Llerena, Spain
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Church of Nuestra Señora de la Granada
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 Llerena
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| Coordinates: 38°14′21″N 6°01′07″W / 38.23917°N 6.01861°W | ||
| Country | Spain | |
| Autonomous community | Extremadura | |
| Province | Badajoz | |
| Municipality | Llerena | |
| Area | ||
| • Total | 163 km2 (63 sq mi) | |
| Elevation | 641 m (2,103 ft) | |
| Population (2007) | ||
| • Total | 5,982 | |
| • Density | 35.4/km2 (92/sq mi) | |
| Time zone | CET (UTC+1) | |
| • Summer (DST) | CEST (UTC+2) | |
| Website | http://llerena.org | |
Llerena is a municipality located in the province of Badajoz, Extremadura, Spain. According to the 2007 census (INE), the municipality has a population of 5,995 inhabitants. Llerena, a town that declared itself a Historical Artistic gathering on December 29, 1966, is located in southwestern Spain. The head of the judicial and economic center of the Region of the country of the same name, it is equidistant from 20 municipalities, and sits at the confluence of the District 432 and 413 National Roads.
In the time of the Arabs it was called Ellerina, a place contested between Arabs and Christians. It was definitively occupied in the year 1243 by Pelayo Pérez Correa, master of the Order of Santiago, to whom Ferdinand III of Castile had entrusted the reconquest of Sierra Morena.
The settlement was given to the Order of Santiago, to provide for its defense and resettlement. The masters of the order granted Fueros in 1297.
The tradition emerged that the masters of the order use Llerena as their temporal residence. The most noteworthy masters who resided there were:
Llerena was the habitual residence of the Masters of the Order of Santiago, and this fact favoured the city in the 15th century, when it became capital of the Priory of the Hostal San Marcos de León. For this reason it was the most important center of the territory, which until then had been Reina. So much was its increase in importance that it became the most important administrative center of the Leon province of the order of Santiago in Extremadura, the headquarters of the Maestral order table, and the principal town of the more than 30 towns governed from Llerena and dependent upon the Prior of the Order of San Marcos in León.
In the year 1340, King Alfonso XI of Castile presided over the Cortes in Llerena. In 1383, Pedro Fernández celebrated the General Chapter of the Order of Santiago in Llerena, with the assistance of all of the Order's commanders.
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Wikipedia