Campo de Criptana

Campo de Criptana is a municipality and town in the province of Ciudad Real in the autonomous community of Castilla–La Mancha (Spain). It is found in the region known as La Mancha.

The area surrounding Campo de Criptana has been inhabited since prehistoric times. Prehistoric implements of hunting, gathering, and agriculture have been found in various locations, as have ceramics, particularly from the Bronze Age. From historic times, the most plentiful remnants have been Ibero-Roman.

Settlement of the present city center of Campo de Criptana dates from the 13th century, though the municipal area was occupied by human beings much earlier. Numerous archaeological remains and historical documents attest to the existence of inhabited centers since the Bronze Age. There is evidence of settlements of some importance—at least since the Middle Ages—named Criptana, Villajos, Posadas Viejas and El Campo, as well as others of lesser significance, such as Villagordo, El Pico de la Solana, etc.

Criptana, located about two kilometers east of the present city center, was granted, under the name of Chitrana, by the Order of St. John in 1162 to the Toledo Mozarab nobleman Miguel Assaraff in order that it be resettled. Later it passed to the Order of Santiago, forming the center of an estate that also had property in Villajos and Pedro Muñoz. By the 14th century it was again depopulated.

Villajos, some four kilometers to the north of the current city center, had been peopled since prehistoric times. It appears in a citation from 1162, together with Chitrana, Spain, and Attires, as property of the Order of St. John. In various medieval documents it is mentioned under other names such as Villa de Alios and Villa de Ajos. It was depopulated from the 12th century, and the current hermitage was built over the original church of its city center.

Hardly any documented information exists about Posadas Viejas, except that it was situated near Camino de la Puente, south of the present railway line, and that it was depopulated around 1300.

El Campo grew up in the current location of the city center, around a fortified position of the Cerro (hill) de la Paz, which served as an outpost of the Castillo (Castle) de Criptana. Despite being at the time the newest center, arising with the repopulation in the 13th century, it attracted people from the surrounding centers, perhaps on account of the quality of its water and air. The towns referred to above disappeared, giving way to the new community. Named Campo de Criptana, it is first referred to in documents from the early 14th century.

Throughout the Middle Ages, the population of the town center grew, helped along by the facilities provided by the various maestres ("masters") of the Order of Santiago. The survey records of Philip II (1575) report some 1,000 households (between four and five thousand inhabitants), which by the first decade of the 17th century had risen to 1,300–1,500 households. From this time its population shows the unfortunate state of a rural society affected very severely by climate, epidemics of disease, poor harvests, and excessive taxation. The recovery was very slow until well into the 19th century.