Campo de Montiel, a crossroads, a blessed land, for you were once the cradle and home of prose writers and poets…
Campo de Montiel, a crossroads, an intersection of paths and trails that one day, lost in the memory of time, were walked by natives and foreigners, different races and creeds, Lords and Kings, nobles and commoners, the rich and the needy, the honourable and the shameless, the hopeless and the lucky, poets and acrobats, rascals and ruffians, pacifists and warriors, Manriques, Sanchos, and Quixotes… and many, many others.
Campo de Montiel, where greedy and non-conformist Trastámara bastards killed brothers and kings stealing legitimate crowns, thus altering the normal way of life and radically changing the circumstances of history. Because this is how it was, because in the Campo de Montiel, a crossroads. And precisely in Montiel, on that tragic early morning, so unjustly forgotten by some and then others, and in the end by all, between the 23rd and 24th of March in 1369, the History of Spain dramatically changed, for better or for worse (Allah aálam / God only knows), with that shameful, treacherous and disloyal murder of the legitimate King of Castile and Leon, Don Pedro I, “The Enforcer”, not “The Cruel”.
Campo de Montiel, a crossroads, a blessed land, for you were the craddle and the home of prose writers and poets, for on your roads Christians, Muslims, Jews, and Gentiles came and went… for you harboured those that were most prized by all societies, as well as those where were most vile (why not?). Campo de Montiel, a crossroads, place of Military Orders, of Cervanteses and Quevedos, of the Manrique Families… Campo de Montiel, a crossroads, home to all the gods.
