Last modified: 2014-12-29 by ivan sache
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Flag of La Pola de Gordón - Image by "JGaray" (Wikimedia Commons), slightly modified, 28 August 2010
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The municipality of La Pola de Gordón (4,077 inhabitants in 2009; 15,764 ha; municipal website) is located in the north of León Province, 30 km of León. The municipality is made of 17 villages, whose name end with "de Gordón", recalling the region has been known for ages, and is still known as the Gordón Council (Concejo de Gordón). The municipality is named for its capital, the village of La Pola de Gordón. Here, pola is the local form of pueblo, "a village".
There is no known written history of the area before the Reconquest, except a few mentions in the historical chronicles. The Land of Gordón is listed among the privileges granted in 876 by Pope John VIII to the church of Oviedo; the region was probably named for the famous Gordón castle watching a narrow pass commanding access to the Kingdom of Asturias. Alfonso the Wise's chronicle recalls that the Moorish ruler Al-Mansur (938-1002) besieged the castle, to no avail (Mas pero a Gordón non lo priso). Around 1220, King of León Alfonso IX started to dismantle the castle to calm down his neighbor, the King of Castile; the last remains of the castle were eventually suppressed in 1811.
Ivan Sache, 28 August 2010
The flag of La Pola de Gordón (municipal website) is prescribed by a Decree adopted on 23 June 1998 by the León Provincial Government, signed on the same day by the President of the Government, and published on 29 July 1998 in the official gazette of Castilla y León, No. 143 (text).
The flag is described as follows:
Flag: Quadrangular flag, with proportions 1:1, made of a blue panel with a white cross of 1/3 the flag's hoist. In the middle of the flag is placed the municipal coat of arms.
The coat of arms of La Pola de Gordón is prescribed by Royal Decree No. 2430/1977, adopted on 23 September 1977; errors in the Decree were corrected on 15 February 1978.
The coat of arms is made of a traditional, rounded-off rectangular Spanish shield, with 6:5 proportions. The shield is "Azure a lion or a castle argent masoned sable with a lion or on the sinister, a border argent the motto 'MAS PERO A GORDīN NON LO PRISO' in letters uncial sable. The shield surmounted by a Royal closed crown".
The coat of arms was proposed by Gordón-born Francisco Escobar García, priest and professor at the University of Oviedo, in a memoir submitted to the Royal Academy of History. On 25 June 1976, the Academy validated the proposal, amended to "Azure a lion or a castle argent masoned sable with a lion or on the sinister. The shield surmounted by a Royal closed crown", therefore recommending to omit the border with the motto. The municipality appealed the recommendation, which was reverted on 25 July 1977. The charges and the motto, meaning "Gordón was not seized, either", recall Gordón castle and its resistance to Al-Mansur's siege.
Ivan Sache, 10 April 2011
Flag of Cabornera de Gordón - Image by Ivan Sache, 10 April 2011
Cabornera de Gordón is located 5.5 km of the village of Pola de Gordón proper. Cabornera was mentioned for the first time in a charter dated 1152. The next document confirming the name and localization of the village is another charter dated 1304. Madoz' Dictionary (1850) mentions in Cabornera a famous healing source of iron-bearing water, then called the Friar's Fountain (Fuente del Fraile).
The flag and arms of Cabornera de Gordón, validated by the Chronicler of Arms of Castilla y León, are prescribed by a Decree adopted on 21 February 2010 by the Village Council, signed on 17 August 2010 by the Village Mayor, and published on 24 August 2010 in the official gazette of Castilla y León, No. 163, p. 6,640 (text).
The symbols are described as follows:
Flag: Square flag with proportions 1:1, made of two equal horizontal stripes, the upper stripe blue and the lower stripe yellow. In the middle of the flag is placed the village's coat of arms in full colors.
Coat of arms: Per pale, 1. Gules a cave or, 2. Azure a fountain argent. The shield surmounted with a Royal crown closed.
The cavern recalls the probable Asturian etymology of Cabornera while the fountain recalls the Friar's Fountain.
Ivan Sache, 10 April 2011