The earliest information there is about Cuenca comes from Arabic texts dated 784 AD, about seventy years after the entry of the Moors and the Berbers into the Iberian Peninsula. At the beginning of the 11th century, the Lord of Uclés conquered 'al Kunka' and made it the capital of the Cora (a province of Muslim Spain). He fortified and repopulated the town, which by then, had a thriving textile (carpets) and ivory-carving industry.

At the end of the 11th century, the king of Castile (Alfonso VI) married andpart of his wife's dowry was the city of Cuenca. However, Cuenca was to fall back into Muslim hands until September 1177, when it was finally conquered by Alfonso VIII. Five years later, Cuenca became the Episcopal seat. Alfonso VIII granted the town a very liberal charter full of privileges for future settlers and it became an example for many other charters granted by the Crown later. The monarchs granted the town the control of the vast pine forests in the mountains and this was an important source of income for centuries.

Alfonso X "The Wise" granted Cuenca the title of town during the second half of the 12th century. During the Early Middle Ages, the town underwent a period of prosperity due to the strength of its textile industry, trade in wool, its local crafts and cattle trade. There were also an important glass and paper industries. Coins were also minted here.

During the 14th century, Cuenca developed an important wool trade, but this suffered a serious crisis at the beginning of the 17th century, the population declined by 75% in fifty years.

It seems there was a tribunal of the feared Holy (Spanish) Inquisition in Cuenca from 1489 and the town chose the wrong side in an early sixteenth-century war.

During the Wars of Independence, Cuenca was sacked by French troops, recaptured and was attacked again (in a quite separate war) in 1873. Quite why Cuenca was involved in so many armed conflicts is absent from histories I have seen.

The 19th century started with a more systematic way of exploiting the pine forests,  the railway reached the town and both these factors brought about recovery. Cuenca is geographically isolated and it seems likely that developing trade routes outside the area led to its earlier economic decline.

From the 19th century onwards, the town divided into two very distinct areas: the upper part, (medieval and Baroque, and increasingly uninhabited) and the lower part, now the residence of the new middle classes, made up of traders and civil servants. Oddly enough Cuenca's connections with art (and several important exhibitions) can be connected with the restoration of the Casas Colgadas or "Hanging Houses" (18^th century Baroque architecture): they were restored towards the end of the 1920s and are now a popular destination for sight-seeing tourists.