Description

 

The old town hall or town hall only persists its cover, embedded in a house of new construction and which is known today as the house of the Albarracin.

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In the Courts of Toledo of 1480, the Catholic Monarchs arranged for all cities and towns where the council did not have its own building, to proceed to build it within two years. The Municipal Council chose to build the house of the town hall in Santa Maria Square; ratifying, with it, the hegemony of this public space over any other in the city. When the council moved in 1791 to its current location in the Market Square, the shields located on the cover were erased. It was in these years when the building was acquired by the Albarracin family, hence its current name.

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Cover of the final Gothic, made in stone, is of great formal simplicity. The doorway, slightly archivolt, is covered with a carpanel arch. On it a three-lobed tympanum formed by two moldings that rest on shoes, located at the height of the impost of the arch. Tympanum that housed the coat of arms of the Catholic Monarchs flanked by the coat of arms of the city and that of the mayor of the city, probably that of Francisco de Bobadilla. Two little columns with shafts decorated with interwoven wicker and checkered in rhombus flank the spill of the door to the line of the imposts and, from its capitals, two ribbed profile molding, decorated with interwoven wicker and balls, which are cut by a cinch cornice.

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From 1461 the city counted with corregidor, Don Fernando de Villafane, that shared it with the city of Jaen. By decision of the Catholic Kings, adopted in the Courts of Madrigal, the city had its own corregidor. This was an official who permanently represented the monarch and his interests, so he had great faculties in themes as political, legal, etc.

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Andalusia had 10 corregidores, of which three corresponded to the Kingdom of Jaen. From the first third of the sixteenth century, Andujar shared the corregidor with the city of Jaén, residing in the capital of the kingdom. The fidelity of the city to the real will did not make it necessary for its presence to be permanent. This decision was not to the liking of the residents of the city, who, on more than one occasion, requested that a permanent corregidor be appointed, which was achieved as of 1628. The corregidor of Jaén and Andujar was assigned an annual salary of 600 ducats of which 200 corresponded to Andujar.

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The old town hall, an exceptional witness of the future of the city, seems to want to hide all the experiences that took place in it. His complicity with the past we will violate with the story of some facts of daily life, which ultimately are what shape the idiosyncrasy of a community.

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One hot morning of the month of August of 1491 entered the Cabildo Francisco Herrera with signs of great anger and discomfort. He asked to meet with Juan Alonso, the mayor of the city, to report the flight of his slave Faraz, of Muslim origin. Nothing was known of the aforementioned Faraz who had to flee to the kingdom of Granada in search of a freedom that history would deny him shortly afterwards.

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The concubinage had to be common practice although for that reason it stopped being cause for scandal and reprobation. For this reason, the mayor of the city, Juan de Llerena, received on October 26, 1496, the order by which it had to be reported if it was true that Pedro de Granados had an aunt of his as concubine with whom he had two sons or if Alonso Serrano was with his cousin or if Atanasio Pérez, being married, committed adultery and thus a long list of neighbors.

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After the time, already in the seventeenth century, occurred in the city a similar nature that left as a sequel a "Saint Benedict" that today still persists. A certain Maria Gonzalez, a neighbor of Andujar, was condemned by the tribunal of the Holy Office as a witch, although in reality she was a procuress who prepared amorous oils and spells, with the pretense of obtaining success in the amorous leaders. Well, one of the members of the Holy Office sentenced before the reality of the case: ANDUJAR, THE ONE WHO IS NOT WHORE, IS WITCH. Sentence, excessively forceful, that reflected a reality very usual in the Spain of that time and that Andujar shared, although we thought no more than other localities.

 

To finish this anecdote we return, again, to the fifteenth century to remember an event that should have provoked more than a jocular comment. Don Martín de Cañete, executive judge and guardian of the estates of the city, was accused of having taken three rams from the butchers. He alleged that he did it because he was in a "place where he could not be". We do not know if Don Martin enjoyed the food of the aforementioned rams but, in any case, his digestion must have been hard because for that reason he saw himself as an accused before the Council of Castile.

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Association of Friends of the Patrimony of Andujar