History of Alcudia

The richness of Alcúdia’s history matches the riches of Puerto Alcúdia’s beach; Alcúdia is far from being a one-dimensional sun, sea and sand destination. While the port itself and the resort that stretches along the coast into Playa de Muro are almost exclusively contemporary, the old town of Alcúdia is quite another matter.

The story of Alcúdia can be traced back to around 1300 BC during the Bronze Age, but “its place on the map” didn´t really occur until the Romans, having conquered the island in 123 BC, founded the city of Pol·lentia in 70 BC. Thereafter, Pol·lentia’s history became entwined with the fortunes of successive dominant or competing powers. Roman influence remained until the middle of the fifth century AD.

The Vandals, one of the East Germanic peoples who, together with numerous other barbarian groups, were (at least partly) instrumental in the decline of Rome, had established a base in Carthage. It was from there that they joined in the general mayhem of the time, sacking Rome in 455 AD and seizing the Balearic Islands for good measure.

Although the Roman Empire staggered on, the split with the eastern faction in Constantinople led to widespread abandonment of western provinces, and so in 534 AD the Byzantines entered into Mallorcan and Alcúdia history. But the Byzantines had their own problems, not least the emergence of the caliphs and the armies of Islam, and by the tenth century Muslim culture had taken a foothold locally. This influence was significant enough to bring about a change in name - to Alcúdia, meaning the hill - and to establish the origins of the layout of the town as it is today.

Towards the end of the eleventh century, the so-called “Reconquista” started, bringing about Christian repossession of much of the Iberian Peninsula. The momentum extended further, and so in 1229 James I the Conqueror reclaimed Mallorca, annexing it to his kingdom of Aragon, itself an amalgam of the district of Aragon with Catalonia and Valencia. Aragon became the dominant maritime power in the western Mediterranean, and Catalan the dominant language. Today, Catalan is the indigenous language in Mallorca, albeit with its own local twists.

Coming more to the present day, Alcúdia has enjoyed something of a renaissance in the past one hundred years following a period of decline during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Tourism has of course been highly influential, the origins of this economic development reaching back to between the world wars.

Alcúdia remains - in relative terms - a small community of around 15,000 people, but it is cosmopolitan while retaining much of the tradition of more than 2,000 years.