Miravet Castle

The castle was founded by the Moors in the XI century, in the era of their domination on the Iberian Peninsula, becoming one of their strongest fortresses in the south of modern Catalonia. After the Christians conquered these territories during the Reconquista in 1154, the fortress was transferred to Ramon Beringer under the control of the Templars, becoming the starting point for expanding their influence in these lands. In December 1308, after a long siege, the Templars surrendered the castle to the troops of King James II, after which he was in the possession of the Order of Hospitallers until 1385, after which he became royal property. The castle was badly damaged during the Segador rebellion . In 1643 he managed to defend him from the royal Spanish troops, but after seven years he was nevertheless taken by them. In 1707, the fortress fell into the hands of supporters of King Philip V. During the so-called Carlist Wars, Miravet was alternately in the hands of liberals and supporters of absolutism, while in the Third Carlist War he was at first one of the main strongholds of the Carlists in the region, but in 1875 the liberals regained control of him. In 1935, the castle became a private possession, but soon became the scene of battles during the Civil War in Spain 1936-1939. In April 1938, he was occupied by supporters of Francisco Franco , during the battle of the Ebro River on July 25, 1938 passed into the hands of the Republicans, finally taken by the Francoists in November 1938.

In 1994, major reconstruction works were carried out in the castle. In 1995, it was declared an “Object of Cultural Property” (Cat. Bé d'Interès Cultural ).

Walls

Miravet Castle is located on a cliff protected by a river and has walls reaching 25 m in height. Where the parking lot is now located, a moat was dug in the rock to strengthen the castle's defenses. The moat prevented the enemy from making a deep digging and getting to the bottom of the walls, which the enemy miners could in this case damage or destroy by detonation.

Externally, the building is executed in a uniform manner, which indicates the rapid timing of its construction. Some sections of the external walls of this Templar building have been preserved from the fortress of the times of Al-Andaluz . The walls were built by the Templars of rectangular blocks of white stone, amenable to processing, in the form of very dense rows. Due to their defensive purpose, the walls had practically no openings.

In the upper part of the western wall, next to the tower in the center, are the remains of a mounted loophole ( mashikuli ), a cantilever stone structure that began at the bottom of the wall. In the event of an assault on the castle, the defenders could throw certain throwing shells directly at the heads of enemies trying to attack at the base of the wall.

Entry System

This was the weakest point in the defense of the castle; To enhance its protection, several architectural structures were erected, including a tower and a barbican . The entrances border on sections of the walls of a sinuous shape that interfered with the frontal attack and forced the attackers to be within reach of the retaliatory attack of the tower defenders.

The entrance to the castle dates back to the 17th century. They are built of smaller stone blocks and are not very densely stacked, which differs from the large blocks used for the construction by the Templars - for example, for the construction of a nearby tower (XIII century). The Barbican expanded the defensive capabilities of the walls, protecting the entrances and the completion of the section of the road leading to the castle. Its function was to prevent a long-range attack on the gate. If the attackers reached the barbican, they were trapped between the walls and fell under the fire that the defenders of the castle fought from the towers.

The north wall had five defensive towers that were located at such a distance from each other so that the defenders of the castle had the widest possible coverage of the area for long-range attacks, without “dead angles”, in order to be able to protect the entrances. The walls were reconstructed in the XVII-XVIII centuries in order to adapt the old medieval fortifications to modern (at that time) methods of warfare. The construction work carried out during the reconstruction, which combines masonry with formwork and tapia (an old way of erecting walls using clay rolled from the ground), is in sharp contrast with the Templar building techniques of the XIII century, an example of which is the “Treasure Tower”, erected from hewn stone piled in tight rows and well crafted. Despite its less durable appearance, the north wall has a considerable thickness - sufficient to withstand the attack by artillery shells.

Treasure Tower

The tower, subsequently rebuilt several times, was erected by the Templars on the old wall of the Al-Andaluz period (that is, the reign of the Moors before the conquest of this territory during the Reconquista) in order to strengthen the defense of the northern side of the castle. Its advanced position allows, through control over this tower, to control the entrances to the castle located at its base.

Its unusual name comes from the fact that the Templars kept correspondent documents of their order relating to cases in the regions of Catalonia and Aragon. When in the 13th century they decided to choose a place to store all these documents, the choice of the Templars for creating such a storehouse fell on Miravet. However, in addition to documents, other values ​​were also received there. When the Templars surrendered (after the siege) the castle to the royal authorities in 1308, 650 gold florins, 5,463 silver tornesos, 2,487 Jacques sou and 663 Barcelona sou, and other valuables were discovered here.

