Requesens Castle: A Medieval Fortress and Neo-Medieval Reconstruction in Spain
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.4
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Spain
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval
- Civilizations
- Unclassified
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Castle
On this page14 sections
History
Requesens Castle is a medieval Catalan fortress in Spain, near La Jonquera, whose elevated position controlled passage through the southern valleys of Mount Neulós. The first documented construction belongs to the period around 1040 to 1071, while the present complex largely reflects a neo-medieval reconstruction carried out between 1893 and 1899.
Origins and the Rival Counties
The castle has a written mention dating from 859, although the first construction described in detail appears in a grievance memorial from approximately 1040 to 1071. In it, Count Ponç I of Empúries complained that Counts Gausfred II of Roussillon and his son Giselbert had built a castle on land entrusted to the County of Empúries.
These tensions followed the separation of the Counties of Roussillon and Empúries at the end of the 10th century. The Counts of Roussillon retained authority in Empúries, and their lordship over Requesens was confirmed in 1075. Agreements made in 1085 and 1121 reaffirmed their control of the castle. They, or their vassals, appointed a castellan, the lord or military officer responsible for a castle on behalf of a superior lord. During the first half of the 12th century, the office was held by a member of the Roussillon comital family.
Requesens stood within a complex network of allegiances. Its lords owed loyalty both to the Count of Empúries and to the Viscount of Peralada. The alliance between the Rocabertí family of Peralada and the Counts of Roussillon made the castle a focus of conflict during the 12th century. The war of Requesens, dated 1047 to 1072, began when Count Ponç II of Empúries captured the castle.
Empúries and Roussillon Control
After the Count of Barcelona acquired the County of Roussillon in 1172, King Alfonso II, as the new lord of Roussillon, renounced his rights over Requesens in favour of the Count of Empúries. This concession was intended to calm the regional dispute and gave the Count of Empúries full control of the castle.
The earlier upper fortress was supplemented by a new outer enclosure during the 13th century. Arnau de Requesens, recorded at Girona in 1181 and dead after 1256, and Guillem de Requesens, described as lord of the castle and dead after 1262, appear to have served as castellans or lords for the Count of Empúries. A later Requesens lineage of merchants and citizens, eventually ennobled as Counts of Palamós and documented at Tarragona from 1272, is conjectured to have descended from these castle lords, although the connection is unproven.
Guillem de Requesens also acquired the Cabrera tower or fort in Girona through marriage. Held as a fief of the Montcada, this property later became known as Requesens Castle. Guillem’s inheritance passed to the Botonac family and, in the early 14th century, to the Roussillon nobles of Castellnou, who sometimes used the surname Requesens as well.
War, Recovery, and the Rocabertí Lords
During the crusade against the Crown of Aragon, Requesens and its eminent lord, the Count of Empúries, remained loyal to Peter the Great. French forces besieged the castle in the summer of 1285 but failed to capture it. In 1288, a French army serving James II of Mallorca occupied and looted the castle briefly during an invasion of Empordà.
Peter I of Empúries, who ruled from 1325 to 1341, acquired the lordship of Requesens from the Castellnou family and completed the comital domain. The castle remained under the Counts of Empúries until the county reverted to the Crown in 1402. This followed the invalidation of the will of Peter II of Empúries, which had favoured his wife Joana de Rocabertí and, secondarily, his brother-in-law, Viscount Jofre VI of Rocabertí.
Viscount Dalmau VIII of Rocabertí successfully invoked that will to recover former Empúries possessions from the new Trastámara kings, the royal house that ruled the Crown of Aragon after the late medieval dynastic succession. Alfonso the Magnanimous granted Requesens Castle to him in 1418. The Rocabertí viscounts, later Counts of Peralada, retained the property until the late 19th century.
Reconstruction and Twentieth-Century Changes
Between 1893 and 1899, the last Counts of Peralada residing in the area, Tomàs de Rocabertí-Boixadors Dameto and his sister Joana-Adelaida, completely rebuilt the castle as a summer residence. Master builder Alexandre Comalat directed the work, which followed the medieval layout and reused granite from the mountain. The design adopted a Mediterranean regional character rather than imitating the more northern appearance of reconstructions such as Carcassonne. Because the same general arrangement and mountain granite were used, medieval fabric and 19th-century work are difficult to distinguish.
Tomàs de Rocabertí died in January 1898. Joana-Adelaida inherited the property but died suddenly at the castle in 1899, shortly after the inauguration celebration on Saint John’s Day. The circumstances were never clarified, and she left no direct heirs. After a major lawsuit, her noble titles passed first to her nephews, the Sureda marquises of Vivot, then to the Fortuny family in 1912 and the Montaner family in 1973. The estate passed to her husband’s nephew, Fernando Truyols i Despuig, Marquis of la Torre.
