Alcalá de Henares - Catedral de los Santos Justo y Pastor

Alcalá de Henares is a city in the "Community of Madrid", located about 30 kilometers northeast of the center of Madrid. It has a population of about 200,000.

In the first century AD, the Romans founded a settlement in the Henares Valley, which they called Complutum. The city thrived because it was an important waypoint on the road between Mérida and Zaragoza and had a population of over 10,000. In 711, during the conquest by the Moorish Berber people, the Christian city was not taken. On the other side of the Henares River, a Muslim-built fortress was built, which existed for over 400 years in a relatively peaceful neighborhood with the Christian-inhabited settlement. In 1118, the Archbishop of Toledo Bernardo de Sedirac conquered the Muslim settlement. Alcalá received city rights in 1184.

In 1499, Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros, Archbishop of Toledo, whose archdiocese then included the city, founded a university here. Together with the Colegio Mayor building, Cisneros had six Colegios Menores built from 1499. The colegios were the part of the university where the students who attended lectures from the various departments lived and learned. Other colegios were founded under the patronage of kings and various nobles.


The cathedral was designed and constructed between 1497 and 1515 in late Gothic style. Miguel de Cervantes, whose father Rodrigo worked as a barber-surgeon, was baptized here in 1547.