The RAE will hold an extraordinary plenary session on May 14 in San Marcelo (León) to honor Queen Urraca I

The Royal Academy of Language (RAE) will hold an extraordinary plenary session on May 14 at the San Marcelo City Hall (León) in an open, exceptional session linked to the commemoration of the ninth centenary of the death of Queen Urraca I of León.

This was announced this Monday by the mayor of León, José Antonio Diez, in a press conference in which he was accompanied by the Councilor for Cultural Action and Promotion, Elena Aguado, and the Leonese academic Salvador Gutiérrez, who occupies the capital S chair.

Diez explained that the RAE maintains “indissoluble” ties with León with the membership of three people from León to the institution. In addition to Salvador Gutiérrez, the writers José María Merino, lowercase m chair, and Luis Mateo Díez, Cervantes Prize winner, who occupies the uppercase I chair, occupy seats in the RAE.

The mayor thanked the RAE and the Leonese academics for choosing the capital of Leon to hold this plenary session. “For the León City Council, and for me as a representative of the people of León, it is a true honor to be able to host this plenary session that has only left the halls of the official headquarters on three occasions,” he stressed.

The three moments in which the RAE has held plenary sessions outside its official headquarters have been those carried out on the occasion of the commemoration of the bicentennial of the Cortes of Cádiz in 2012; in the town of Argamasilla de Alba in 2015 for the fourth centenary of the publication of the second part of Don Quixote and in 2023 in Zaragoza in an act of tribute and memory to the directors Fernando Lázaro Carreter and Manuel Alvar, on the centenary of their birth.

“VERY EXCEPTIONAL”

For his part, Salvador Gutiérrez explained that the Plenary Session is the most important, representative and decisive body of the Royal Academy that in a “very exceptional” way leaves the institution and does so for “very special” causes and reasons. In this regard, he specified that on this occasion it will be held in León to “honor” the centenary of Queen Urraca, an event “of enormous historical relevance”, but also to honor so many writers and philologists who were born, lived and germinated their works in León.

The plenary session is scheduled for next May 14 at 1:00 p.m. and will be open to the public with limited capacity. The choice of León to host this plenary session aims to highlight the commemoration of the ninth centenary of the death of Queen Urraca I of León, the first sovereign in her own right of Europe, queen of León, Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, Extremadura, Castile and large territories in the north of Portugal.

The academics will hold the extraordinary session and, after lunch, they will visit the exhibition organized by the City Council at the León Museum with the collaboration of the Board, the Provincial Council, and different entities and companies.