Unfortunately, the time before Arabian rule is not documented. So we do
not know whether there was already a settlement at that time. Therefore,
it is believed that Moclinejo is an Arab foundation. The name and
location suggest this. Although the meaning of Moclinejo is not clear,
it could come from Moclin. People from the province of Granada could
have founded the village. In the chronicles of the 15th and 16th
centuries it is mentioned as Moclinetum, Mohinete, Modinete, Molinete
and Molinillo.
The Christian troops of the commander of Antequera,
General Don Pedro Enriquez, suffered a bloody defeat in the battle
against the Muslims in 1482. The Muslims fled to a castle and saw their
property go up in flames. They came out of hiding and threw tree trunks
and stones at Christian troops. Alfonso de Aguilar's troops were so
injured that there is still a gorge in the Moclinejo district called
'Hoya de los Muertos' (case of death). The rest of the story is similar
to how we did it in other areas. The Christians won, the Muslims were
driven out. The economic decline began.
In the century before last, the economic ("re") boom was interrupted by the appearance of phylloxera. The area slowly recovered and grape growing and raisin production are still the main source of income for Moclinejo.
Castle
The
castle started at "Plaza de la Iglesia" and ran around a small cluster
of houses. Within this demarcation 1499 34 families lived in Moclinejo
and in 1942 there were 30 families. The city wall that bounds the church
runs west-east. In the northern part, the place name has been preserved
(Calle Castillo - Burgstraße), which also partially marks the course of
the room, which also coincides with the contour lines and with a street
that surrounds the village. From there you can also see today's
cemetery, which is roughly where the medieval cemetery was - in the
lower part of the village on the Benagalbón river. The walls, which the
inhabitants at that time called "castle", had a circumference of
approximately 380 meters in length and covered an urban area of
approximately 9,025 square meters, which corresponded to approximately
53 houses and approximately 212 inhabitants.