San Esteban de Gormaz

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San Esteban de Gormaz is a municipality in the province of Soria in the autonomous community of Castile-Leon, Spain. Its population is approximately 3,500. The village is located in the Route of the Wool and the Way of the Cid, the route of the exile of the Cid.

The village lies between the bank of River Duero and a small hill, 70 km east of the capital of the province (Soria), 28 km of Tiermes and 45 km of Aranda de Duero.

The Arab Gormaz Castle is located there.

Declared Historic-artistic Joint by the Meeting of Castile and Leon . The zone where it is located has known settlements from prehistory.

Historically, both Roman and Arab establishments of which some patrimony is conserved.

The Arabs considered it a very important Christian center. This caused it to become a military objective for 200 years: from the beginning of the construction of its castle by the Arabs in the ninth century (time in which the population was called Castromoro) until it fell finally into the hands of the kingdom of Castile. The innumerable fights that took place this time throughout were the reason so that this place located in the border of Castile consolidated like an urban nucleus.

In 1187 the first Cortes of Castile were celebrated in the villa and its importance continued growing until the end of the thirteenth century, when it reached his maximum splendor. By this date it had 3000 inhabitants (120 knights), four parishes and two monasteries located outside the limits of the village.

After the thirteenth century, the village decayed slowly. It experienced periods of great poverty and loss of population until the twentieth century. However, recently the village has carried out an industrialization project that helped elevate the population to the levels that it had known in its better time.