Castle of Moreira de Rei

The Castle of Moreira de Rei, in the municipality of Trancoso, Portugal, occupies a site first used by pre-Roman hillfort communities and later reworked by the Romans.

The place appears in a written will of 960 under the name Moraria, and the property passed into the hands of the Convent of Guimarães in the years that followed. In 997 the stronghold was captured by the general Almançor and remained under the caliphate until forces of Ferdinand I of León reconquered it in 1055. Archaeological traces of interior foundations assign the earliest surviving structural phases to the twelfth century, a period of renewed building at the site.

A royal charter was granted by King Afonso Henriques, and the territory was held by Fernão Mendes of Bragança until his death, when it returned to the Crown. King Afonso II confirmed a charter in 1217. In 1247 the castle served as a staging point for King Sancho II immediately before his exile to Toledo. The castle did not undergo the Gothic refurbishments carried out in the mid-thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries and thereafter endured a lengthy phase of abandonment.

Population records show fluctuations around the stronghold: the Rol dos Besteiros of 1422 records 1,065 inhabitants, the 1496 Inquirição lists roughly 202 residents, and the 1527 Numeramento records 428 people. A new charter issued in 1512 preceded transfer of control to the Fonseca Coutinho family and, later, to the Marquess of Castelo Rodrigo. By 1853 the historian Alexandre Herculano described the structure in a state of advanced ruin and reported that the courtyard had been used as a source of building stone. Between 1920 and 1930 Father Júlio César Gomes campaigned against further removal of masonry for local construction; by that time two cisterns still remained visible. The ruins were designated a Monumento Nacional in 1932. In 1942 the Direcção Geral dos Edifícios e Monumentos Nacionais began restoration work to consolidate walls and corners, followed by further rebuilding, reinforcement, excavation and leveling undertaken in 1943 and 1945.