Last modified: 2016-06-04 by ivan sache
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![[Flag]](../images/e/es-m-pdr.gif)
Flag of Prádena del Rincón - Image by Ivan Sache, 20 July 2015
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The municipality of Prádena del Rincón (132 inhabitants in 2014; 2,248 ha; municipal website) is located in the north of the Community of Madrid, 90 km of Madrid.
Prádena del Rincón was most probably established between 1085 and 1096. The village was listed among the settlements forming the Community of the Town and Land of Buitrago, chartered in 1096 by King Alfonso VI.
In January 2011, when excavating a tomb located in the parish church of Prádena del Rincón, archeologists found three statues, two of them without head. The statues, dated from the first half of the 14th century, represent the Blessed Virgin and St. John the Evangelist, and, for the third one, either St. Dominic of Silos, the church's patron saint, or St. Thomas, the church's previous patron saint. The reason why the statues were mutilated and hidden remains a mystery. Carla Olivé, in charge of the restoration of the church, believes that the statues might have been removed following the increase of the church from a small chapel; the oldest statues might therefore have been changed, accordingly. Another, quite related, hypothesis, is that the parish priest concealed the statues after they had been replaced by better ones; since religious stuff could not be either sold of destroyed, hiding them was the only possible option. Other hidden statues were found in Spain only in three instances, in Soria, Palencia and Vitoria.
[ABC, 13 November 2011]
Ivan Sache, 20 July 2015
The flag and arms of Prádena del Rincón are prescribed by a Decree adopted on 30 April 1998 by the Government of the Community of Madrid and published on 20 May 1998 in the official gazette of the Community of Madrid, No. 118, p. 15 (text), and on 2 February 1999 in the Spanish official gazette, No. 28, pp. 4,735-4,736 (text).
The symbols are described as follows:
Flag: Rectangular in proportions 2:3. Diagonally divided from the lower hoist to the upper fly, the upper part, green, and the lower part, red. In the center of the flag is placed the crowned coat of arms.
Coat of arms: Per pale, 1. Or an oak eradicated vert a bull sable passant, 2. Vert a crosslet patty or in base a branch of flax of the same. The shield surmounted by a Royal Spanish crown.
The arms featuring the bull and the holly oak were granted in 1096 by Alfonso VI, when establishing the Community of the Town and Land of Buitrago.
The Royal Academy of History detected flaws in the proposed coat of arms; the charges should be corrected and arranged in an other way. In the first quarter, the use of flax flowers together with a classical representation - a bull and a tree -, requires a disproportionate design, making the quarter incoherent and busy. The second quarter is charged with the representation of a church expecting to reproduce the features of the local temple. Such a representation is, of course, not compliant with the good tradition, which prescribes the use of graphic images established by their frequent repetition. The Academy recommended to change the design for the one eventually adopted, the church being suggested by a cross.
The proposed flag would be acceptable; provided the coat of arms placed in the center of the flag is changed as requested.
[Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia, 199, 196, 2: 348]
Ivan Sache, 20 July 2015