HISTORY
The oldest archeological find made locally is a sword from the Iberian era, when the Jandulilla Valley was the communication route between Cástulo and Acci. This route was probably at its most active during the fourth century BC, when the trade in Greek products was more prolific and the aristocracy of Úbeda la Vieja extended its control throughout the entire valley of the river, from the mouth to the Pajarillo hill in Huelma. The location of the Bélmez settlement indicates occupation, or at least some control over the valley, from an earlier time.
Another settlement, known as Barranco de Hornillos Bajo, highlights the occupation of the Bélmez area during the Roman era. The current population of Bélmez de la Moraleda is located a few kilometres from its original medieval nucleus. Much of this region was dominated during the ninth century by the Muladí family of the b. Habil, and most of the castles referenced in Arabic sources would have been small forts. It is likely Bélmez already existed since, from the year 945, a few years after Abd'alRahman III subdued the entire region, the construction of a mosque is cited on an inscription. It is possible that this was a building carried out jointly by a group of villages, a solution frequently adopted by small towns to reduce costs.
However, the name Bélmez does not appear in texts about the area until the beginning of the fourteenth century. The word originates from the Arabic for 'protected place'; the suffix of the name comes from the Spanish "velmez" meaning an outer shirt to stop armour from aggravating the skin (hence suitably reaffirming the protective meaning of the town's name). The etymology of the town's name is also a testament to its history and the diverse groups who have occupied it over the centuries.
The castle of Bélmez de la Moraleda was conquered by the Infante Pedro de Castilla, son of Sancho IV and brother of Fernando IV, in 1317 as part of the campaigns which constituted the Battle of the Strait. In 1368, the Nasrid Kingdom once again took control of Bélmez and other places on the border of Granada, taking advantage of the war between the Castilian Lords. In 1448, it was definitively taken over by the Assistant to the Council of Baeza, Fernando de Villafañe, who supervised the administration of justice on behalf of the King. From 1501, the lands of Bélmez de la Moraleda belonged to the city of Granada in payment of certain royal debts, reserving the mayorship of the castle to the Lord of Jódar, Alonso de Carvajal.
The foundation of the present municipal centre is said to date from 1524, when land was leased to some local farmers, constituting the Fuente de la Moraleda farmhouse. From this moment, there was a huge population decline around the Castle of Bélmez. The Catalog of the Bishops of the Cathedral Churches of the Diocese of Jaén and ecclesiastical annals of this Bishopric, by the clergyman and scholar Martín de Ximena Jurado from 1654, indicates that the town continued to belong to the Marquises of Jódar. Until the provincialization of 1833 and its integration into the province of Jaén, both Bélmez and Solera were exclaves of the Kingdom of Granada and belonged to the party of Las Villas.
At the end of the twentieth century, the declining profitability of farmland led to mass emigration to industrial and touristic cities, and from 1998 to 2017 the population decreased by 22.59 per cent.