Palenzuela

Long before the Middle Ages, the site was occupied by Celtiberian peoples whose remains, including a large necropolis, have fed the diocesan museum in Palencia. The town was known in Roman times as Pallantia, a name that appears in Roman records precisely because the settlement put up fierce resistance to conquest. Scholars still debate whether it belonged to the Vaccei or the Arevaci peoples, and there is genuine uncertainty about whether this Pallantia was the same one that gave its name to the provincial capital.

After the town was refounded in the medieval period, it grew in power and territory. Count Sancho, known as Sancho of the Fueros, granted it charters and a substantial surrounding district. Its position was strategically compelling: a hilltop encircled by the rivers Arlanza and Arlanzón, sitting on the frontier of the County and later Kingdom of Castile.

That made it a prize repeatedly fought over by nobles and lords, and it eventually came into the hands of the Admirals of Castile. It served as the head of the Merindad de Cerrato and hosted Castilian Cortes during the reign of Juan II, becoming entangled in the political disputes of the era. The town also had one of the most significant Jewish quarters in the province of Palencia; the neighbourhood, now called the Barrio Nuevo, can still be visited today.

Palenzuela holds a particular place in imperial history as one of 24 Spanish towns where Emperor Charles I spent a night on his final journey to the Monastery of Yuste in Cáceres. The towns now collaborate on a shared cultural route called the Ruta de Carlos V.

Palenzuela was declared a historic-artistic site in 1969, and its compact centre contains a range of civil and religious buildings worth exploring. The town's medieval walls survive in part. The most complete remnant is the Arco de la Paz, the gateway that once controlled entry to the town, and the bridge over the river Arlanza still stands.

A few sections of wall remain near the castle. The castle itself is in progressive ruin. It was built in a triangular plan with towers at each corner, constructed in mortared rubblework, though the dressed stone facing has long since disappeared.

The towers survive mainly because their walls were filled with adobe. The medieval town centre retains manor houses and fortified palaces, many still bearing stone coats of arms and heraldic shields on their facades. The Church of San Juan Bautista is a substantial Gothic building with multiple chapels and funerary monuments.

One of its altarpieces, the retablo of Santa Catalina, located in the left nave, is an anonymous work of its period. It was moved here from the Church of Santa Eulalia in 1885 and fully restored in 2008. Santa Eulalia itself is now largely in ruins, but its tower, arches, and foundations remain standing and make a striking sight.

Outside the town, the Ermita de la Virgen de Allende el Río has Romanesque arches and traces that point to very early origins. The Convento de San Francisco once served a political as well as religious function: it was here that the Cortes of Castile and León assembled during the reign of Juan II.