Castle of San Jorge: Medieval Fortress and Inquisition Prison in Seville
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 3.8
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Spain
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Almohad, Spanish
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page7 sections
History
Castle of San Jorge was a medieval fortification in Seville, Spain, built under Almohad rule beside the Guadalquivir in the Triana district. Its exact construction date is uncertain, although it is described as a tenth-century castle and was fortified before 1220 to defend Seville, protect the floating bridge, and control access to the El Aljarafe region. The site had earlier been an Almohad cemetery during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
Almohad fortress and the conquest of Seville
An earlier Visigothic fortification in the area defended Spalis, the Visigothic name for Seville. Under the Almohads, a North African Muslim dynasty that ruled much of the Iberian Peninsula during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the stronghold became associated with the defense of the river crossing. In 1171, the Almohad caliph Abu Yaqub Yusuf, who had made Seville the capital of his empire, ordered a Bridge of Boats to be built across the Guadalquivir. Its chains were attached to the site then known as the Castle of Gabir. The same ruler also ordered water to be brought into Seville through the Caños de Carmona and commissioned major works at the Alcázar, the Buhayra palace, and the fortress of Alcalá de Guadaíra.
During Ferdinand III of Castile’s conquest of Seville in 1248, the fleet of Ramón de Bonifaz broke the chains and barrier protecting the floating bridge. This helped Ferdinand capture the city during the Christian conquest of Muslim-ruled territories in Iberia. Afterward, the king granted the castle to the Order of the Knights of Saint George, whose ownership gave the fortress its later name. The order held it until 1280. Before the Church of Santa Ana was built in 1276, the castle also served as the seat of Triana’s first parish.
Decline and the Spanish Inquisition
The Knights of Saint George were principally responsible for coastal defense, but the order’s relatively modest status and the castle’s declining defensive importance contributed to its deterioration by the end of the fifteenth century. The order was absorbed by the more powerful Order of Montesa in 1400. The Marquis of Medina Sidonia held the castle from 1463 until the Catholic Monarchs took it over in 1481 and established the Spanish Inquisition there.
The Spanish Inquisition was a royal tribunal created to investigate and prosecute religious nonconformity, especially among converts suspected of secretly following another faith. At Castle of San Jorge, it used the large vacant rooms as a residence, prison, interrogation and torture facility, and holding place for people awaiting judgment and execution. The complex also sheltered criminals connected with Inquisition officials who evaded punishment there.
Repeated flooding by the Guadalquivir damaged the walls, and the Inquisition left the castle in 1626. The property was ceded to the Count-Duke of Olivares, who was charged with repairing and maintaining it. After operating for 34 years from the Casa de los Tavera, the Inquisition returned in 1639. It finally abandoned the castle in 1785 because the building had become obsolete, unhealthy, and repeatedly damaged by floods, moving to the former Jesuit College of las Becas.
Demolition and archaeological rediscovery
After the castle passed to the city, consolidation and flood-protection works were completed in 1786. The enclosing wall was demolished, and a redoubt with an iron base was constructed. Its gate functioned as a flood valve and allowed access over the structure to the floating bridge. Rubble from the wall was used to raise the ground between the castle and the river. The site was briefly used as a grain warehouse and later by itinerant traders before becoming a covered market.
Between 1800 and 1803, the castle was demolished to widen the connection between Altozano Square and Castilla Street, create San Jorge Street, and build a food market. The Triana Market was established in 1823, while surrounding market activity had developed from a spontaneously organized market around 1830. The southern side of the site was reduced in 1852 during construction of the Isabella II Bridge. The original covered market was demolished in 1990 for a modern market, but archaeological studies begun in the early 1980s led to excavations beneath the new structure and the creation of an in situ museum. The ruins were declared an Asset of Cultural Interest in June 1985, and Seville’s municipal government inaugurated the Castle of San Jorge museum beneath the market in December 2009.
The castle has also entered cultural history. Giorgio Vasari wrote that the Florentine sculptor Pietro Torrigiano was arrested by the Inquisition for heresy and died at the castle during a hunger strike in 1522, although this account may be apocryphal. Beethoven’s opera Fidelio, first presented in 1805, takes place in a Seville prison holding people persecuted for their political beliefs. The opera does not name Castle of San Jorge, but the fortress probably provided its model, and a commemorative plaque was later placed at the site.
Remains
Fortified complex beside the Guadalquivir
The castle stood on the right bank of the Guadalquivir in Triana, beside the floating Bridge of Boats. Its defensive complex consisted of the castle, an enceinte, or main enclosing wall, ten towers, a moat, and a barbican, an outer defensive work protecting the entrance or walls. One former fortified tower remains visible beside the river at a place called La Enramadilla. The Callejón de la Inquisición, adjoining the market, formed part of the former fortifications and now connects Castilla Street with the Nuestra Señora de la O promenade.
Flood defenses and surviving archaeology
The enclosing wall was removed during the flood-protection works completed in 1786. A redoubt with an iron foundation replaced it, and its gate could operate as a flood valve while providing access toward the floating bridge. The demolished wall’s rubble raised the ground between the castle and the river, altering the relationship between the fortress and the water.
The castle itself was demolished in the early nineteenth century, but archaeological remains survive beneath the Triana Market. Excavations revealed 229 Almohad graves from the cemetery that occupied the land before the fortification was built. The underground Castle of San Jorge museum lies below the market, at the level of the Guadalquivir’s dock, and incorporates the excavated ruins into an interpretation of the fortress and its period as the seat of the Spanish Inquisition.
