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 Town history (II) |
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In the Medieval Era
There are no concrete written accounts about the city of La Coruña after the Roman occupation. It was more of a dark period for La Coruña . It would seem that it suffered from the same invasions from the north as the rest of Spain in the 5th century AD, undergoing the same destruction as other cities.
La Coruña also experienced an epigrammatic Arab invasion during the 8th century. The resiliency of the locals made the Arab incursion a short-lived one.
There came point in La Coruña history whereby the whole the social order was run by feudal lordships with bishops, monasteries and nobles, giving the Middle Ages their particular characteristics. Most of the inhabitants of La Coruña lived in the Old City during this time.
King Alfonso IX , the Spanish king of Leon, made an unfaltering decision to move the inhabitants of El Burgo to La Coruña and granted the Statutes of Benavente in 1188, under which most of Galicia was populated.
Some years later, King Alfonso X The Wise granted La Coruña the freedom of becoming a salt seaport with no taxes for unloading and selling.
The development of the city over these centuries is owed to agricultural intensification and the reopening of sea trade. Guilds were formed at this time in the streets that still bear their names.
Under the leadership of King Juan II, La Coruña was officially acknowledged as a city in 1446. This same monarch also approved liberated commerce between two La Coruña ships and two England ships. This meant a momentous augmentation in the city's trading.
Under the Catholic Kings, sailormen and sea traders were declared exempt from the tax known as the quintelada , consisting of quarter of a barrel of wine, salt, five thousand sardines and a cartload of wood.
King Carlos I granted two major privileges: the right to hold a market on Saturdays and the creation of the Royal Contract House for spices.
The the 16 th century hostility between Felipe II and Queen Elizabeth I of England was mainly because of religious differences. It resulted in Queen Elizabeth's sending various task forces against the Spanish monarchy. One of these was sent to La Coruña under Admiral Sir Francis Drake in 1589. The English armada recoiled after burning down the monastery of Santo Domingo , the parish of Santo Tomás and the area called the Pescadería . Under this same ruler, the Crown Court was moved from Santiago to La Coruña.
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