Castles in Portugal were crucial components of the military across history. The Portuguese learned the art of fortification construction from the Romans and the Moors. The Romans, who ruled and colonized the territory of current-day Portugal for more than 4 centuries, built forts with high walls and strong towers to defend their populations. The Moors, who invaded the Iberian Peninsula in the year 711, brought new stonework and heavily fortified gates to the peninsula.
There are two main types of castles: those built and preserved by the Muslim Moors from the 8th to the 13th century, and those built and preserved by the Christian Kingdom of Portugal founded in the 12th century.
Portugal in the Middle Ages was a crossroads of cultures, with hostile Moors to the south and rival Iberian kingdoms to the east. Today, Portugal’s more than 150 forts and castles are persisting monuments to the nation’s will to be independent. While larger and mightier countries were absorbed by others, Portugal, with its proud castles and the soldiers who defended them, evolved.
As a place, Portugal has well-defined geographic boundaries, with the Atlantic Ocean to the south and the west, and rivers and mountains to the east and north. It occupies the westernmost portion of the Iberian Peninsula, and is about the size of the American state of Indiana. The country is a place of topographical contrasts as well, which is common on a peninsula. The areas around Porto in the north are hilly and green, with fertile river valleys and a rocky coast. The green mountains turn less fertile as they spread to the east, and become ferociously high as they move south to the Beiras. Along the coastal Beiras, the topography becomes hillier, with pine forests and a sandy coast. The area around the capital of Lisbon is known for its white rocks, olive fields, and open spaces. The great river Tejo separates the nation in half, with the yellow hills and cattle fields of the Lisbon area on the north bank. To the east lie the granite hills of the Beiras. The area south of the river is the vast golden plains known as the Alentejo. Finally, the red cliffs and green hills of the Algarve lie to the south.
Portugal’s castles are unlike their European counterparts. The Portuguese learned the art of fortification from the master builders of the Romans and the Moors. The Romans, who occupied Portugal for more than 400 years, built elegant forts with high walls and strong towers to defend their towns. The Moors, who invaded the Iberian Peninsula in 711 A.D., brought innovative stonework and heavily fortified gates to Portugal. Northern Europe and England still were building wooden forts at this period of the Dark Ages, but Portugal’s early interaction with the enlightened Moors and the young nation’s wars against them moved the art of building castles to its highest point. Of course, the Celtic tribes that the Romans called Lusitanians fortified their villages with stones walls, but they were simple compared with what was to come.
Portugal emerged as a nation from the Kingdom of León in the 12th century. The country’s dynamic young king, Afonso Henriques launched a bold crusade to carve the southwestern half of the Iberian Peninsula away from the Moors. Many of Portugal's earliest castles from this post-1139 A.D. period were reconstructions of Moorish and Roman forts. Their ogival style has certain common themes: High simple granite walls, a dual towered gatehouse, a cistern and pointed castellated walls. But, as the Gothic period replaced the Romanesque, Portuguese castles became more and more flamboyant and deadly with archers’ loops in the castellated walls, oil spouts at the base of parapets, and increasingly higher keeps and towers.
By 1249 the Moors had been expelled from southern Portugal, and the nation became the first in Europe to take on its modern borders. The castle focus now turned from lines along east-west rivers to towns on the long border with rival Castile.
The pinnacles of this period were the 13th century castles built under King Dinis I, who rebuilt almost every major castle in the land. Until Dinis, Portugal’s castles were usually just a three-story keep with one or two rings of walls. Now new towering keeps were built, like the one at Beja or the five-sided keep at Sabugal. Many rings of walls were added, all with staggered gates and hidden escape doors. Wooden garrison buildings were built with more room for provisions and space for soldiers.
The 13th and 14th centuries brought a flamboyant period of castle building, with more decorative touches and features like pepper pots on towers, ornate brickwork and massive great halls built of stone. Many became fortified palaces, but just as castle building reached its zenith, the era came to quick end in 1453 as the Turks brought down the once impregnable walls of Byzantium with cannon fire.
The age of castles was over. But, the age of great forts had just begun. Gone were high walls, proud keeps and strong towers. Now low stonewalls were built around mounds of earth to repulse cannon balls. The straight lines of walls were replaced by star-like angles to allow for cannon and gunfire to be crossed with deadly results against the enemy. These forts became more and more sophisticated in the 16th and 17th centuries. Portuguese engineers built hundreds of impressive forts to defend the empire. Many are still found across South America, Africa, and Asia. The finest examples in Portugal may be found in Almeida, Valença do Minho, Marvão, and Elvas. These gun forts were in use up to the 1830s Civil War, the last war to be fought on Portuguese soil, and some had military uses into the 20th century.
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The Moors, Islamic peoples who had arrived to the Iberian Peninsula from Northern Africa in 711 conquering the Christian lands ruled by the Germanic Kingdoms of the peninsula, built strong castles and fortifications in many cities but, although many Portuguese medieval castles originated in the Islamic period, most of them have been extensively remodelled after the Christian reconquest. One of the best-preserved is Silves Castle, located in Silves, the ancient capital of the Al-Garb, today's Algarve. Built between the 8th and 13th centuries, Silves Castle has preserved its walls and square-shaped towers from the Moorish period, as well as 11th-century cisterns - water reservoirs used in case of a siege. The old Moorish centre of the city - the Almedina - was defended by a wall and several fortified towers and gates, parts of which are still preserved.
Another notable Islamic castle in the Algarve is Paderne Castle, whose ruined walls evidence the taipa building technique used in its construction. The Sintra Moorish Castle, near Lisbon, has also preserved rests of walls and a cistern from Moorish times. Part of the Moorish city walls have been preserved in Lisbon (the so-called Cerca Velha) and Évora. Moorish city gates with a characteristic horseshoe-arched profile can be found in Faro and Elvas.
The troubled times of the Portuguese Reconquista (12th and 13th centuries) meant that many castles had to be built to protect Kingdom of Portugal's villages and towns from Muslim Moors and even from rival Christians like the Castilians. King Afonso Henriques sponsored the building of many fortifications (often remodelling Moorish castles as Lisbon Castle) and granted land to Military Orders - specially the Templar Knights and the Knights Hospitallers - who became responsible for the defence of borders and villages. The Templar Knights built several fortresses along the line of the Tagus river, like the castles of Pombal, Tomar, Belver and Almourol. They are credited as having introduced the keep to Portuguese military architecture.
Most large towns with a castle have well marked routes with yellow or white signs pointing you to the “Castelo.” A rule of thumb is that the castle is always up, that is on a hill or above a town. Look near the oldest portion of a town for the castle. In a village, the castle is usually quite visible. Sometimes, you find a locked gate. Most monuments are closed on Monday, but open the rest of the week. Few charge an entrance fee, and if they do it is usually insignificant. In remote areas the key for the castle may be at a nearby house or café. If you see a sign for “chave” or key, look for a house number. Take care on stairs, walls and in towers. These medieval relics were not built with modern safety concerns, and stone stairs can slope, tower and walls can be rough, and insides of keeps can be very dark. A flashlight and good shoes can be of great comfort. Fortunately, most Portuguese castles are not landscaped or over-restored; they simply exist in a variety of states of ruin, leaving the visitor with a sense of place and history.
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