Calle de Roncesvalles
The street takes its name from the Navarrese town of Roncesvalles (Orreaga in Basque), known for the ambush of 15 August 778 in which Vascon warriors destroyed the Frankish rearguard of Charlemagne, and for its Royal Collegiate Church of Santa María (1215-1221). At least one street-register source attributes the name specifically to the battle.
The Niño Jesús neighbourhood began to take shape in the last third of the 19th century around the children’s hospital that gave it its name, founded in 1877 by the Duchess of Santoña. As that neighbourhood grew, the developers named its streets with two distinct strands: geographical place names, such as Roncesvalles, Ibiza and Titulcia, and names with a biblical ring, such as Nazaret, Belén and Reyes Magos.
The name points to the Pyrenean town of Navarre called Orreaga in Basque. Its Romance origin is still debated: the most widespread explanation links it to the Old French ronce, the bramble, so the place would be a valley of brambles.
The spot gathers two layers of history. On 15 August 778, as Charlemagne pulled his troops back to the north, Vascon warriors fell upon the Frankish rearguard in those gorges and wiped it out along with its leader, Roland. On the same site, between 1215 and 1221, Sancho VII the Strong ordered the building of the Royal Collegiate Church of Santa María.