Castell de Balsareny

Castell de Balsareny stands above the town of Balsareny, Spain, and was established by early medieval Catalan authorities during the repopulation led by Wifred the Hair.

After the rebellion of Aissó in 826–827 left the Bages region emptied, Wifred the Hair drove a programme of resettlement between 877 and 883 that included building churches, monasteries and fortifications along the Llobregat corridor, from Balsareny to Manresa. Documentary evidence for the locality appears in the tenth century, with a 951 diploma confirming goods linked to the abbey of Santa Cecilia de Montserrat and a papal bull addressing the territory under the Latin name Balzaraniensi. The first document to name the castle itself is dated 966, with subsequent mentions in 967, 977, 987 and a papal bull of 990.

A family taking the place name established itself at the site in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Records name a vicarius Guifred of Balsareny, his son Guillermo who succeeded Abbot Oliba as bishop of Vic, and a granddaughter Guisla who married Count Berenguer Ramón I. From the late eleventh century and through the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the castle came under the control of the lords of Manresa. Later it passed to Wifred Guitart, and in 1102 ownership is recorded with his son Bernat Ramon and with Pere Bernat de Manresa.

In 1281 Ramon de Peguera acquired the fortress from Mateu de Balsareny. His great‑grandson, bearing the same name and who died in 1388, served as counsellor to Peter III the Ceremonious and as steward to Queen Eleanor of Sicily, and undertook a major rebuilding that gave the castle the form described in later accounts. Royal connections continued: King Peter III authorised in 1339 the construction of a canal beginning beneath the castle, and in 1392 the king’s son spent three days there when Andreu de Peguera owned the property. King John I also stayed at the castle and praised the quality of the wines presented to him.

The Peguera family remained associated with the site until 1497. In the sixteenth century the Oliver family held the estate and kept it into the early seventeenth century, a time when rising banditry in the area led the building to be used as a refuge by outlaws. Later ownership passed briefly to Corbera‑Santcliment, then to the De Martín family at the end of the nineteenth century, and by marriage into the houses of the marqueses de Alós and De Martín. The marqueses de Alós maintained residence at the castle until 1976.