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The privileges of the Couto Mixto

Calvos de Randín, Limia, Ourense

1 Villages · 2 Monuments · 1 Nature · 2 Curiosities · 1 Historical milestones

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The privileges of the Couto Mixto

Curiosity · Calvos de Randín, Limia, Ourense

Image of Calvos de Randín, not of the place itself.

The Couto Mixto was an independent micro-state in the valley of the river Salas, on the northern slope of the sierra do Larouco, between Galicia and Portugal, made up of the hamlets of Santiago — where the capital was established —, Rubiás and Meaus, with 26.9 square kilometres and no more than a thousand inhabitants around 1862-1864, according to its penultimate judge, Delfín Modesto Brandón. Linked since the late Middle Ages to the castle of A Picoña and later to the House of Braganza, it depended neither on the Portuguese nor the Spanish crown. Its residents enjoyed the right of asylum from the justice of both kingdoms, provided no soldiers to any army, were exempt from taxes, and had freedom to trade in salt, grow tobacco and choose Spanish or Portuguese nationality. With the Treaty of Lisbon of 1868 it came under Spanish sovereignty.

Photo: Estevoaei (CC BY-SA 4.0)

What to see and do in Calvos de Randín