Hospital de Órbigo () is a municipality located in the

province of León León (, , ; ; ) is a province of northwestern Spain in the northern part of the Region of León and in the northwestern part of the autonomous community of Castile and León. About one quarter of its population of 463,746 (2018) lives in the cap ...

Castile and León Castile and León ( es, Castilla y León ; ast-leo, Castiella y Llión ; gl, Castela e León ) is an autonomous community in northwestern Spain. It was created in 1983, eight years after the end of the Francoist regime, by the merging of the ...

, Spain. According to the 2010

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses incl ...

(

INE INE, Ine or ine may refer to: Institutions * Institut für Nukleare Entsorgung, a German nuclear research center * Instituto Nacional de Estadística (disambiguation) * Instituto Nacional de Estatística (disambiguation) * Instituto Nacional Elec ...

), the municipality had a population of 1,031 inhabitants. It is a stopping point along the

Camino de Santiago The Camino de Santiago ( la, Peregrinatio Compostellana, "Pilgrimage of Compostela"; gl, O Camiño de Santiago), known in English as the Way of St James, is a network of pilgrims' ways or pilgrimages leading to the shrine of the apostle Saint ...

and has a long stone medieval bridge, which was recently restored. The town itself is part of the community of Puente de Órbigo, puente meaning bridge.

History

During the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

there was a small village along the left side of the

Órbigo , name_etymology = , image = Union del Rio Omaña y Rio Luna.JPG , image_size = 250px , image_caption = The union of the rivers Luna and Omaña at this point form the Órbigo river , map = Órbigo ...

River with a small church dedicated to the Virgin Mary, called Puente de Órbigo. In the 16th century the

Knights Hospitaller The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem ( la, Ordo Fratrum Hospitalis Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani), commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), was a medieval and early modern Catholic Church, Catholic Military ord ...

established a pilgrim hospital on the right side of the river that came to be called Hospital de Órbigo. The town was a battle site in 456 between forces loyal to

Theuderic I __NOTOC__ Theuderic I (c. 485 – 533/34) was the Merovingian king of Metz, Rheims, or Austrasia—as it is variously called—from 511 to 533 or 534. He was the son of Clovis I and one of his earlier wives or concubines (possibly a Franco- ...

and

Rechiar Rechiar or Flavius Rechiarius (after 415 – December 456) was the third Suevic king of Gallaecia, from 448 until his death, and also the first one to be born in Gallaecia. He was one of the most innovative and belligerent of the Suevi monarch ...

. Due to the bridge it was also important during the battles during Spain's

Reconquista The ' (Spanish, Portuguese and Galician for "reconquest") is a historiographical construction describing the 781-year period in the history of the Iberian Peninsula between the Umayyad conquest of Hispania in 711 and the fall of the Nasrid ...

with

Almanzor Abu ʿĀmir Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdullāh ibn Abi ʿĀmir al-Maʿafiri ( ar, أبو عامر محمد بن عبد الله بن أبي عامر المعافري), nicknamed al-Manṣūr ( ar, المنصور, "the Victorious"), which is often Latiniz ...

passing through the town at least once. Closer to the modern era in the 19th century, the town's inhabitants destroyed their iconic bridge to slow the advance of

Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...

's forces into Spain.

Tournament of 1434

In 1434, the Leonese knight Suero de Quiñones held a tournament in which he or one of his companions challenged all men of equal rank who wished to cross the bridge here to a jousting tournament, Suero holding this bridge in the name of unrequited love. By 1434 the skill of jousting was not a standard part of military training but the challenge was taken seriously. Since 1434 was a , the traffic upon the Road of St James was considerable. The tournament lasted from July 11 until 9 August and Don Suero claimed to have broken 300 lances by the end. Twenty four years later Suero de Quiñones was killed by Gutierre de Quijada, a knight he had beaten at the 1434 tournament.Gitlitz & Davidson, The Pilgrimage Road to Santiago: The Complete Cultural Handbook, 2000, St Martin's Press,

References

Municipalities in the Province of León {{León-geo-stub