In 1923, the castle and its adjoining estate of more than 2,000 hectares were acquired by the Mallorcan industrialists Pere and Joan Rosselló, who intensively exploited the surrounding forest. They sold the property in 1927 to Joaquín de Arteaga, Duke of Infantado and businessman. He retained the estate and occupied the castle sporadically, while dismissing its inhabitants, tenant farmers, and other associated personnel.
At the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, a conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican government and forces led by Francisco Franco, CNT-FAI activists heavily looted the castle. In 1942, the duke sold the estate and castle to Borés SA, a company chiefly interested in forestry. During the postwar years, a military detachment occupied the castle to control Maquis activity. The Maquis were anti-Franco resistance groups, many of them operating as rural guerrillas after the Civil War. Soldiers installed kitchens and a military hospital, altering some rooms and damaging interiors and parts of the battlements.
The castle was sold in 1955 to Miquel Esteba Caireta, an industrialist from Anglès, and Josep Pijoan. Salvador Dalí unsuccessfully attempted to acquire it before purchasing Púbol Castle. Requesens later remained uninhabited, and vandalism, including damage linked to an illegal party and a fire, affected several rooms.
Requesens Castle is protected under Spanish historical-heritage regulations of 1949 and 1988 and is classified as a Cultural Asset of National Interest under Catalonia’s 1993 Cultural Heritage Law. It also lies within the Albera Site of Natural National Interest. The castle has influenced literature, photography, music, and cinema. Tomàs de Rocabertí photographed it in 1886, while photographs preserved by Comalat provide a record of the building before reconstruction. The castle appears in Bonaventura Bassegoda’s La ida a Requesens of 1882 and Verdaguer’s Canigó of 1886. It later inspired Francesc Basil’s award-winning sardana El castillo de Requesens in 1956 and served as a filming location for El caballero del dragón in 1985.
Local traditions add a legendary dimension to the castle’s history. One story says that defenders served besiegers fresh fish from an underground river flowing beneath the Pyrenees to Cap de Creus, causing the attackers to abandon the siege. Another describes a large underground passage to the northern slope of the Albera range, supposedly visible at the lower part of the fortress but obstructed. A further legend places the wife and daughters of a giant, seven times taller than the fortress’s highest tower and ruler of the Pyrenees, at the castle.
Remains
At an altitude of approximately 512 metres, Requesens Castle occupies a hill above the southern valleys of Mount Neulós. The present fortress is arranged in three fortified enclosures on the medieval site. Round and square towers, gateways, battlements, and machicolations, projecting defensive structures with openings for dropping or discharging objects onto attackers, combine medieval forms with historicist, neo-Romanesque, and neo-medieval design. The reconstruction retained the general medieval layout and used granite from the mountain, linking the surviving historic fabric with the later work.
The Fortified Enclosures
First Enclosure
The first enclosure contains a large courtyard and forms part of the outer defensive organization. Its courtyard and surrounding ground were landscaped with native and foreign plant species chosen to emphasize the architectural ensemble. Some of these plants later acclimatized and naturalized in the castle’s surroundings.
Second Enclosure
The second enclosure is smaller and includes a fortified gate. Together with the other enclosures, it preserves the stepped organization of the fortress across the hill.
Upper Enclosure
The upper enclosure contains the principal surviving medieval elements, including sections of bastion wall, the square northern tower, and part of its gate. These features are attributed to the 12th through 14th centuries. The noble rooms retain parts of floor decoration bearing the heraldic emblem of the Rocabertí family.
Upper Tower and Great Hall
A round watchtower in the upper enclosure forms the highest point of the monument. The same area includes a great hall with a stone fireplace and windows fitted with prominent shutters. Part of the upper enclosure has been closed for safety, and the watchtower is inaccessible. The 19th-century mansion interior has been dismantled, while damage and vandalism have affected several rooms.
Chapel and Service Buildings
Chapel of the Virgin of Providence
The lower enclosure contains a large chapel dedicated to the Virgin of Providence, formerly dedicated to Saint Romanus. Its construction incorporated Romanesque elements, the medieval tradition characterized by heavy masonry and rounded arches, taken from other buildings in the area. Arches from the portal of Santa Maria de Requesens, a French tympanum, and reliefs above the doorway form part of the chapel’s reused architectural material.
Stables and Service Areas
The lower enclosure also includes stables, kitchens, and other service buildings. Wrought-iron grilles imitate medieval grille motifs associated with Barcelona Cathedral. One of the service buildings was adapted into a military hospital during the postwar occupation, connecting the present arrangement of the lower enclosure with the castle’s 20th-century military use.
