Calle de Fernán González

Calle de Fernán González owes its name to a figure who truly existed and to another invented by literature, and it is hard to know where one ends and the other begins. The real man was born around 910 in Lara. Between 931 and 932, under the reign of Ramiro II of León, he brought under his command the counties of Lara, Burgos, Álava, Lantarón and Cerezo, and a charter of 932 names him count of Castile for the first time. He ruled until his death, around 970, and achieved something rare: he turned the territory into a patrimony inherited by his descendants. The other Fernán González was written by a monk: around 1250 an anonymous author of the Mester de Clerecía raised him to founding hero of Castile in the Poem of Fernán González, source of the famous tale of the goshawk and the horse he sold to the king of León, pure invention of the poet. The name reached the street map on 21 July 1880. The Calle de Fernán González runs between Alcalá and Doce de Octubre, through an area not fully built up until well into the 20th century.