Castle of Fuentes de Valdepero: A Fifteenth-Century Sarmiento Fortress in Spain
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Spain
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Crown of Castile, Spanish
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page10 sections
History
The Castle of Fuentes de Valdepero is a fifteenth-century stone fortification in Spain, associated with the Sarmiento family and the Valladolid School of castle architecture. Its construction began between 1442 and 1465, when Diego Pérez Sarmiento held the lordship of Fuentes de Valdepero and served as Adelantado Mayor of Galicia, a senior royal official with authority over that territory. King Juan II appointed him Count of Santa Marta on 15 November 1442. The castle later became involved in the Comunero Revolt, a major uprising in Castile against Charles I in 1520 and 1521, and was subsequently remodelled after sustaining siege damage.
The Sarmiento foundation
The Sarmientos were already a wealthy landholding family in the Palencia region by the thirteenth century. Diego Pérez Sarmiento, the third member of the family to bear that name, was lord of Fuentes de Valdepero in 1428. He surrendered his Galician office to his son Bernardino in 1465, and the first construction of the fortress belongs to this period. Archaeological work carried out during later rehabilitation placed the earliest occupation of the site in the fifteenth century.
After Diego’s death, Fuentes de Valdepero passed from his estates to a collateral branch of the family through Andrés de Ribera, who had married Diego’s granddaughter, Constanza. The estimated cost of constructing the fortress was 2,326,875 maravedis, a monetary unit used in medieval and early-modern Spain.
The Comunero siege and rebuilding
In January 1521, Andrés de Ribera II, lord of Fuentes, faced a siege by Comunero forces commanded by Bishop Acuña. After negotiating an honourable surrender, he allowed the bishop’s troops into the fortress. Acuña then broke the agreement, imprisoned Andrés’s entire family, and seized everything of value. The Comuneros held the castle until late April 1521, after their defeat at the Battle of Villalar brought the rebellion to an end. The inhabitants of Fuentes de Valdepero appear to have remained largely outside the conflict, although individuals from the community took part on both sides.
The siege damaged the fortress and prompted Andrés de Ribera II to undertake repairs and a substantial remodelling after 1521. The walls were made exceptionally thick, while the doors and windows were reduced in size. These alterations gave the castle a more heavily defended appearance, although their proportions have also been described as archaic.
Later lordship and modern preservation
Andrés de Ribera II sold the castle and the lordship of Fuentes to Diego de Acevedo in 1531, following a prolonged dispute with the inhabitants over the surrounding woodland. Ownership then passed to Diego’s daughter, Juana de Acevedo y Fonseca. In 1572, while she was Lady of Fuentes, Philip II established the county title for her, making her the first Countess of Fuentes de Valdepero.
After further transfers, the castle and county title belonged to María Teresa Álvarez de Toledo in 1739 and became connected with the House of Alba, a prominent Spanish aristocratic family. The county title remains associated with that house and was held by Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart, Duchess of Alba. The castle itself was separated from the family in 1874, when Jacobo Fitz-James Stuart sold it.
The Diputación of Palencia acquired the castle in 1995 after efforts by the Association of Friends of the Castle and Monuments of Fuentes de Valdepero. Rehabilitation followed, together with improvements to the surrounding area and the construction of an archive facility within the parade courtyard. The castle is listed as a Spanish Asset of Cultural Interest under reference RI-51-0010474. Its construction and scale have led to its description as architecturally the most important castle in Castile.
A local legend places a sword, its hilt wrapped in parchment, inside the wall of the southeastern corner tower between two Sarmiento shields. The sword was said to represent the lord’s criminal jurisdiction over the inhabitants. Another version claims that condemned prisoners were thrown from the battlements onto its blade. Tradition variously associated the weapon with the father of Bernardo del Carpio, the Count of Saldaña, or Bernardo del Carpio himself, a legendary medieval Castilian hero.
Remains
The fortress is built from large ashlar blocks, regularly cut and dressed stones. Its square enclosure has a corner tower at each angle and a large keep along the northern wall. Including the parade courtyard, the castle measures about 60 metres in length and up to 37 metres in width, covers slightly more than 2,000 square metres, and has a perimeter of approximately 170 metres. The keep rises about 25 metres and is separated internally from the courtyard area.
The northern keep
The keep was formerly much taller than its surviving form. It contained three vaulted storeys, with a possible upper wall-walk, a patrol passage along the top of a fortification wall, and battlements. It is uncertain whether this upper defensive section was ever completed. In places, the keep’s walls reach about 11 metres in thickness.
Access from the courtyard begins at the northeastern corner. A stairway passes beside a vaulted dungeon whose single entrance is positioned high within the room. A corridor connected the dungeon with the staircase and had a door at each end. The stairway reaches a terrace above the plinth, the projecting lower base of the wall, and facing the parade courtyard. Two doors lead from the terrace into the keep, while square-spiral staircases connect its rooms. The upper vaulted hall contains four very small storerooms reached through short passages arranged at right angles, a plan also found at Peñafiel Castle.
Courtyard and defensive structures
The parade courtyard forms a square enclosed by the four corner towers. Access to those towers was possible only from the top of the wall-walk, reached from the terrace leading to the keep. A low outer barrier once surrounded the castle, and the fortress may also have had a moat. The surviving design belongs to the Valladolid School, a group of related late-medieval and early-modern castle designs associated with fortifications in Castile.
Corner towers
The southeastern tower is the only tower from the original construction to survive intact, and it was later consolidated. It contains a pointed Gothic window and two shields bearing the arms of the Sarmiento family. A small canopy once protected them, with its supporting corbel still surviving. The northeastern tower was partly ruined and has been completely reconstructed. Both western towers were destroyed, while the southern tower, probably lost during the Comunero revolt, was replaced by a boundary marker.
Eastern entrance
The eastern entrance to the courtyard is flanked by two projecting sentry structures equipped with machicolations, defensive openings through which missiles or other materials could be dropped onto attackers. Another shield lies detached between these structures at the principal eastern entrance. Two further shields on the southern side are completely effaced.
Heraldic and residential features
The two identical circular shields on the southeastern tower are supported by a figure of a man with archaic features. They display Diego Pérez Sarmiento’s arms, thirteen gold bezants, or round gold heraldic charges, arranged in three vertical groups on a blue field. An inscription on each shield identifies him as Count of Santa Marta and Adelantado Mayor of Galicia.
The castle also retained a palatial and residential character. Older photographs show a Plateresque parapet in the upper courtyard gallery, a late Gothic and early Renaissance feature with elaborate ornament, supported by polygonal columns. These elements probably survive in the parish church of Fuentes de Valdepero, together with two other shields associated with the Sarmiento lineage. They appear to have been transferred there in the late nineteenth century.
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