Elche History

Following the Christian conquest, around 1250, the city passed to the Crown of Castile. In the year 1265 the Muslims were expelled from the city after a revolt, and in 1305, Elche was ceded to the Kingdom of Valencia. During the reign of Amadeo I in 1871, the king awarded him the title of City, after a visit to the village. During the 60s and 70s of the twentieth century, the city experienced a sharp increase in population associated with industrialization, which in Elche convetiría a leading producer of footwear in Europe.

The palm grove of Elche, with the representation of the sacred Mystery of Elche has been declared by Unesco a World Heritage Site and Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity respectively. These symbols of identity Elche is one of the main attractions of this industrial city.

Beginning in 1305, and in the Crown of Aragon, the city becomes known as Valencian in the names of former Elch, or Eltx Elche. Since the mid-fifteenth century, Elig became the usual spelling of the city of Valencia until he fell into disuse after the promulgation of the decrees of New Plant in the year 1707, which was institutionalized by the Spanish, Elche, in official documentation of the Kingdom. Following the Rules of Castellon (1932) there was some controversy over whether the name should be written as Valencian Elche or Elig, however the City Council who was eventually chosen by the first script

The oldest written record we have of the coat of arms of the city is given the privilege to Elche by King Alfonso X on January 27th of 1270, which provides, among other grants, the use of stamp and unique. According to the minutes of the Council held in the Church of Santa Maria this grant was still in force in the year 1383.

Elche (in Valencian and official Elche) is a city of Valencia situated in the province of Alicante, on the river Vinalopo. Its population reached 228,348 inhabitants ( 2008), being the second most populated city in the province of Alicante, the third of Valencia and the twentieth in population nationally. The metropolitan area of Alicante-Elche, Elche umbrella with conurbanizacion of Alicante and the nearby towns of Santa Pola and Crevillent is the 8th largest population in Spain, with around 735,000 inhabitants.

With the arrival of the Romans, was a process of forming a colony populated with veterans of the Cantabrian Wars, which would be called Cologne Illici Iulia Augusta, about 26 years a. C. Under the Muslim rule in the Middle Ages, the town was established in its present location.

It was under the domination when the name of Visigothic Illici begins to take different forms with the appearance of E in place of I like Elici, Elica or Elec. In the division of Al-Andalus, led by Yusuf al-Fihri appears (pronounced Elsh) as the Arabic name of Elche in the eighth century. At the end of the thirteenth century and under the dominion of the Kingdom of Murcia Castilian is when the current name of the city: Elche.

Until the seventeenth century the shield was composed of the gate of the walled city with two towers. It is from then that the oval shield is divided into two parts, with the door suerior and towers in the area of red and the lower the altar and the initials on the top line IC and IA in the field and azur around the legend Inmunis Cologne Illica Augusta, the whole crowned by a Roman matron with a palm in his hand.

The Official Anthem of Elche, entitled Ode to Elche, Elche was composed by Alfredo Lopez Javaloyes and written by Juan Ferrara. A famous song in the city of Elche is abanera Aromas, which sounds on the night of August 14 (night of the call or Alborada Nit de l'Alba), during the festivities in honor of the Virgin of the Assumption .
Modern Age [edit]

Elche is the only place in the world in which the craftsmanship of the white palm persists. The City Council sent annually to the Easter Palmas white church leaders and policies, as the Kings of Spain, the Pope or the President of the Government

The first name that is documented is the record of classical Latin in Illici (pronounced Il.liki or Iliki), in an inscription found in Italy where, with reference to a person originally from Elche, Illici appears as the name given by the Romans the colony of Hispania. Everything indicates that it could derive from the name that the Iberians gave their village before the arrival of the Romans. Consist of documents with the name in Greek Helike by classical historians Diodorus and Ptolemy.

Restocking completed by Jordi Cárdenas between 1609-1611, I was trying to rebuild not only a serious economic situation that may come before, but accelerated rapidly in the expulsion, but a rebuild of political weakness, which was then partially offset entering urban oligarchies owners among the beneficiaries of reforestation, along with many other neighbors in social and rural crafts. Furthermore the emergence of a complex social organization that began to cause a powerful oligarchy composed of owning knights, citizens, boards of the town, lawyers, doctors, notaries and a bourgeoisie of merchants, much of which was of foreign origin.

A very diverse craftguilds and organized in a series of layers of workers, farmers and peasants who provided the foundation for the exchange and exploitation. After lowering the production yield of the field due to the Moorish expulsion, crime, banditry and resistance manor in 1644, with the inauguration of Jaime Cardenas, brother and heir of late George, are the trigger for a series of conflicts that result in a tug of war between the town and the institution with the noble pursuit that ended in favor of it, the ruling of the litigation reversion to the Crown in 1697.

XVI and XVII are social conflicts. On one hand, in Germany, the town took the opportunity to prevent the revolt agermanada the swearing in of Cardenas and Didac proclaim their attachment to the Crown. The failure of the revolt by military troops out of the aristocracy at the head of which was the lord of Elche and the Marquis of Vélez, was, once again, the eruption of the ideal of real low-medieval town. Moreover, the Moorish expulsion meant that not only the loss of one third of the population, as recent research shows that the Muslim population in the suburbs was not a simple peasant community uniquely within the power of Cardenas, but a community that practices a commercialized agriculture on the area of the former Magram.
The Castle-Palace of the Alcázar de Altamira or Honor, built in the late fifteenth century.

Another striking aspect of the century is the increase in urban activities related to oil and soap from the local oligarchy owner, especially the nobles, in the midst of a crisis of the century. The XVIII begins by marking the abolition of Fueros in 1707, which gives the opportunity for unimpeded manorial jurisdiction, which creates the post of mayor, personally appointed by the Lord, above the ordinary mayors and others paramos community and own and then hit the opposition of the town once it regains its social dynamics from the Thirties.

Beginning in this decade is economic growth based on agriculture-oriented oil production, and grain Barrilla, traded through the port of Alicante, the possible emergence of new fortunes and cut the chances of the lowest strata. This situation, plus the administrative and fiscal structure of the feudal nature of acting in good times and low production business retreat, caused the crisis of the 60s, with the peak year 1766, when the revolt antisenorial in favor of free trade and former municipal uses, while denouncing a structural, a marked change in structural capital growth coupled with agricultural activity as it was shaped by the bourgeois revolutionary processes.

Agriculture, however, it would soon go into crisis, which led to the emergence of modern industry, the espadrille. Hemp was partially replaced by jute, as Pedro Ibarra, the first factory was founded by Josep Maria Buch, who brought together a number of working machines dispersed simply in exchange for raw materials.