Sasamón

Sasamón has been inhabited since Celtic times, when the Turmodigi people called it Segisamone — meaning "the strongest." Its strategic position made it attractive to Rome: the Legio IV Macedonica, under the direct command of Augustus, set up camp here between roughly 29 and 19 BC during the campaigns to subdue the Cantabrians and Astures, giving the town its Roman name, Segisama Julia.

The town sat at a major junction of imperial roads. The great Roman highway from Astorga passed through it, splitting here: one branch headed northeast toward Bordeaux via Pamplona — the Via Aquitania — and the other ran east toward Tarragona via Zaragoza. Some traces of these roads survive outside the town. The Via Aquitania route is also the origin of the Camino Francés, since pilgrims from the Aquitaine region entered Spain along it; the route has been revived today as the Camino a Santiago Vía Aquitania. The town appears in the Antonine Itinerary as one of the recognised road stations of Roman Hispania.

In the 11th century, King Sancho II made Sasamón a bishop's seat. Its first bishop was Munio, who died in 1120. The diocese was later absorbed into Burgos, whose bishops continued to style themselves bishops of both Burgos and Sasamón. The town's walls went up through the 13th century.

During the Napoleonic Wars, French occupation provoked a guerrilla reprisal in 1812: the church and town hall were burned, destroying much of Sasamón's medieval documentary record. The town was listed as a heritage ensemble in 1787 under the Floridablanca Census, and formal proceedings to declare it a Bien de Interés Cultural as a conjunto histórico were opened in 1982, eventually completed by the Junta de Castilla y León decades later.

Sasamón's long succession of peoples — Turmodigi, Roman, and Castilian — left behind a varied stock of monuments.

The most important is the Iglesia de Santa María la Real, a Gothic church built between the 13th and 14th centuries, with later additions: a cloister from the 15th century and a south nave and Porch of San Miguel from the 16th. It is the largest church in the province of Burgos after the cathedral itself and the church of Melgar de Fernamental. The town community has made active efforts to restore and promote this building.

The medieval walls still partly survive. One of the original gateway arches into the walled enclosure is preserved at the entrance to the town, along with a section of the wall itself; both were consolidated and restored in 2014.

Two medieval bridges cross the River Brullés on the outskirts of town, identifiable by the shape of their arches. The Plaza Mayor, a small square beside the church, has recently been pedestrianised and contains the town hall building. Among the surrounding streets, a good number of manor houses built in dressed limestone survive.

On the edge of town stands the Ermita de San Isidro, beside which there is a 15th-century stone wayside cross — a cruz de humilladero — considered one of the finest examples of its kind in Spain. Carved in stone, it depicts several scenes from the story of salvation.

Just outside the town, near the road to Alar del Rey, the Arco de San Miguel is what remains of a Romanesque church from the 12th century, once belonging to the now-depopulated settlement of San Miguel de Mazarreros.

Also on the outskirts is the Casa Museo de Salaguti, dedicated to the work of a local artist known for sculpture displayed across Spain. A fountain in the town dates from the mid-15th century.