A 'Plaza Mayor' in every Spanish Town

What is a ‘Plaza Mayor’

Plaza means square, and Mayor means largest or main. So literally Plaza Mayor means the Main Square.

In Spain every town or city has or had an square called Plaza Mayor, although in some cases the name has change, usually for Plaza del Ayuntamiento (City-hall Square).

This ‘plazas’ where like the Roman Forums in the ancient Rome, in fact, in some cities of Spain, the location of the modern Plaza Mayor is the same as the Roman Forum during the Roman occupation of the Iberian Peninsula.

A Plaza Mayor was, in the middle ages, the place for having:

Daily or weekly Market
Festivities and religious events.
The City Hall
Court and jail

Sometimes the Plaza Mayor also holds the Cathedral or the main church, but it is usually not the case, as both powers, Church and Government, where separated.

Bullfighting in the Plaza Mayor

Once a year, usually for the festivities of the Patron Saint of the city, there used to be a bullfight in every town, even the ones without a bullring.

A temporary round structure would be set in the middle of the square, like the one they made in Madrid’s Plaza Mayor, for the last time, in 1970.

The Spanish Inquisition in the Plaza Mayor

‘Autos de Fe‘ where the final step of the Inquisitorial process, after the trials. Public ceremonies would be held in the Plazas, where the sentences where read. When the sentence was death, it was usually executed in the outskirts of the cities.