To commemorate the 5th centenary of the Assembly of Knights and Prelates of the Kingdom of Galicia, which took place on December 4, 1520, a meeting was held in Melide to commemorate this historic event. This was a high-level meeting that brought together the lords of the Old Kingdom of Galicia to decide on behalf of the people and request a series of clauses from King Charles I. This event reaped the fruits already sown in the Irmandiñas Revolt, which had its focus and starting point in a meeting also held in the town of Melide.
On December 4, 1520, Alonso III de Fonseca, Archbishop of Santiago, opened the meeting in which the prelates and knights of the Kingdom of Galicia gathered in the town of Melide, as it was the center of the kingdom, and where they managed to unite the different forces represented by bishops, noble lords, and representatives of the towns and cities. This meant that at this meeting, fundamental decisions were made, becoming the nucleus of the political and social configuration of that moment. At that meeting, a series of petitions were formalized on behalf of Galicia, to be presented to Emperor Charles V (I of Spain). One of the most important was obtaining the vote in the Cortes for Galicia, which until then had been represented by Zamora.
This Assembly of Melide, which brought together the country's ruling classes, managed to unite the different social forces of Galicia, making this meeting one of the first examples of the beginning of a new political model that would later be called Parliamentarianism, as fundamental and far-reaching political and social decisions were taken to demand rights on behalf of the entire Galician people, thus becoming the nucleus of the political configuration of the Late Middle Ages and the beginning of the Modern Age in Galicia.
The stamp is an illustration by José Alberto García Taracido.
