The Threshold of the Extramuros World

The modern Mercado Central sits beside the western edge of Zaragoza's old Roman city. In the thirteenth century the city expanded westwards with the Población del Rey, which grew around the church of San Pablo. A key part of that expansion was commercial: the grain market was transferred towards the Puerta de Toledo in 1210, helping to shape San Pablo as a strongly commercial district beyond the older city. Eight years later, in 1218, Jaime I confirmed trade privileges for the market zone. The useful clue here is the change in urban scale: an older walled city giving way to a new western expansion organised around markets, streets and the parish of San Pablo.