One of the components identifying a city is its history. Zamora has a long history that surpasses all those events that you may be able to remember.
Its existence may be due to the“vacceos”, but the Romans may possibly have founded the settlement and named it “Ocellum Duri” (eye of the Duero) at the time of the battles waged by Viriathus against the Roman invasion.
Viriathus was a Portuguese caudillo and considered a local hero. The inhabitants of Zamora claim his birthplace at Torrefrades (Sayago) although there are other cities that dispute this and it does not seem very likely.
During the Germanic rule, the Visigoths knew the city by the name of “Semure”, as appears on two coins of Sisebuto. The Moorish names of the city were Azemur (wild olive grove) and Semurah (city of turquoises).
Its present name seems to come from Germanic or Muslim rule and is quoted as a word recovered by Alfonso I from the Moors in the Salmanticense.
In the Middle Ages Zamora was again captured and destroyed by the Moors at the orders of Emir Mohamed to later be won back by the Christians in the reign of Alfonso II (The Chaste), King of Asturias, repopulated with Toledan Mozarabs in the year 893, erecting walls around it, building palaces and baths, converting it, for its site and characteristics, into the most important fortress city in the Christian kingdoms.
Zamora is described by Arab chroniclers as being “the capital of the Kingdom of Galicia”, surrounded by its seven walled precincts and big moats.
It would be one of the most important seats of the Kingdom of Leon, of which it formed part. It would also initiate its period of political, economic and architectonic splendour.
The Arab sieges would continue without managing to seize the town from the Christians (except the destruction provoked by Almanzor in the year 981) until the latter part of the eleventh century.
King Ferdinand I called it “Zamora la bien cercada” (the well fortified city) and would rebuild it and repopulate it with highlanders, turning it once more into a walled city before bequeathing it to his daughter Doña Urraca. In the twelfth century the city was extraordinarily important for its strategic position between the two warring factions of the Iberian peninsula. This was the city’s golden age which was when its urban structure was formed and most of its most representative monuments were built; the Romanesque style predominated and would give it the name “Romanesque city”. The population grew, making it necessary in the middle of the century, to build a second fortification.
During one of the sieges of the city, a well-known epic feat reported in Spanish ballads, King Sancho II died was killed trying to seize the city ruled by his sister Doña Urraca and before the eyes of El Cid, (outside the walls of Zamora, whilst laying siege to the city, Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, Cid Campeador, was knighted. The vigil took place at the church of Santiago de los Caballeros). The bravery of the Zamora people during the siege is referred to in the Spanish proverb “Zamora no se ganó en una hora” (literally Zamora wasn’t won in an hour).
In the next centuries, as the movement to win back the peninsula by the Christians shifted towards the south frontier, Zamora would lose its strategic and economic importance.
After the discovery of America, the economic poverty of the region would oblige many people to leave Zamora and emigrate to the continent, especially to South America where other cities with the same name were founded.
In the fifteenth century, when the Catholic Monarchs were ruling, Zamora would be the scene of fierce fighting by Queen Isabella for the throne.
The court of Juana, la Beltraneja, niece of Isabella the Catholic, was established in Zamora, but the inhabitants declared themselves supporters of the Catholic Monarchs. Alfonso V of Portugal, Juana’s consort, was defeated at the battle of Toro or Castroqueimado (1476) and the throne went to Isabella and Ferdinand.
The city’s situation improved in the eighteenth century but it suffered a new setback with the war of Independence at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The conflict against the French, who occupied the city for more than three years and the disamortisation process would mean a severe blow to its historic-artistic heritage