Costanilla de Santiago
The name derives from the parish of Saint James the Apostle, one of the oldest churches in Madrid, already documented in the Fuero of 1202. The costanilla —a short street with a gradient— forms part of the urban fabric that grew around that church and its square, in the quarter the knights of the Order of Santiago occupied beside the Alcázar after Alfonso VI’s Christian conquest of the town.
The church that names this very short slope came heavy with arms. When Alfonso VI took Madrid, the knights of the Order of Santiago settled in this corner near the Alcázar, and the whole quarter turned noble and Jacobean. The parish of Santiago already appears in the Fuero of 1202, and the Order held its chapters there until 1697.
Costanilla de Santiago barely covers twenty metres between calle de Santiago and the junction of Milaneses, Bonetillo and Mesón de Paños. A gently sloping pedestrian cobblestone street that hides more history than many avenues: the 12th-century Christian wall ran along its western edge.
In 1810, Joseph Bonaparte ordered the church torn down to clear the view towards the Royal Palace. Galdós walked his characters through here: in Fortunata y Jacinta, Señora Barbarita bought fine veal at the stalls of the costanilla.
Its names
- Plazuela de Santiago13th-18th centuries
- Costanilla de Santiago18th century - actualidad
Sources (10)
- Santiago: calle, plaza, iglesia y costanilla — Flaneando por Madrid
- Iglesia de Santiago (Madrid) — Wikipedia
- Barrio de Santiago (Madrid) — Wikipedia
- Fortunata y Jacinta — Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes
- La muralla cristiana en la calle de Santiago nº 2 — Arte en Madrid
- Calle de la Escalinata — Wikipedia (plano Espinosa 1769, Texeira 1656)
- Excavación arqueológica en calle Santiago nº 5 — Comunidad de Madrid
- Los entierros de Larra — callejeartemadrid.com
- Historia de la iglesia desde donde parte el Camino de Santiago en Madrid (BIC 2026) — El Debate
- Calle de Santiago — Patrimonio y Paisaje Urbano del Ayuntamiento de Madrid