Calatayud

Calatayud lies on the Jalón in Aragón, between the central Spanish meseta and the Ebro valley. The medieval town grew around a Muslim fortress whose Arabic name, Qalʿat Ayyub, gave Calatayud its name. Alfonso I of Aragón conquered it in 1119. A Jewish community already established by the eleventh century remained after the conquest until the expulsion of 1492.

The collegiate church of Santa María stands on a former mosque site. Its fifteenth-century Mudéjar bell tower and Renaissance doorway added in 1528 show different phases of the city's architectural history. During the Peninsular War, guerrillas took French-occupied Calatayud in 1811; the town briefly became a provincial capital in 1822–1823.