccupied, and others, such as the town and necropolis of “Corral de Quiñones”.
From its Roman past, the town has a complex of great significance, the villa of Bruñel, a magnificent testimony of architecture linked to agricultural exploitation. In its last phases of occupation, in the fourth century AD, it presented structures corresponding to an early Christian Basilica. In addition to Bruñel, other villas have been located, such as those in the Allozar, Voladero, Los Rosales and Aguas Calientes areas, which show an intense occupation of the territory during imperial times.
The origin of the current location of the urban centre of Quesada seems to be from the Visigothic period, according to the numerous remains that appeared in the town, such as the capitals that today mark the access to the parish garden. But it was in Arab times when Quesada became a significant settlement. In Arabic texts it appears named as Madinat or qal’at Qayyata, a fortress located at the foot of a high mountain, which offered the appearance of a medina due to its markets, baths, inns and suburban town. At this time, its industry of wooden plates and glasses that would be transported and sold throughout Al-Andalus and the Maghreb was very famous.
Arab sources also allude to Hisn Tiskar and place it in Raymiyya, with many fortified places and high mountains. Since the first Christian conquest by Alfonso VII in 1157, in the following centuries, the town changed hands several times between the Castilians and Andalusians. In 1231, King Fernando III placed the task of taking the Plaza de Quesada in the hands of the Archbishop of Toledo. Along with Quesada, he seized other towns that were ceded by the King to the Toledo church and that would later constitute the Adelantamiento de Cazorla.
However, even after the Archbishop’s conquest, the attacks on the town did not stop. In 1290, 1295 and in 1299, Muhammad II of Granada conquered and razed the suburb, then his descendant Muhammad III conquered it again in 1302, and in 1310 it was recovered by the army of Fernando IV. In 1319 Tíscar was conquered by the infante Don Pedro, uncle of Alfonso XI.
In 1331 Quesada ceased to be part of the Adelantamiento and was ceded by Alfonso XI to the city of Úbeda. Among the most outstanding events of the Modern Age, it is worth highlighting the mutiny of 1766, repercussion of the Esquilache riot, the first in which women revolted in Spain, and which was motivated by the rise in the price of bread. In 1788 the Economic Society of Friends of the Country was founded in the town. Queen Isabel II granted it the title of city.
In the early years of the twentieth century, the writers of the generation of ‘98 Manuel Cigues Aparicio and Antonio Machado visited the town, basing several of their works on Quesada. Around this time, in 1907, the great painter of universal fame Rafael Zabaleta was born in Quesada.
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