It was fortified under in the 10th century under
Abd al-Rahman III. Maqueda passed to control of Castile-León in the context of the conquest of the
Taifa of Toledo in 1085, and it was later developed under the initiative of
Alfonso VII. The countryside of Maqueda was ravaged in the 1197 Almohad offensive. Maqueda was donated to the
Order of Calatrava in June 1201. It received the title of town () in 1324. In the context of the towns of the Alberche riverside in the Western part of the
Kingdom of Toledo, Maqueda was of lesser economic and political saliency compared to
Talavera and
Escalona. With a Jewish presence recorded since 1222, many Jews installed in the town after 1391 owing to the tolerance espoused by the Calatravan order, with Maqueda thereby becoming the seat of a major jewry in the context of the Archdiocese of Toledo. In 1415,
Antipope Benedict XIII ordered the transfer of the town's main
synagogue and associated lands to a former
Toledan rabbi who had
converted to Christianity, after he petitioned for property to sustain his family. The Jewish community seems to have recovered, as the Crown later issued instructions concerning the synagogues of Maqueda. Between 1422 and 1430 the town was also the residence of
Rabbi Moses Arragel, known for his Spanish translation of the Bible with commentary, prepared at the request of Don Luis de Guzmán, head of the Order of Calatrava. Maqueda was
H. Rider Haggard's original title for his 1910 novel which he re-titled Queen Sheba's Ring after persuasion from his publisher Longman Green & Co, apparently to open up his work to a female audience. == The
castillo de la vela ==