The origins of the city are obscure, but its name is apparently of
Iacetani origin, as
Strabo lists them as one of the most celebrated of the numerous small tribes inhabiting the
Ebro basin. Strabo adds that their territory lay on the site of the wars in the 1st century BC between
Sertorius and
Pompey. According to the atlas of the ancient Greek and Roman worlds, Jaca was a town where minted coins were made from the second half of the 2nd century BC, a small number of which are now in the
British Museum. The coins show an unidentified bearded head to the right with an inscription to the left and also have an image of a dolphin. The reverse depicts a horseman carrying a spear to the right, with an inscription below in Iberian reading
iaka. After Roman rule, the
Visigothic nobility took over most of Iberia. However, in 720,
Huesca is conquered by the Muslims reaching out as far as
Sobrarbe. Muslim advances in Europe had a turn of events after the
Battle of Tours (732). By that time, the region of
Jacetania would remain as a buffer zone in favour of the
Carolingian Empire against Muslim dominions. By 799 Aureolo stabilised an independent county which gradually evolved until
Ramiro I of Aragon (1035–1063) granted it the title of City and capital of the
Kingdom of Aragon. In 1063 it was the site of the
Synod of Jaca. As the Aragonese domains expanded to the south, conquering land from
Al Andalus, the capital city was moved from Jaca to Huesca in 1096. The loss of capital status did not mean that Jaca lost other urban functions related to its geographical location. Thus, it continued to play its role as a market city and services for its region. The plagues and fires of the late Middle Ages plunged Jaca into a deep crisis from which it would not emerge until the intervention of
Ferdinand the Catholic to form a local government. The bourgeoisie was favored by this situation and many became patrons of artists whose results can be seen especially in the cathedral. The city was consolidated as a military post from which to defend the peninsular kingdoms from a hypothetical French invasion. In this regard,
Philip II ordered the construction of several fortresses throughout the Pyrenees, including in 1592 the pentagonal Jaca citadel, designed by the Italian engineer
Tibúrcio Spannocchi in the fields that had formed the Burgo Nuevo, the neighborhood built outside the city walls. During the Middle Ages, Jaca was home to Aragon's oldest
Jewish community until the 1492
expulsion of the Jews. On December 12–13 1930 the
Jaca uprising, a mutiny whose leaders demanded abolition of the monarchy, was suppressed with some difficulty. It was an early event that preceded the
Spanish Civil War. Jaca fell to the forces of the coup against the Second Republic in the early months of the war. August 1936 saw the arrest, rape and execution of the young militant
Desideria Giménez Moner, aka
La Cazoleta, by Carlist soldiers. Murdered alongside her on 7th August 1936 was Pilar Vizcarra Calvo, a pregnant widow who had recently witnessed the execution of her husband. Before the end of 1936 the father of
La cazoleta, Juan José Giménez Artieda was also executed and they were buried in a mass grave, along with more than 300 other victims of the
White Terror, in the cemetery of Jaca. ==Climate==