Mora de Rubielos

The land around Mora de Rubielos has been occupied since prehistoric times. A Bronze Age settlement at La Hoya Quemada, in the upper valley of the Mijares river, revealed rectangular rooms with clay-and-stone benches, stone-and-clay walls, and pottery including bowls, handled jars, and large globular vessels. A nearby cave, La Cueva del Coscojar, yielded Neolithic stone tools, Chalcolithic human remains, Bronze Age pottery, and Iberian ceramics — and later served as a Civil War refuge.

In the medieval period, Alfonso II reconquered the territory, and Mora held the front line of Christian forces against the Valencian Muslim kingdoms until 1204. The town passed through various hands — donated, sold, and disputed — before the Fernández de Heredia family established a lordship here, founded by Juan Fernández de Heredia, Grand Master of the Order of St John of Jerusalem. A customs post for trade with Valencia operated in the town. By the end of the period, the family had elevated Mora to a Marquisate. After backing the Bourbon side in the War of Succession, the town received the title "Fidelísima" and the fleur-de-lis on its coat of arms.

In 1845, Pascual Madoz described a town of around 500 houses divided into an old and a new quarter by a stream, with a notable town hall and an economy based on wheat, maize, beans, potatoes, onions, and sheep. A local textile industry — producing cloth for religious communities — had collapsed after those communities were dissolved, leaving the town poorer.

The Civil War brought Mora its most dramatic moment. During the Battle of Teruel (1937–38), after Republican losses at Andorra and Alcañiz, Mora briefly became the capital of the Republican zone. Franco's own headquarters were located here for a period, and a Nationalist war bulletin specifically named the town's capture as a significant advance.

The Collegiate Church of Santa María dominates the town and is its most remarkable building. Built in the mid-Gothic period with local stone, under the patronage of the Fernández de Heredia family, it follows the Levantine Gothic style: a single nave, plain and compact, with chapels set between the buttresses. At 19 metres, the nave is wider than any other in Spanish Gothic architecture except the cathedral of Girona. Five bays covered with ribbed vaulting lead to a triple polygonal apse. The south-facing doorway has a pointed arch with archivolt mouldings. Inside, decoration is sparse — mostly Romanesque motifs in the chapels, with some additions made in 1763. During the Civil War the building was used as military workshops and a watchtower, leaving it in ruins. Its artistic importance led to it being declared a National Monument in 1944, and a Site of Cultural Interest by the Aragonese government in 2004.

The castle stands on a rocky platform at the top of the town. Existing by 1198, its oldest parts — two rooms below the courtyard level — are Romanesque; the defensive towers, chapel, and arcaded courtyard date from later centuries. Built as much as a residence as a fortress, it combines military and palatial elements in the sober, massive style of Mediterranean Gothic. Today it houses an Ethnological Museum and a specialist library, and hosts the summer Festival Puerta al Mediterráneo.

The town hall is a heavy, rectangular Herreran-style building in ashlar stone from the first half of its century, with simple geometric mouldings. Several gates and arches survive, including the Arco del Calvario (1801), the Portal de Alcalá, the Portal de Cabra, and the Primer Portal de Rubielos, a tower-gate dating from 1380. A later gateway, demolished to allow vehicles through, was reconstructed in 1993. The Puente Viejo, or Bridge of the Miracle, is a flat-decked bridge with two arches — one semicircular, one slightly pointed — and a pillar bearing a tiled image of the Virgin of the First Sorrow.

Five hermitages also survive in the town. The Ermita de Loreto (built 1547, reformed 1798) has a single nave with a shell-shaped semicircular apse and barrel-vaulted ceiling. San Roque dates from a similar period and is built in ashlar and rubble stone. The Ermita de la Soledad also has a barrel vault with lunettes. The Ermita de la Dolorosa, of uncertain date, was heavily altered in 1969 and retains a small round window and a bell gable. The Ermita de San Miguel, rebuilt in 1978, stands out for its blue ceramic roof tiles and saw-tooth brick eaves.