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Coín is situated in the fertile valley of
the rio Grande and there is little doubt that a community of some
kind existed on the spot long before the Roman conquest.
Nevertheless, it was the Romans who
gave it the first name which has survived: Lacibis. It became a
market town: a transition point for the minerals being quarried
5 kilometres or so to the south in the Sierra Blanca. Marble from
these quarries was certainly used in the construction of the Roman
town of Italica, which once stood close to Seville, and was the
birthplace in 76AD of the future emperor, Hadrian. The quarrying
of marble and the mining of iron ore went on well into the 19th
Century.
During
the time of the Visigoths, who supplanted the Romans as rulers of
the peninsula, the town lost its lustre and appears to have been
deserted and left to fall into ruin. By the time that the Moors
resettled and rebuilt it around 929AD virtually all of its Roman
heritage had been lost, and what little was left disappeared in
the rebuilding.
 1485
was a momentous year in the region. The Christian reconquest was
in its final triumphant space, and village and towns fell to them
like grass beneath the scythe. Coín was taken after a siege
in which, legend will tell you, no less a person than Christopher
Columbus took part.
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Coin, Santa Maria Convent |
A
certain Captain S. E. Cook of the Royal Navy visited Coín,
along with Cártama and Alhaurín in 1829, and was mightily
impressed. "These villages", he wrote, "are on rising
ground above the river and in beauty of situation and cultivation
cannot be excelled. They afford a specimen of the whole country
when possessed by the Moors, being surrounded by gardens with orange,
lemon and palm trees and abounding in all the fine as well as the
more common fruits." To this day an orange tree features on
Coín's coat of arms.
One of the most picturesque, yet sombre places in
Coín is the shrine of Nuestra Señora de Fuensanta.
The beautifully preserved chapel stands on top of a hill beside
the ground which is used for the annual fair. The situation and
views are magnificent, but the sombre note is struck by the now
abandoned house which stands close by in a field. In 1893 it was
the site of a brutal murder in which the local priest was shot by
intruders who believed him to have hidden away a cache of money.
The story of the crime and its aftermath were told in Bartolomé
Abelenda's book, The Coín Crime.
Coín
is a town which has only lately woken up to the realisation that
it has a story to tell. In early 1999 the local Department of Culture
embarked on a project to decorate some of the town walls with illustrated
tiles depicting episodes in its history. Whether these will perpetuate
the Columbus legend remains to be seen. What is unlikely is that
it will remind the world that it was chosen by the BBC as the setting
for its spectacularly unsuccessful soap opera, Eldorado.
The above text was kindly provided
by David Wood, who with Chris Wawn is co-author of the book "In
Search of Andalucia".
Click
here to order your copy from our online book store.
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