Idiomas
Accesos directos
Buscador
The Modern Age – the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries
It is impossible to talk about the Mena Valley in the sixteenth century without mentioning Sancho Ortiz de Matienzo, member of a small local noble family who was canon of the Cathedral of Seville. He was also treasurer to the India Trading Company. Due to his efficiency in all matters relating to commercial and navigational organisation in the New World, the Catholic Kings rewarded him with the title ‘Abbott of Jamaica’. In Villasana, his home town, he founded, in 1512, one of the first convents dedicated to the Order of the Franciscan Conceptionists.
From this moment onwards the valley experienced a sharp economic and demographic increase thanks to its privileged geographical location along the commercial routes linking la Meseta (the Spanish interior, or inland regions) with the Cantabrian ports. It was for this reason that throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the state and repair of the roads and bridges along which merchandise was moved in both directions became a constant worry, as demonstrated by documentation from the period which is now stored in the historical records of the valley.
Web Menú
Services menu
Special Events
Patrocinadores:
OFICINA DE TURISMO VALLE DE MENA
- C/ Eladio Bustamente, s/n.
09580 Villasana de Mena - Tlf y fax:
947 141 341