Barreira Tower

Barreira Tower stands in the municipality of La Estrada, Spain; it belongs to the medieval Christian landscape of the region. By the twelfth century the site was part of the archbishopric of Santiago de Compostela, incorporated into that lordship during the reign of Alfonso VII. Its position on the road linking Orense and Santiago made it an important place for administering the Tabeirós district and for collecting rents. Archbishops sometimes used the place as a temporary residence, and the archbishopric appointed a merino, an official charged with local administration and fiscal tasks; records show many different merinos over time. Contemporary and later records overwhelmingly describe the place as a fortress, and occasional references call it the house or fortress of the Barreira.

In 1342 the tower was in the hands of Vasco Pérez. On 5 April 1342 King Alfonso XI ordered Vasco Pérez to render homage to Archbishop Martín Fernández de Gres for the Barreira, but Vasco Pérez refused. The archbishop laid siege to the fortress that summer, and correspondence between the archbishop and the king about that siege is documented. After these events the property passed into archiepiscopal control.

In 1379 Count Pedro Enríquez seized the tower and undertook a complete rebuilding. This seizure led to legal conflict with Archbishop Juan García Manrique. A Torrijos sentence dated 17 March 1384 ordered the count to return the properties and to pay costs. Arbitration at Medina del Campo on 10 December 1388 found that the count had no legal right to Tabeirós or the tower and required him to restore them, while awarding him monetary compensation.

Legal activity around the site continued into the late fourteenth century, including powers of attorney dated 24 October 1398. By his will of 29 April 1400 Count Pedro Enríquez ceded the fortress and its lands of the Barreira to Archbishop Lope de Mendoza, subject to repayment of a debt owed to the count. In 1420 Archbishop Lope de Mendoza entrusted the tower to Duke Fadrique Enríquez de Castilla as a charged holding. The fortress suffered destruction during the Irmandiña Revolt; it was rebuilt thereafter, but it survives today only in a ruinous state.