History

MERCADAL

History

Historical overview of Mercadal

The origins of the town of Mercadal date back to the conquest of Menorca by King Alfonso II of Aragon in 1287. Its location, at the foot of Monte Toro, corresponds to the European tradition of cities founded on the route of Marian shrines. Likewise, the first existing reports on the population settlement in the municipality come from the Roman historian Pliny, who in the 1st century already cites the existence of a town called Saniceram, located on the North coast and linked to Monte Toro by a road. In the 12th century, after the Muslims were expelled from their lands, these were divided among the king's Catalan vassals. A group of settlers from Gerona settled on the land at the foot of Monte Toro and built a chapel consecrated to the patron saint of their original city, Saint Narcissus. Completing the new social structure born with the Conquest, King James II established, in the year 1301, the weekly celebration of three markets on the island, two of which were held in the main towns: Ciudadela and Mahón, and a third in the center of Menorca, in the vicinity of the new parish of Saint Narcissus. Around this market and the chapel itself, the first population nucleus that we know today by the name of Mercadal would develop. (Although the name Pobla del Mercadal—which appears in Latin in some texts of the time as Mecatallus—has been attributed to the existence of that first market, it is also true that both this toponym and that of Fornells exist in the geography of Gerona, from where many of the settlers established in the area came). At first, the parish of Sant Narcís, which in 1431 adopted the current worship of Saint Martin, depended administratively on the Santa Cruz de Lluriac, although it disappeared within a few years. In 1455, the municipality had 160 houses, 44 of them in the surroundings of the church of Saint Martin, and 640 inhabitants. This population center was the seat of the University of the Pobla del Mercadal and Castle of Santa Águeda, formed by two jurors and ten councilors, which depended on the General University based in Ciudadela. The University of Mercadal had the authority to decide on the events of civic life that took place in the central third of the Menorcan territory, including most of the current municipality of Ferreries, which separated in 1831, and that of Es Migjorn Gran, which was constituted as an autonomous municipality on January 1, 1989.