SIMANCAS  , a

town of Spain, in the province of Valladolid; 8 m . S.W. of Valladolid, on the road to Zamora and the right bank of the river Pisuerga . Pop . (1900) 1129 . Simancas is a town of great antiquity, the Roman Septimanca, with a. citadel dating from the Moorish occupation in the 9th century, a fine bridge of seventeen arches, and many remains of old walls . In 934 it was the scene of a bloody battle between the Moors and Christians . The citadel is now the Archivo General del Reino, to which the national archives of Spain were removed by order of Philip II. in 1563 . Their transference thither was first suggested to Charles V. by Cardinal Ximenes or Cisneros (d . 1517) . The extensive alterations were made by three celebrated 16th-century architects, Juan de Herrera, Alonso Berruguete and Juan Gomez de Mora; the arrangement of the papers was en-trusted to Diego de Ayala . They occupy forty-six rooms, and are arranged in upwards of 8o,000 bundles (33,000,000 documents), including important private as well as state papers . The archives of the Indies were transferred in 1784 to the Lonja of Seville (q.v.) .

Permission to consult the documents at Simancas can be readily obtained .