Arahal

Arahal's origins are difficult to trace. A fire set by a crowd of peasants on 30 June 1857 destroyed the town's public archives, and much early documentation went with them. Archaeological finds — inscribed stones and sarcophagi bearing the name Basilippo — suggest Roman settlement, and the town itself seems to have begun as a meeting point for shepherds at a crossroads.

Fernando III took the nearby stronghold of Morón de la Frontera in 1240, and Arahal passed through several hands: the city of Sevilla, then the Crown under Sancho IV, then the Order of Alcántara. From 1460 it formed part of the Marquessate of Villena before passing to the Counts of Ureña. Arahal had its own council from 1527, and in 1554 Carlos V granted it the status of independent town — a document also lost in the 1857 fire.

A friar writing in 1726 described Arahal as a kind of small Athens for the quality of its schools in rhetoric and letters. Pope Pius VI formally recognised Santa María Magdalena as the town's patron in 1796, a status already held by tradition since the reconquest. Alfonso XIII raised Arahal to city status by royal decree in 1907.

The Parish Church of Santa María Magdalena is the town's most significant monument. The dedication to Mary Magdalene goes back to Fernando III, whose troops took the area on her feast day, 22 July 1240. Documentary references to the church begin in 1342, with records of tithes, and by 1599 a Seville sculptor named Juan de Oviedo was being paid 87,820 maravedíes for a new choir.

The original building was Mudéjar in style and had been deteriorating for decades when the 1755 Lisbon earthquake — estimated at between 7.3 and 8.5 on the Richter scale — caused severe structural damage. The shockwaves forced the brotherhoods based there to abandon their chapels and relocate temporarily, a disruption that reshaped their development for years afterward.

The decision to demolish and rebuild was not taken until 1785. The new church was financed entirely by Pedro Téllez Girón, the ninth Duke of Osuna, designed by Julián Barcenilla, and built by academic architect Lucas Cintora. It was completed in 1800. A plaque still fixed in the chancel records the duke's patronage in full. The building is brick and rubble masonry, with three naves, a transept, and a choir.