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Elche

Municipality in Valencian Community, Spain

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Palmeras en Elche
xiquinhosilva · CC BY 2.0

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Part of the municipality is coastal yet the city proper is roughly 15 km (9 mi) away from the Mediterranean Sea. Elche is the centre of the footwear industry in Spain. The main airport of the province of Alicante (Alicante–Elche Miguel Hernández Airport) is located inside Elche's municipality, and it serves both Elche and Alicante, being the fifth-busiest airport in Spain.

Together with Alicante and other municipalities, Elche forms a conurbation of around 0.8 million inhabitants. The city is noted for its urban Palm Grove, designated as World Heritage Site.

History

Ancient Ilici

Located within the current municipal limits 3 km from the current city's location downstream of the Vinalopó, the neighbouring site of La Alcudia/Ilici achieved the consolidation of its urban structure already by the early 5th century BCE, eventually becoming the centre of power of a local Phocaean-Iberian amphictyony in the Lower Vinapoló and Segura region. It resurfaced as a colonia under Roman rule, connected to maritime transport via the Portus Ilicitanus, and became a bishopric in late antiquity. After the Treaty of Tudmir and particularly upon the 9th century development of Murcia as the new centre of Umayyad power in southeastern Iberia, the site underwent decay.

Middle Ages

Parallel to the decay of the site of former Ilici, the founding of scattered rural settlements (alquerías) and the new Islamic city of Madinat Ilš on the current location took place. Featuring an almost rectangular floor plan, the Islamic city of Madinat Ilš was endowed with a walled perimeter, dated from the second half of the 10th century to the first third of the 11th century. The city walls were refurbished and improved in the 12th century under the rule of Ibn Mardanīsh over the Taifa of Murcia.

In the 13th century, the taifa of Murcia underwent vassalization to Castile and, following the Mudéjar Revolt, its eventual eventual military conquest by Aragonese forces on behalf of Castile. Previously attached to the Lordship of Villena, the disputed rule over Elche was settled in favour of the Crown of Aragon following the 1304 Sentence of Torrellas and the 1305 Treaty of Elche, and so it was incorporated into the Kingdom of Valencia.

In the 13th and 14th centuries, the population in the Lower Vinalopó area remained mainly Muslim, and Elche constituted, together with Crevillent, the top morería in terms of fiscal contributions to the Crown all over the Governorate of Orihuela. While being nothing more than a modest town halfway Alicante and Orihuela throughout the middle ages under Christian rule, Elche also had a small but noted Jewish community. Similarly to other Jewish communities within the Governorate of Orihuela, the local aljama was granted privileges under the reign of James II, eliciting antisemitic backslash. Likewise, although its insertion in international trade networks was handicapped by the prowess of the neighbouring port of Alicante, the town developed nonetheless a certain degree of commercial dynamism in the Late Middle Ages.

Modern era

The urban patricians consistently opposed the creation of the lordship in Elche in 1470 and its subsequent separation from royal domain. In line with the longstanding resent to the seigneurial rule of the Cárdenas, Elche was active in the early 16th-century Revolt of the Brotherhoods. As in other towns of the Kingdom of Valencia with sizeable Muslim population, the mudéjares in Elche sided with the monarchy and the aristocracy against the brotherhoods. Towards 1563, the moriscos amounted to a 40% of the population.

In a context of droughts and scarcity suffered in the area during the Maldá Anomaly (one of the pulses of the Little Ice Age) in the late 18th century, an anti-seigneurial revolt erupted in Elche in the Spring of 1766. The town grew throughout the 18th century and became more important during the 19th century with the arrival of the railway and a booming industrial development of what used to be the traditional footwear industry. Elche was granted the title of city by King Amadeo in 1871. The espadrille industry developed in the 19th century, eventually becoming the leading Spanish municipality at producing textile footwear. By the late century, local entrepreneurs began to invest in leather footwear factories. The footwear industry grew during the Great War and thereafter.

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