El Camp de Mirra: the village where two kings drew a frontier

In March 1244 two of the great figures of medieval Spain faced each other at the castle of Almizra: James I of Aragon, the Conqueror, and the young infante Alfonso of Castile, the future Alfonso X the Wise. The treaty they signed here on 26 March fixed the border between their crowns and gave the young Kingdom of Valencia its first stable southern frontier. The castle hill stands in what is now El Camp de Mirra, a village of around four hundred people in the Alto Vinalopo of Alicante province.

The Treaty of Almizra

The negotiations were stormy, the chronicle of James I records, with the talks nearly breaking down over the king's refusal to hand over Xativa, until peace was finally agreed. Every year on 25 August, during the Moors and Christians festivities, some forty actors re-enact the signing in front of the church in a celebrated open-air drama, the Tractat d'Almisra, and a monument of 1977 commemorates the pact.

Castle hill and village

On the hill of the old Andalusi castle, remains of walls and a tower keep company with the hermitage of San Bartolome, while the neoclassical parish church of the 18th century presides over the village square below, amid the vines and almond groves of the Beneixama valley.

Where it is

El Camp de Mirra lies near Biar and Villena in the upper Vinalopo, about sixty kilometres inland from Alicante.