Fuente del Maestre

Human activity around Fuente del Maestre goes back to prehistoric times, and Roman-era settlements were scattered across what is now the municipal area. Researchers believe this territory may be the "Castra Vinaria" mentioned by Pliny the Elder, and road work in 2017 uncovered the remains of a Roman ceramics workshop near the road to Villafranca de los Barros. The site in the Sierra de San Jorge nearby is thought to hold further remains.

Under Muslim rule the town was called Fuente Roniel and was protected by an adobe defensive wall. It was later reconquered by King Alfonso IX of León and came under the jurisdiction of the Order of Santiago, though there is evidence the Knights Templar were also present. The Grand Master Lorenzo Suárez de Figueroa is credited with giving the town its current name and its coat of arms. A new wall of stone and lime was likely built during the medieval period; a stretch of it still stands today.

During the Middle Ages the town had a notable Jewish quarter as well as a Moorish population, both of whom remained until the forced expulsions. The town grew steadily, and by 1594 it had 1,074 tax-paying households within the León province of the Order of Santiago. In 1606, Philip III granted it the status of an independent Villa, with jurisdiction over several surrounding villages — all now disappeared.

By the mid-19th century the town counted 1,420 households and 4,580 residents. It belonged to the diocese of the Priory of San Marcos de León until 1873, when it was transferred to the Diocese of Badajoz. On 6 June 1899, Queen Regent María Cristina — widow of Alfonso XII and mother of Alfonso XIII — granted Fuente del Maestre the title of City, a status it still holds.

The most important building in Fuente del Maestre is the Parish Church of Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria, declared a Historic-Artistic Monument by the Junta de Extremadura. Built on the site of an earlier church dedicated to Santa María la Mayor, it was constructed in the late Gothic style, with Renaissance elements on the doorways and other sections. The plan is a Latin cross with three distinct zones: a large chancel, a lower nave, and a Mudéjar brick tower finished with battlements. The chancel and nave both have ribbed vaulting and were the work of Juan de Maeda. The lateral doorways and the inner sacristy door, carved by Juan de las Liebes in an ornate Plateresque style, are particularly striking. Inside, the main altarpiece — a large early work attributed to Antonio Clemente and Sebastián Jiménez — dominates the space. The church also holds side altarpieces, silverwork and paintings of considerable quality. The organ, built in 1807 by Manuel Risueño and recently restored, is worth seeking out, along with the wooden gallery that supports it. A stone inscription in the Santiago chapel, dated 1593, bears the word "acabóse" — "finished."

The Palace of the Grand Master is a two-storey Mudéjar building organised around a courtyard with a double-arched porticoed gallery in exposed brick. Its windows onto the square are paired and framed in an alfiz surround. It served as the temporary residence of Grand Master Lorenzo Suárez de Figueroa and later as a Franciscan college; the remaining structure was acquired from the Franciscan Order in 1982.

Seventeen stone coats of arms survive on house facades within the old town, spread across several streets including Calle San Pedro, Calle del Pozo and Plaza Gran Maestre.

The Fuente del Corro, a Renaissance marble fountain of square plan with three approach steps, has kept its original form since at least 1527, when it appears in the Ordinances of Charles V. Buried and dismantled in 1916, it was excavated and restored and reopened in its current form in 1989.

A surviving stretch of the town wall — nearly 200 metres long — can be seen on Calle Cava.