Everything about Ciudad Rodrigo totally explained
Ciudad Rodrigo (Rodrigo City in english) is a small cathedral city in
Salamanca Province in western
Spain (approximately a population of 14000 inhabitants, and head of the judicial district).
The site of Ciudad Rodrigo, perched atop a rocky rise on the right bank of the River
Águeda, has been occupied since the
Neolithic Age.
Known as
Mirobriga to the
Celtic people known as the
Vettones, the town was conquered by the Romans and renamed
Augustobriga in honor of
Caesar Augustus.
History
Middle Ages
In
1110, Count Rodrigo González Girón repopulated the site and gave it his name:
Civitas Roderici (Latin 'City of Roderick'; translates in Spanish to the present name).
King
Ferdinand II of León completed the repopulation of the city, walled it and reconstructed the old Roman bridge spanning the River Águeda.
Ferdinand also re-established the
bishopric as
suffragan of the Diocese of
Santiago de Compostela; it comprises the greater part of the province of Salamanca, and a portion of the province of
Cáceres, an act confirmed by
Pope Alexander III in
1175. This led to the construction of the city’s cathedral, an architectural hybrid of the
Gothic and late
Romanesque styles. The see finally succeeded that of
Caliabria, which dated from the
Visigothic era, and existed from 621 to 693. King
Alfonso VIII gave the city of Caliabria to the Diocese of Ciudad Rodrigo in 1191. The first bishop of whom anything certain is known was called Pedro (1165); the most celebrated was the learned jurist Don
Diego de Covarruvias y Leyva (1560).
Napoleonic Wars
Main articles: Siege of Ciudad Rodrigo (1810) and Siege of Ciudad Rodrigo
Its position as a fortified town on the main road from
Portugal to
Salamanca made it militarily important in the middle years of the Napoleonic
Peninsular War.
The French Marshal
Michel Ney took Ciudad Rodrigo on July 9,
1810 after a 24-day
siege. The 5,500-man Spanish garrison of Field Marshal Don Andreas de Herrasti put up a gallant defense, surrendering only after French artillery opened a breach in the walls and their infantry were poised for an assault. The Spanish suffered 461 killed and 994 wounded, while 4,000 men and 118 cannon were captured. Ney's VI Corps lost 180 killed and over 1,000 wounded during the siege. The French soldiery then pillaged the city. The siege delayed Marshal
André Masséna's invasion of Portugal by a month.
The British General
Wellington began his
1812 campaign by taking Ciudad Rodrigo by storm on the night of
January 19 -
January 20,
1812 after preparatory operations lasting about 10 days. In these clashes, the British captured the Greater Teson on January 8 and the Lesser Teson on January 16. Meanwhile, two breaches in the walls had been opened by Wellington's twenty-three 24-lb and four 18-lb siege guns under the command of Captain Alexander Dickson. Major-General
Thomas Picton's 3rd Division assaulted the "greater" breach while
Robert Craufurd's Light Division attacked the "lesser" breach. Allied losses in the siege were 195 killed and 916 wounded, although amongst the dead were Maj-Gens Henry Mackinnon and Craufurd. The 2,000-man French garrison under Brig-Gen Barrié lost 529 killed and wounded, while the rest were captured. The French Army of Portugal lost its entire siege train among the 142 captured cannon. There were two cannons embedded in the wall of the "greater" breach that caused most casualties in the storming. The 88th
Connaught Rangers Regiment took one of the guns while the 45th
Nottinghamshire Regiment took the other. The victory was marred when the British rank and file thoroughly sacked the city, despite the efforts of their officers. The capture of Ciudad Rodrigo allowed Wellington to proceed to
Badajoz, whose taking was a much more bloody affair.
In 1812, the then-Viscount Wellington (later created a Duke) was rewarded for his victorious liberation of Spain with the hereditary Spanish ducal
victory title of
Duque de Ciudad Rodrigo.
Ciudad Rodrigo is also the birthplace of
Siglo de Oro writer
Feliciano de Silva.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Ciudad Rodrigo'.
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