¡Santiago y cierra, España!

¡Santiago y cierra, España! is a Spanish-language phrase. The invoking of the apostle's name is said to have been a common battle cry of Christian soldiers in medieval Iberia and beyond into the Early Modern Period. The full form, using a conjugated form of the verb cerrar, is recorded since the late-16th and 17th centuries. It made a comeback in 1930s Spain as it became the motto of Ramiro de Maeztu's right-wing magazine Acción Española. As a reflection of a mythicized look on the middle ages, embedded in narratives of the Reconquista of Catholic Spain against the Muslim Other-enemy-invader, it has thus been historically embraced as a political slogan by arch-conservative milieus of Spanish society. As a nationalist symbolic banner, the phrase has been a staple within far-right discourses in Spain, developed in war-related and national self-affirmation contexts.