Medinaceli

Medinaceli crowns a hill above the meeting of the Jalón and Arbujuelo valleys. The Romans left an arch and worked the salt flats below; under Muslim rule the town became a frontier centre known as Medinat Salim. Alfonso I of Aragon took it in 1129, and the upper Jalón soon passed to Castile. Its walls and position guarded an old route between the Castilian interior and the Ebro basin.

In the later Middle Ages Medinaceli gave its name to a powerful noble house. Luis de la Cerda became Duke of Medinaceli in 1479, and the ducal family reshaped the town with a palace and other works. The salt workings in the valley continued across the centuries, linking the hilltop seat of lordship with a productive landscape below.