Castle of Benabarre
| Castle of Benabarre | |
|---|---|
Castillo de Benabarre / de los Condes de Ribagorza | |
| Benabarre File:Flag of Aragon.svg Aragon  Spain | |
| File:Castillo-Palacio de los Condes de Ribagorza.jpg | |
| Coordinates | 42°06′26″N 0°28′55″W / 42.10722°N 0.48194°W Fatal error: The format of the coordinate could not be determined. Parsing failed. |
| Type | Castle |
| Site information | |
| Open to the public | Yes |
| Condition | Restored |
| Site history | |
| Built | Late 10th century |
The Castle of Benabarre, also known as Castle of the Counts of Ribagorza (Castillo de Benabarre or Castillo de los Condes de Ribagorza in Spanish), is a medieval castle located in the village of Benabarre, located in the province of Huesca, in Aragon.
It's a fortification settled along an elongated hill of great height at the top of the town, from where it was possible to have visual communication with near towns as Purroy or Pilzán.[1]
The castle is sits on a limestone promontory that serves as its foundations. This gave the castle a great defensive advantage, because its walls couldn't be mined (a common technique during the siege of a fortress, consisting on digging a tunnel under the wall to later sink it and open a breach through which attack). It was also surrounded by a wall.[2] The entrance is made through stairs protected by a wall.
It was declared Bien de Interés Cultural on the year 2006.
History
The origins of the castle go back to the late 10th century or the beginnings of the 11th century. At that time, Benabarre was under muslim domain. From that time is the perimetral defense of the hill on which it's settled, with wall cubes of rectangular section. The old fortified place was known as Ibn Awar, name that probably originated the current name of the town.
In the year 1062, Benabarre was conquered by king Ramiro I, who ordered a castle to be built, in order to secure the position, in a yet unstable border. During the following years, a romanic church was built. Christian society assimilated the inheritance from the muslim world, which was palpable with the creation of commercial areas as squares and porches.
The ville became Ribagorzan capital when, in 1322, James II decided to award his son Peter of Aragón the title of Count of Ribagorza. The infante restored the County of Ribagorza and located its power center at Benabarre. The Castle of Benabarre became the counts residence, and its church got transformed into an imposing gothic temple.
The most important time period of the castle of Benabarre goes from 1577 to 1589. It witnessed the bloody battles of the War of Ribagorza between the ribagorzans of Count don Martín, and his son, don Fernando de Aragón.
In 1596, the County of Ribagorza was revoked and incorporated into the crown by Philip II, and the Castle of Benabarre, dismantled.
By the end of the first third of the 17th century, the castled is set to be rebuilt, before the coming of the Catalan Sublevation (1636-1656); in addition to be the capital of the County of Ribagorza.
The wars with Catalonia, the War of the Spanish Succession (1707-1714), the War of Independence and the Carlist Wars turned the castle into ruins.
In the 19th century it was transformed into a rifle fort: the walls were thinned and elevated, in order to adapt them to the light arms used then.
In the last quarter of the 19th century, the remains of the gothic church, which had been partially disassembled half a century before to build the current parish church, were adapted as a military keep, building two floors and moving the chore's arch to the upper floor. Another big transformation of the 19th century adapted it to the needs of the new arms and elevated the current parish church with a bell tower, that later was used as an aerial lookout post during the Civil War.
Its possible to say that the castle of Benabarre is a real stone archive, that can throw light over the history of the area. The Castle became municipal property in 1922, and from 1991 its in a restoration and adaptation process as a monument.
At the beginning of the 1990s, several interventions on the Castle were made through work camps, and the towers and walls were rebuilt with professionals.[3][4]
Description
The remains of the Castle are actually the overlapping of three fortified enclosures, two churches and a cistern. Among its uses, it is worth mentioning that of a bell tower, a cemetery, orchards, a shelter for the poor, an aerial surveillance tower and a monument.
The set formed by the castle and the church of Santa María de Valdeflores acts as a landmark and nucleus of the town, from which the population grew, configuring a hillside urbanism on the southern slope of the castle, since on the north it presents an impregnable slope.
The castle has a ground plan similar to a rectangle, measuring about one hundred by fifty metres, in whose corners there are bastions.
The castle of Benabarre currently resembles a 19th century fort, although it preserves a large number of buildings and walls from when it was a castle-palace of the counts of Ribagorza. Therefore it is a monumental complex with a single enclosure where all the transformations of the building parallel to its historical vicissitudes are integrated, from vestiges of the Islamic occupation to the 19th century.
The monument is composed of two staggered enclosures on the top of the mountain. In the upper and oldest one, some walls are preserved on the rocky spur, where the beginnings of a square tower can be seen in the highest area, possibly a Muslim work, as well as in the perimeter layout of the rock with emptied areas for lay foundations and walls.
In the lower enclosure it is possible to see the remains of the 12th century temple, since a Romanesque church was built with a tower at its feet, which was later enlarged.
At the end of the 14th century, a reform was carried out, raising the Gothic church of Santa María de Valdeflores, with a large masonry tower, behind which is attached a rectangular body that could have been the cistern, as well as canvases of the walled enclosure, which is still the first rows remain. Next to the doorway of the church, there is a bend in the access to the upper enclosure, a section protected by a semicircular tower that has arrow slits, and to the south of the rock, is the patio and an outer enclosure built on the lower part of the promontory with sloped walls. At the east and west ends are the circular watchtowers pierced by arrow slits adapted for 19th century weapons. In the defensive complex of Benabarre, the remains of the works of the 14th and 15th centuries survive, works of a castle that Philip II ordered to be dismantled at the end of the 16th century, together with reconstructions carried out in the 19th century, for its conversion into a rifle fort given that this fortification played an important role during the three Carlist wars.[5][6]
References
- ↑ "El Castillo de Benabarre 🏰👑, el castillo de los Condes de Ribagorza | Turismo Huesca La Magia" (in español). 2017-01-31. Retrieved 2023-01-19.
- ↑ "INVENTARIO FORTIFICACIONES ARAGONESAS. (A.R.C.A.), CASTILLO DE BENABARRE" (PDF).
- ↑ "Castillo Condes de Ribagorza - Ayuntamiento de Benabarre". www.benabarre.es. Retrieved 2023-01-19.
- ↑ "Castillo de Condes de Ribagorza". www.comarcaacomarca.com. Retrieved 2023-01-19.
- ↑ "Castillo - Benabarre". Castillo - Benabarre - SIPCA. Retrieved 2023-01-19.
- ↑ "Castillo de Benabarre". Cultura de Aragón (in español). Retrieved 2023-01-19.
See also
- List of castles in Spain
- County of Ribagorza
- Benabarre
External links
- En castillosnet.org Castillo de Benabarre Archived 2011-09-26 at the Wayback Machine
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