The Village of Espinosa de los Monteros is set in the North of Spain, in the Community of Castilla y León and Province of Burgos, to 43º 4´ 44´´ N and 3º 32´ 57´´E, and to an altitude of 762 ms. above sea level. It is set to an approximate distance of 90 Km. of Burgos, 70 km. of Santander and Bilbao, 100 km. of Vitoria and 140 km. of Logroño.

Its position in the south face of the Cantabrian mountain range, in a plain shared with the Merindades of Montija and Sotoscueva, that serves of union between the coast and the Plateau, a strategic situation confers, being the more accessible and natural step between the Cantabrian ports and the interior of Spain.

Currently it is inhabited by 2021 inhabitants, distributed between the city centre and the neighbourhoods of Las Machorras, Quintana de los Prados, Bárcenas, Para and Santa Olalla. In all these nuclei, and especially in Espinosa, we find innumerable remainders of its historic importance, in the shape of cabins, palaces, churches… It is so long the list that we invite you to discover it in the page of the City Hall:

http://www.espinosadelosmonteros.es/

Given the strategic position of Espinosa and the surrounding region, they have been always a referring in the history of the country.

Their foundation is possibly Roman, (it worn among Portus Victoriae Iuliobrigensium (Santoña?) and Julióbriga crosses its term, and is verified the existence of a villae Roman, the Area Patriniana, in the neighbouring towns of Noceco and Agüera), and their role in the birth of Castile is noticeable; it was part of the first done repopulations by the Abbot Vitulo since the Valle de Mena at the time in which the zone itself began to call thus; and already in an early year 1006 entered the History upon being named its natural Hunters of , by then, Count of Castile, and subsequently Hunters of the King, privilege that was maintained to the reign of Alfonso XIII, well entered the 20th century, uninterruptedly, what causes be considered him one of the institutions of more dilated life and greater antiquity.

In the course of the History this zone in transit was military encounters multitude setting among armies that used its roads in its continuous movements. They are several acquaintances raids of the Caliphal armies by the zone (according to C. Sánchez Albornoz even Almanzor “mended the rivers Trueba, Nela and Cerneja”, the ones that drain the region), clashes in the high Average Age during the wars of Pedro the Cruel and his brother Enrique, episodes of the factional wars, a battle during the war of Spanish succession in the neighbouring one is mentioned Villasante in 1712, and battles during both Carlists wars, already in the XIX. In the unlucky civil War the Cantabrian front remained in the passes of the zone (La Sía, Lunada, Las Estacas, Los Tornos) until 1937, with intense clashes and losses of human lives.

But without doubt the most important historic event here happened was the one that occupies you, the battle freed the days 10th and 11th of November in 1808 between the Spanish and French Armies, given the enormous number of combatants (between some and other around 48.000), the loss of lives that caused (around 6,000 on the whole) and the repercussions that it had (20 days after Napoleon entered conqueror in Madrid, and the French occupation was prolonged in Spain during other 6 years more, with an innumerable human price and material for the countries implied in this Independence War).