Last modified: 2020-04-01 by ivan sache
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Flag of Hontanar - Image by Ivan Sache, 9 September 2019
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The municipality of Hontanar (152 inhabitants in 2018; 15,177 ha) is located on the border with the Province of Ciudad Real, 50 km south-west of Toledo.
Hontanar has its name derived from Latin fontana, "a fountain". A document from the 16th century lists four fountains on the municipal territory.
Hontanar emerged as a hamlet of the town of Malmoneda, which it subsequently superseded. The site of Malmoneda is registered as a Archeological Zone of cultural interest by an Agreement issued on 28 October 2008 by the Government of Castilla-La-Mancha and published on 6 November 2008 in the official gazette of Castilla-La Mancha, pp. 35,865-35,867 (text).
The site of Malmoleda is mostly composed of dwellings, necropolis and military structures from the Hispano-Roman, Visigoth, Muslim, and medieval Christian periods, as well as of the ruins of a deserted village known from the late 16th century to the 20th century as Malamonedilla. The site also contains documented, scattered remains of lithic industry from the Paleolithic.
The remains of archeological, monumental and/or artistic significance are:
- two funerary votive epigraphs in Roman style, with inscriptions of their donator;
- a truncated tower from the 12th-14th centuries;
- a quadrangular building of military-industrial style, with loopholes and remains of an access gate whose main elements have been taken away, which makes its datation cumbersome.
The scattered, rocky necropolis of possible Roman origin, associated to the funerary steles, was continued until the Middle Ages as individual tombs found all over the northern part of the site.
Several buildings that belonged to the deserted village, a possible church-chapel dedicated in 1526 to Our Lady of Grace included, have incorporated old elements in the walls.
Malmoleda is mentioned in several Christian historical sources, with a clear pre-Roman origin, starting with the re-settlement of the mountains by Mozarabs encouraged by Alfonso VII. In 1210, Alfonso VIII granted to Alfonso Téllez de Meneses several estates and castles, Malmoneda included, subsequently transferred in 1222 to Jiménez de Rada, Archbishop of Toledo. The whole territory, Mala Moneda included, was sold in 1245 by Ferdinand III to the Council of Toledo.
Philip II's Relaciones report that Hontanar was established in 1376. The 1576 and 1587 surveys list Malamoneda with a few inhabitants, and a castle and tower nearly ruined. Malamonedilla was reported for the last time in 1930.
Ivan Sache, 9 September 2019
The flag of Hontanar is prescribed by an Order issued on 10 August 1998 by the Government of Castilla-La Mancha and published on 21 August 1998 in the official gazette of Castilla-La Mancha, No. 38, p. 6,461 (text).
The flag is described as follows:
Flag: Rectangular in proportions 2:3, white with a green triangle running from the hoist to the flag's center.
The coat of arms of Hontanar is prescribed by an Order issued on 10 August 1998 by the Government of Castilla-La Mancha and published on 21 August 1998 in the official gazette of Castilla-La Mancha, No. 38, pp. 6,460-6,461 (text).
The coat of arms is described as follows:
Coat of arms: Argent a castle gules port and windows azure on a green mount from which flow four pipes or fountains over waves. The shield surmounted by a Spanish Royal crown.
Ivan Sache, 9 September 2019