Last modified: 2013-12-02 by ivan sache
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The municipality of Huerta de Rey (1,088 inhabitants in 2010; 9,800 ha; municipal website) is located in the southeast of Burgos Province, on the border with Soria Province, 80 km of Burgos. The municipality is made of the villages of Huerta de Rey, Hinojar del Rey (81 inh.), Peñalba de Castro (98 inh.) and Quintanarraya (133 inh.).
Huerta de Rey, resettled by King Alfonso III (866-910), was in the 10th century the capital of a big alfoz (group of villages) encompassing Tornillos, Villa Quemada, Rocalla, Quintaniella, Oleros, Pérex, Rodiella, Piniella de Reposteros, Vexares, Espinosiella (mentioned in the Cantar de Mío Cid" chanson de geste), Pumaejos, Sant Yagüe, Las Aceñas and Molinterrado. The village, known in the Arab chronicles as Warfa, was sacked in 920 and 934 by Abd-ar-Rahman III, and, once again, by Al-Mansur. King Alfonso VI transferred Huerta de Rey to the Santo Domingo de Silo monastery, which was confirmed in a Bull signed on 9 April 1148 by Pope Eugene III. On 22 June 1637, Philip IV granted the title of villa to Huerta de Rey. The village was partially destroyed by a blaze in March 1918.
Huerta de Rey, as the world's capital of people with "rare or less common names", organized in August 2008 the 1st International Meeting of Rare Names. More than 200 villagers bear odd names such as Sindulfo, Aniceto, Marciana, Alpidia, Ercilio, Bienvenida, Firmo, Anacleta, Atolia, Canuta, Arón, Hermógenes, Onesiforo or Sicilio; at the end of the 19th century, a municipal clerk fed up with administrative errors due to the high number of villagers sharing the same name, proposed to draw names from the liturgic calendar. The philologist Josep Albaigés i Olivart made a record of all the rare names used in Huerta de Rey since 1928, prefaced by the local and rare-named philologist Hermógenes Perdiguero (El Comercio Digital, 9 August 2008.
Ivan Sache, 29 March 2011
The flag and arms of Huerta de Rey are prescribed by a Decree adopted on 29 December 1997 by the Burgos Provincial Government, signed on 15 January 1998 by the President of the Government, and published on 27 January 1998 in the official gazette of Castile and León, No. 17 (text).
The symbols are described as follows:
Flag: Quadrangular flag with proportions 1:1, yellow with a red bend. In the middle of the flag is placed the municipal coat of arms in full colors.
Coat of arms: Quarterly, 1. and 4. Gules a castle or masoned sable port and windows azure, 2. Or Child St. Pelagius proper holding dexter the martyr's palm, 3. Or two wolves passant sable per pale. The shield surmounted with a Royal Spanish crown.
Child St. Pelagius is St. Pelagius of Cordova (c. 912-926), said to have been martyred by Caliph Abd-ar-Rahman III.
Ivan Sache, 29 March 2011