Loja (), formerly Loxa, is a town in southern

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

, situated at the western limit of the

province of Granada Granada is a province of southern Spain, in the eastern part of the autonomous community of Andalusia. It is bordered by the provinces of Albacete, Murcia, Almería, Jaén, Córdoba, Málaga, and the Mediterranean Sea (along the Costa Tropi ...

. It is in the valley of the River Genil, overlooked by the so-called Sierra de Loja, of which the highest peak, Sierra Gorda, stands 1,671 metres above sea-level.

History

Loja has sometimes been identified with the ancient Ilipula, or with the Lacibi (Lacibis) of Pliny and Ptolemy. It is unknown when Loja was first captured by the Moors; most likely this happened in the 8th century. It first clearly emerges in the Arab chronicles of the year 890.

Reconquista

It was taken by

Ferdinand III of Castile Ferdinand III (; 1199/120130 May 1252), called the Saint (''el Santo''), was King of Castile from 1217 and King of León from 1230 as well as King of Galicia from 1231. He was the son of Alfonso IX of León and Berengaria of Castile. Through his ...

in 1226, but was soon afterwards abandoned. As part of the

Granada War The Granada War was a series of military campaigns between 1482 and 1492 during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs, Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, against the Nasrid dynasty's Emirate of Granada. It ended with the defeat o ...

, Loja was attacked in 1486 by Christian forces under

Ferdinand Ferdinand is a Germanic name composed of the elements "journey, travel", Proto-Germanic , abstract noun from root "to fare, travel" (PIE , "to lead, pass over"), and "courage" or "ready, prepared" related to Old High German "to risk, ventu ...

and Isabella. These soldiers included some Englishmen commanded by Sir Edward Woodville.Lawrence DR. Christopher Wilkins. The Last Knight Errant: Sir Edward Woodville and the Age of Chivalry. London: I. B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., 2010. xxii 234 pp. index. append. illus. bibl. £25. . ''

Renaissance Quarterly The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

''. 2010;63(2):631-633. The victorious Spanish allowed the Muslim population to leave for Granada. The town's

Moorish The term Moor is an exonym used in European languages to designate the Muslim populations of North Africa (the Maghreb) and the Iberian Peninsula (particularly al-Andalus) during the Middle Ages. Moors are not a single, distinct or self-defi ...

name, ''Medina Lawša'', was changed to ''Lauxa''. Isabella called it the "flower among thorns". In 1491 work began on the Church of the Incarnation on the site of the town's main mosque.

19th century

The town was the centre of the Loja uprising in 1861, led by local , that was quickly suppressed. In the 1870s a railway train arrived in the area linking Bobadilla and Granada.

Main sights

The town's Islamic heritage is still evident in the quarter of the Alcazaba, a Moorish fortress of which most of the walls and towers remain. Other sights include: * Convent of Santa Clara (16th century) * Convento of St. Francis of Assisi, including a 16th-century cloister * Church of the Incarnation, the main church which was begun in Mudéjar style at the end of the 15th century * Church of ''San Gabriel'' (16th century) * Church of ''Santa Catalina'' (16th-17th century) *Church of ''N.tra S.ra Virgen de la Caridad '' (16th century) *Hermitages of Jesus Nazareno, san Roque, and Calvario, 16th century chapels and sanctuaries *'' Caseron de los Alcaides Cristianos'' (17th century) * ''Palacio de Narvaez'' (17th century) *''Fuente de la Mora'' ("Fountain of the Moorish maiden"), also known as ''los venticinco canos'', a fountain where waters from different springs are made to flow from twenty-five tubes.

Notes

References