The piece of the month of December 2025

THE FLAG OF THE CITY OF SANGÜESA

Alejandro Aranda Ruiz
Cultural Heritage. Archbishopric of Pamplona and Tudela.

1. The power attributes of a privileged locality

Sangüesa, head of the merindad of its name and city since 1665, has historically been one of the most important towns in Navarra, together with Pamplona and the cities of Estella, Tudela and Olite. Consequently, like these towns, the city also had a repertoire of symbols and elements designed to reinforce local identity and to project the power of the municipal authority. Among these symbols, a prominent place was occupied by the attributes of municipal power and representation, used by the council not only in the most solemn public acts, but also in its ordinary life. 

In this way, the aldermen of Sangüesa, like those of the other heads of merindad, made use of medals or veneras with the coat of arms of the locality on the obverse and the image of the Immaculate Conception on the reverse. This custom was introduced between 1625 and 1688 in clear skill Pamplona, Tudela or Estella, which had begun to use veneras in 1600 and 1621 respectively. For the same reason, we know that Sangüesa was already using maces in 1688, as can be seen from the protest that the procurators of Pamplona made in the courts of that year that the "cities of Tudela and Sangüesa had entered with maces and veneras". According to Juan Cruz Labeaga, the custom of carrying maces fell into disuse during the 19th century, and this tradition was recovered in 1947 with the making of two new maces in Pamplona.

 
Coat of arms of Sangüesa on a late seventeenth-century scallop. Photo: Casas Consistoriales de Navarra, p. 232.

2. The coat of arms of Sangüesa: between history and legend.

If there is one element that stands out among the civic symbols, it is undoubtedly the coat of arms of the municipality, since it sublimates, like no other, the collective identity of the town and its council, acting as a true "second body of the city". With the coat of arms documents are sealed and validated, with the coat of arms the members and dependents of the city council are identified and their properties are marked or the areas in which it exercises its jurisdiction or board of trustees are marked. 

As usual, the oldest representations of the coat of arms of Sangües correspond to two wax seals of 1222 and 1291 in which the arms of the town are represented as a walled construction or tower crowned by towers. Later these arms would be altered to give place to the definitive ones. 

The origin of the current coat of arms of Sangüesa is found among the clouds of history and the legend of the so-called "Battle of Vadoluengo" or of the "Vado de San Adrián", a place located next to the Aragón River in the vicinity of Sangüesa, on the way to Sos del Rey Católico. The texts of Pedro Agramón y Zaldívar (1567-1635) from Tudela, the Annals of the Kingdom of Navarre by Francisco de Alesón (1634-1715) or the manuscripts written in the second half of the 18th century by Juan Francisco Barasoain from Sangüesa are the main source of knowledge of this historical event. According to these same authors, whose texts were compiled by Juan Curz Labeaga, in 1312 the Aragonese laid siege to the Navarrese place of Petilla de Aragón, which was heroically liberated by the Sangüesinos in the battle of Fillera. However, a few days after this feat, the Aragonese managed to penetrate into Navarre, reaching Olite and sacking and burning all the villages in their path. It was then when Sangüesa went to King Louis the Hutin for help, who sent his cavalry guard. These forces, together with those formed by Sangüesa, Aibar and other surrounding towns, managed to defeat the Aragonese in the place of Vadoluengo, causing them countless casualties and taking the royal standard of Aragon. 

After the victory, the people of Sangüesa wanted to submission the war trophy to the king, who, grateful, decided to give it to the town of Sangüesa so that they could take it out in processions and public events. In the same way, the sovereign filled the town with privileges, granting it the royal coat of arms of Aragon, which should be combined with the heraldic emblem of the castle that it had been enjoying for some time. However, the red bars of Aragon would be represented not in a gold field, but in silver to, according to Alesón, "differentiate one and the other coat of arms, or as those memories suggest to signify that the victory was won for the most part in water, whose color appearance mimics that of silver". Likewise, the king also granted the town the nickname or motto of "La que nunca faltó" (The one that never failed), as a perpetual reminder of its heroism and loyalty. 

