Castle of Castellanos, Mohedano, or Moheda: A Medieval Rock Fortress in Spain
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.3
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Spain
- Primary era
- Medieval
- Eras represented
- Medieval
- Civilizations
- Crown of Castile, Spanish
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page9 sections
History
The Castle of Castellanos, also known as the Castle of Mohedano or Moheda, is a ruined medieval rock fortress in Cáceres, Spain. Built under Christian seigneurial rule in the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century, it probably defended the now-vanished village of Castellanos and its surrounding domain.
The Valverde estate
After the Christian reconquest, the long medieval expansion of Christian-ruled territories into lands held by Muslim polities in the Iberian Peninsula, the lands of the Sierra de San Pedro were granted to the Valverde lineage. The grant recognized the family’s military contribution and assigned it responsibility for defence and repopulation. The Valverdes maintained a house on the site of the later castle from the early fourteenth century, although it does not appear to have been fortified then.
Among the family’s holders was Gonzalo Ruiz de Valverde, a commander of the Order of Santiago. This religious-military order defended Christian territories and supported expansion in Iberia. Ruiz de Valverde administered the commanderies of Mérida and Alcuéscar, territorial and administrative districts governed by commanders.
Seigneurial castle and changing ownership
The fortress was erected in the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century, probably in connection with Castellanos, a seigneurial settlement to which it remained closely linked. During the early-modern period, Castellanos lost its status as a town and became depopulated, changing the context in which the castle had originally served.
In the early fifteenth century, the castle belonged to Marshal García González de Herrera. A marshal was a high-ranking military and court official. He apparently acquired the property from his first wife, Estefanía de Monroy. The castle then passed among several holders until Alonso de Cárdenas, master of the Order of Santiago, acquired it in 1477. Although Cárdenas led the order, he held the castle as personal property rather than as an possession of the military institution.
Late fifteenth-century fortification
Around 1485, Alonso de Cárdenas undertook new defensive works. These probably included the construction or strengthening of the outer wall and its projecting defensive works. The gun loops in the walls and towers may belong to this reform, reflecting the growing use of firearms in late medieval fortification.
Because the castle was Cárdenas’s personal property, it passed by inheritance in 1493 to his daughter Juana de Cárdenas, who was married to Pedro Portocarrero el Sordo. In 1514, the couple placed it within a mayorazgo, an entail that kept property and associated rights together within a family through a defined line of inheritance. The castle subsequently passed through their descendants, the counts of Puebla del Maestre, until the end of the Ancien Régime, the traditional political and social order before the liberal and revolutionary transformations of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Protection and condition
The castle is protected under Spain’s general heritage decree of 22 April 1949 and the 1985 law on Spanish historical heritage. Its ruined condition led to its inclusion on Hispania Nostra’s Red List of heritage at risk on 13 April 2014.
Remains
Rocky summit and original tower
The castle occupies the Cerro del Santo, a hill at the eastern end of the Sierra de la Estena, about two kilometres south-southeast of the Morrón de Estena peak. The hill forms part of the southern foothills of the Sierra de San Pedro and rises to about 390 metres above sea level. The earliest part of the fortress stood on the highest, northernmost point of the rocky site. It consisted of a medieval tower, probably containing the seigneurial rooms, built mainly from regularly cut and fitted ashlar blocks.
The tower’s northern side rises above an almost vertical natural slope, which provided protection against approach from that direction. The ground on the opposite side is gentler, making the southern approach more accessible and prompting the later construction of a rectangular walled enclosure.
Inner enclosure and defensive towers
The rectangular enclosure obstructed access from the south and was built chiefly from heavy rubble masonry and roughly dressed stone, with some brick additions. Three cylindrical towers strengthened its perimeter. Two occupied the southern corners, while a third stood at the centre of the southern wall. Gun loops characteristic of the late fifteenth century are distributed through the walls and towers, while arrow slits, some terminating in a circular opening at their lower end, also survive.
Outer defensive circuit
A further outer enceinte, or enclosing defensive circuit, surrounded the castle. It included a wall-walk, a passage along the top of a wall used by defenders to move and watch the approaches, together with bastions, projecting defensive works. The circuit was probably topped by a crenellated parapet with alternating raised sections and openings. Only scant remains of this outer line survive, and the castle as a whole is preserved in ruins.
