Monsaraz Castle

Monsaraz Castle, locally known as Castelo de Monsaraz, lies in the town of the same name in the Alentejo Central region in Portugal.

This site, a narrow, elongated hill above the right bank of the Guadiana River, may already have been used as a hill fort in pre-historic times, followed by Roman, Visigothic and Muslim occupation.

During the Reconquista, Monsaraz was first taken from the Muslims in 1167 by Christian troops led by the famous Portuguese knight Gerald the Fearless. In 1173, however, it was recovered by the Almohads under the command of Abu Yaqub Yusuf. It finally fell into Christian hands in 1232, when it was conquered by Sancho II of Portugal with the help of the Knights Templar, to whom it was subsequently granted.

Apparently it continued to be a very thinly populated frontier settlement for the next decades, because Afonso III of Portugal issued the town a charter in 1276, aiming to increase its population and defense. The construction of a new castle then commenced.

In 1312 the Knights Templar were disbanded by Pope Clement V. Monsaraz Castle then passed to their Portuguese successor; the Military Order of Christ, in 1319. They made it a commandery, dependent on their headquarters at Castro Marim Castle in the south. The keep had already been reconstructed, and the town walls built up in 1309.

The castle was attacked by English troops, led by the Earl of Cambrigde; Edmund of Langley, in 1381. They had come to Portugal to aid the Portuguese Crown in an attack on Castile, but were returning home dissatisfied after a peace between Portugal and Castile had been brokered before they could have been deployed.

During the 1383-1385 Portuguese interregnum, a Castilian army took Monsaraz in 1385, but as they were on the march during an offensive in the Alentejo region, they left soon and the castle was quickly back in Portuguese control. In 1412 the town and castle of Monsaraz were donated to the House of Braganza.

Due to its proximity to the Spanish border, the defenses of Monsaraz were updated by adding bastioned features during the Portuguese Restoration War, by the French military engineer Nicolas de Langres around 1658.

Having lost its strategic importance gradually during the 18th century, the fortifications were largely abandoned in the mid-19th century. The interior of the castle was then also repurposed as a bullring.

Monsaraz Castle can freely be visited. A very nice castle ruin in a beautiful situated walled town. It has intervisibility with Mourão Castle far away on the opposite bank of the Guadiana. The area between the 2 castles has been turned into the large Alqueva Reservoir, after a dam had been built around 2000.

Gallery