Toro

The 14th century filled Toro with trade. Its craftsmen gathered by guild in streets named for their wares, a royal fair free of tax was held for the fortnight after the August feast of the Virgin, and monasteries, hospitals and noble houses went up on the proceeds. Kings came often: Enrique II held his first Cortes here in 1369, and by the end of the Middle Ages Toro was one of the eighteen cities whose delegates voted in the Cortes of Castile.

That standing made it a prize in the war of succession between Isabella and her niece Juana. Toro went over to Alfonso V of Portugal in 1475, and on 1 March 1476 the two armies met a few kilometres from its walls; both sides claimed the victory, but it was Isabella's cause that prevailed. In 1505 the Cortes met here once more, issuing the Laws of Toro and accepting Ferdinand as governor of Castile for his daughter Joanna. After that the city slowly emptied. A French traveller in 1809 counted 21 parishes and 14 convents, marks of its old greatness, in a town of some 7,500 people.