One of the oldest representations of the new coat of arms dates from 1570 and corresponds to the armorial stone on the façade of the town hall. It shows, inscribed in a cartouche of twisted leather, the quarters with the castle on the left and the bars of Aragon on the right, all surrounded by a border with the chains of Navarre and stamped with an open royal crown. The inclusion in the coat of arms of the chains of Navarre, that according to Juan Francisco Barasoain at the end of the XVIII century, was part of the concession of Luis el Hutín. However, according to Laebaga, its use as part of the coat of arms of Sangüesa does not occur until the 16th century. In this sense, Sangüesa did nothing more than follow the path taken throughout the Modern Age by the main towns of Navarre that unilaterally incorporated the chains as a border of their coats of arms, since the only documented cases of royal concession of these insignia are Pamplona in 1423 and the valley of Larráun in 1514. Another representation is found in the scallops from the end of the 17th century in which the letters SA, first and last of the name of Sangüesa, are introduced in the castle quarter.

Flag of Sangüesa embroidered in 1863. Photo: Javier Solozábal.

3. The flag of Sangüesa

One of the main supports of the civic coat of arms is the flag, used by the town council in its public functions and exhibited by the neighbors in the military expeditions to which they were called. For this reason, it is not surprising that the municipality had more than one flag, depending on the context in which it was used. The importance of the municipal flag meant that it was recorded in the inventories of the municipal file , as in the one of 1568 in which the royal banner of Aragon of the battle of Vadoluengo and "the flag of the town that was again made to go in boasts" were outlined .

The deterioration produced by its use in different public functions, made that the flag was renewed periodically. Thanks to Labeaga we know that in 1818 on the occasion of the inauguration of the chapel of San Sebastian, the city council premiered a new flag. It is very possible that this flag was used until its replacement in 1863, since, year before, "in view of how deteriorated and broken is the current flag of the City Council, it was agreed to make a new one taking model on its magnitude from the one of Pamplona". 

The municipal conference proceedings are silent about who could have made this flag, whose cost amounted to 3,761 reals and whose embroidery is preserved, transferred, in the flag currently placed in the municipal plenary hall. Thus, we see how the flag has two faces or beams with the coats of arms of Sangüesa and Navarra respectively. Both heraldic emblems are inscribed on twisted leather cartouches of neoclassical taste decorated with a vegetal garland. In the coat of arms of Sangüesa the letters S/A stand out in the castle quarter and in the Aragon quarter the bars arranged on a golden field and not silvered. Inside the cartouche there is a phylactery with the legend "Sangüesa la que nunca faltó". The meticulousness and quality of the embroidery lead us to think that it was made by the nuns and students of the disappeared high school of Inmaculada, founded in 1824 and at position the Sisters of Charity of San Vicente de Paúl.  

To the municipal flag should be added the royal standard of Aragon captured in 1312 and that according to the cited authors was carried by the Town Council of Sangüesa in the Corpus Christi procession until well into the 15th century. The remains of this standard occupied a place of honor in the plenary hall of the town hall until they perished in the fire that devastated the building in 1937. In the words of Miguel Ancil, the ensign consisted of "a long piece of grayish cloth with bloody stains, turned to rags by the action of time and in the center of which was the monstrance or reliquary", which evidently was not part of the original flag. 

Remains of the royal standard of Aragon captured in the battle of Vadoluengo in 1312 before its disappearance in 1937. Photo: Casas Consistoriales de Navarra, p. 238.

Sources and bibliography

Municipal file of Sangüesa. Book 47, conference proceedings of the plenary session of the Executive Council the Corporation, 1850-1866, sessions of June 21, 1862 and January 3, 1863.
ANCIL, M., Monografía de Sangüesa, Pamplona, publishing house Iberia, 1943.
ANCIL, M., Compendio de la historia de Sangüesa desde su fundación hasta nuestros días, Pamplona, La Acción Social, 1931.
ARANDA RUIZ, A., Dressing authority. Atributos de poder y representación municipal en Navarra, Pamplona, Chair de Patrimonio y Arte Navarro. University of Navarra, 2021.
LABEAGA MENDIOLA, J.C., "La Batalla de Vadoluengo, 1213, y sus consecuencias", Zangotzarra, no. 16, 2012, pp. 244-275.
LABEAGA MENDIOLA, J.C., "San Sebastián, patron saint of Sangüesa: cult, art and tradition", Cuadernos de etnología y etnografía de Navarra, no. 77, 2002, pp. 307-347.
LABEAGA MENDIOLA, J.C., "Casa Consistorial de Sangüesa", Casas consistoriales de Navarra, Pamplona, Government of Navarra, 1988, pp. 230-239.