San Felices

San Felices belongs to the western country around Ciudad Rodrigo, near the frontier between the Castilian Leonese lands and Portugal. San Felices de los Gallegos is a fortified town close to the border. After Portuguese troops occupied it, King Denis ordered a castle built in 1296; the Treaty of Alcañices confirmed the town's transfer to Portugal the following year. It returned to the Leonese lands in 1326.

The town later came under the lordship of the dukes of Alba. Its inhabitants contested a levy known as the noveno, including in a lawsuit brought before the royal court at Valladolid in 1612. The Portuguese war of independence, beginning in 1640, brought raids and fighting to the border district. Agriculture and livestock husbandry remained part of life in the surrounding country, where war could disrupt the routes and relationships that also sustained exchange.