Living on the costa

The streets of the old town marbella have revived this Sunday a recreation of the capture of the city by the Catholic Monarchs on June 11, 1485, an activity that has the double objective of divulge the history of the town and of being a tourist attraction and that It is part of the local festivals in honor of the Patron Saint, San Bernabé.

The act has lasted more than an hour and a half since the royal entourage has departed from Salinas street in the direction of the Plaza de Nuestra Señora de la Encarnación after 11:20, staging the entry of King Ferdinand the Catholic into the city.

Afterwards, the reenactment took place. of capitulations or negotiations held between the Count of Ribadeo and the mayor of Marbella at the time, Abu Neza, in the Plaza de la Iglesia, a location where the director of the Fernando el Católico Cultural Institute of Marbella, Ángel Álvarez, explained to the attendees the city ​​take.

In this way, it has highlighted the capture of Ronda by Ferdinand the Catholic prior to the arrival of his troops in Marbella, pointing out that after sending two letters without obtaining results, “the king orders that the army prepare bags”, that is, supplies and food for 15 days. According to him, this period was the one that the monarch estimated to “reach his objective, which is Malaga” as it was “militarily the strategic place of the regime of the Kingdom of Granada”. In this sense, he has recalled that Granada was the “political center”, while Marbella was “the administrative center”.

Thus, after the “fall of Ronda” and the move to Arcos, Álvarez explained that Ferdinand the Catholic “went to Marbella through the mountains” and settled in Río Real to wait for “the negotiations led by the Count of Ribadeo” with the mayor, Abu Neza, “so that negotiate the capitulation and not take the city by storm because he does not want to waste time, men or troops”.

Subsequently, there has been investiture of knights at the door of the Town Hall, a chivalrous ceremony that has been carried out according to the protocol of the time and before the expectant gaze of numerous tourists. This has been followed by Christianization of the hermitage of Santiago after 1:30 p.m., in the Plaza de los Naranjos, where “an imagination” has been practiced as it is “an old mosque” that “has been blessed and Christianized” as marked by the religious ritual of the time, according to the secretary of the Cultural Institute Fernando el Católico of Marbella, Juan Cervera.

Finally, it has been done delivery of capitulations to the Municipal Corporation and the older brother of the Brotherhood of Los Romeros de San Bernabé of the edict by which the King proclaims San Bernabé as patron saint of Marbella.

According to Álvarez, the agreement between Moors and Christians is reached and “on June 8, 1485 and the capitulations are signed because Marbella decides to surrender without assault, in exchange for a series of conditions such as that the gomeres -what is known today as mercenaries-, will go out with their wives and children, but unarmed”, as well as that “all the people from Marbella -Muslims- must leave the city and they can go to the farmhouses or rural farmhouses” given the need for labor in the countryside and repopulate the city with Christians.

He continued telling the audience that from the signing of the capitulations “the entrance of the formal king into the city takes place and the the delivery of the keys”, which has also been represented in the Plaza de la Iglesia, although it took place in the Cruz del Humilladero, on Málaga street. According to the Santoral, he “enters the day of the apostle San Bernabé, that is why he is the Patron Saint of Marbella”.