Priego

Iberian remains and traces of a Roman road suggest people have been settling around Priego since long before the medieval period. The town's documented noble history begins in 1298, when Fernando IV granted the lordship to Alonso Ruiz Carrillo. The title passed down through the Carrillo family, and in 1465 Enrique IV of Castile elevated it to a county, granting the title to Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, who had married into the Carrillo line. From that point the family took the combined surname Carrillo de Mendoza, and their influence spread into Guadalajara and Molina de Aragón.

Priego was granted city status in 1440 by Juan II of Castile — father of Isabella the Catholic — whose royal falconer and chronicler was a Carrillo. A later count, Fernando Carrillo de Mendoza, served as Philip II's ambassador to Portugal and as chamberlain to John of Austria. He was present at the Battle of Lepanto and personally brought word of the victory to Pope Pius V. The Pope gave Fernando a painting of the Virgin of the Angustias and granted Priego the right to hold the procession of the Reverencias each Easter Sunday, a ceremony still observed today in which the Risen Christ is replaced by the Monstrance and goes out to meet the Virgin of the Torre, the town's patron.