Castillo de Mazuelo de Muñó: A Fortified Tower in Burgos, Spain
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.3
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Spain
- Primary era
- Medieval
- Eras represented
- Medieval
- Civilizations
- Crown of Castile
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page8 sections
History
Castillo de Mazuelo de Muñó is a fortified site in Spain, located in Mazuelo de Muñó within the municipality of Estépar, in the Province of Burgos. Its construction is uncertain: it may have been built in the mid-fourteenth century by Juan Alfonso Carrillo, lord of the local behetría, a medieval Castilian lordship whose inhabitants held particular rights in choosing or recognizing their lord, during the reign of Pedro I of Castile, or in the first third of the fifteenth century by his son Pedro Carrillo, lord of the town and chief merino of Burgos.
The Carrillo lordship
The estate later passed to Leonor Carrillo, followed by her grandson Pedro Carrillo de Toledo. Pedro was married to Elvira Palomeque, and their daughter Mencía Carrillo Palomeque subsequently inherited the lordship. Mencía married Fernando Álvarez de Toledo y Sarmiento, who became the first count of Alba de Tormes.
Transfer to the Rojas family
In August 1466, Mencía, then widowed, sold the castle and her properties in Mazuelo to Sancho de Rojas Manrique, sixth lord of Monzón and Cabia. His second son from his first marriage, Martín de Rojas Pereira, inherited the castle and other property in Mazuelo de Muñó. Since Martín had no sons and his daughters became nuns, the estates returned to the entail of the firstborn, Diego de Rojas Pereira. An entail was a legally restricted body of property tied to a family lineage and governed by specified inheritance rules.
The Rojas family retained the castle for about eighty years. Between 1541 and 1546, Juan de Rojas y Rojas, first marquis of Poza and son of Diego de Rojas Pereira and María de Rojas y Castilla, sold his holdings in Mazuelo to Andrés Ortega de Cerezo, a cantor of Burgos Cathedral. A cantor, or senior cathedral cleric, was responsible for liturgical singing and related duties within the cathedral chapter.
Repairs and later history
Ortega de Cerezo created an entail containing the castle and commissioned the master stonemason Juan de Vallejo to repair it. Ortega died before the work was complete. In his 1546 will, he named his nephew Pedro Ortega Cerezo de Torquemada as heir and instructed him to finish the work already begun on the tower.
In 1753 the castle belonged to Joaquín de la Cerda y Torquemada, marquis of La Rosa. Its owner in 1923 was José de Saavedra y Salamanca, marquis of Viana. The tower remained inhabited until a fire destroyed its interior in the spring of that year, after which the building was restored. Castillo de Mazuelo de Muñó was declared a Bien de Interés Cultural, Spain’s principal legal category for protected cultural heritage, on 13 June 1991.
Remains
The surviving complex is organized around a fortified tower enclosed by a barbican, a defensive outer work surrounding the principal stronghold. The tower forms the main architectural element of the site, while the barbican establishes its outer defensive boundary.
Fortified structures
Fortified tower
The tower is the principal component of Castillo de Mazuelo de Muñó. Its interior was destroyed by the fire of 1923, and the structure was later restored. The tower also bears the physical evidence of the repair campaign begun under Andrés Ortega de Cerezo and ordered completed in his 1546 will.
Barbican
A barbican surrounds the tower, forming a separate defensive enclosure around the central building. Together, the two elements define the surviving arrangement of the castle as a fortified tower protected by an outer barrier.