Walled Lower Courtyard Buildings

The courtyard space of the castle was intended to accommodate the various buildings necessary to maintain its existence. On a territory of 12,000 m² there were warehouses, stables, poultry houses, workshops, a water tank and even gardens. Most of these objects did not leave any material traces by which it would be possible to clearly determine their location in the castle, but their existence is known thanks to descriptions from the documents.

The perimeter of the economic part of the castle coincided with the albacar - a walled section built in the Andalusian (Moorish) period in order to protect the castle's population in case of danger. Proceeding from this, the general structure of the fortress did not change much over the centuries, despite the fact that it nevertheless underwent reconstruction in order to adapt it to the military needs of a particular era.

Each of the walls that protected this space was intended to protect this territory in various ways. The north wall had four towers guarding the entrances; the eastern wall had special narrow embrasures , allowing artillery fire from a safe position; the southern wall, the least reliable, was reinforced by natural protection, which was provided by a rock near the river. Conceived as the first level of defense, the lower territory of the castle was surrounded on the perimeter by walls partially related to those surrounding the upper part of the castle, whose own base was, therefore, a continuation of these walls and created the concept of a single fortress.

Stables

This building, located at the bottom of the castle, has been used throughout its history as a defensive structure. It was built during the period of control of the Templar castle, which can be judged by the preserved masonry and decorative decoration in the lower parament (a vertical structural element of the fortress walls), but it is not known for what purpose it was used then. In the period from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries, the building was already used as a stable, although other animals could be kept there, since in some documents it is referred to as a barn. To perform this function, the slope level of the ramp leading into it was changed. Subsequently, the floor of the building was leveled to the level of the door, leaving the animal feeders below this level. The building was covered with a cylindrical vault, now partially collapsed. To top it all, if you believe the documents, the second floor was built on, performing the function of a barn.

Lower Terraces

Initially, this space consisted of terraces, stepwise located on the slope of the cliff, but in the 16th century a layer of earth was poured here in order to level the surface to one level, which was associated with the construction of a new protective wall at that time. Despite the fact that today this territory is not built up by anything, earlier there were small buildings reserved for warehouses and poultry houses. Documents also report the presence of gardens here to meet the needs of the inhabitants of the castle, where they were allegedly involved in the cultivation of olive trees and sericulture. From time to time, this territory was also used as a cemetery.

Over time, the castle adapted to modernity in connection with a change in the means and methods of warfare. As a result of this, for example, in the XVIII century, embrasures were arranged in the eastern walls. Through these openings, castle gunners fired from light guns, being relatively safe from the possibility of enemy shells entering them. In their inner part, the embrasures were wider to provide a larger viewing angle for the castle's defenders.

Medieval Walls

A line of walls extends through the mountains beyond the lower terraces. Unlike the rest of the fortress, walls are thinner in this section. This is part of the medieval wall, which has not been rebuilt since then, which is why it has been preserved in its original form. The purpose of the fortress walls was to prevent attacks on the castle, which was ensured by their rather substantial height. Archers could defend the castle, located in the upper part of the wall, protected by battlements , crowning the upper part of the wall and giving it the appearance typical of medieval walls. Narrow paths in the upper part of the wall allowed only one person to move along it.

• Artur Bladé i Desumvila, El castell de Miravet , Barcelona, ​​Rafael Dalmau, 1966.
• Pere Català i Roca i Miquel Brasó Vaqués, Castell de Miravet, a Els castells catalans , Barcelona, ​​Rafael Dalmau, 1967-1979, vol. 4, pp. 479-494.
• Joan Fuguet i Sans, [1] "De Miravet (1153) a Peníscola (1294): novedad y persistencia de un modelo de fortaleza templaria en la província catalano-aragonesa de la orden", a Acri 1291: la fine della presenza degli ordini militari in Terra Santa ei nuovi orientamenti nel XIV secolo (Perugia, 1996) , Perugia, Quattroemme, 1996, pp. 44-67.
• Joan Fuguet i Sans, “Els castells templers de Gardeny i Miravet i el seu paper innovador en la poliorcètica i l'arquitectura catalanes del segle XII” , Acta historica et archaelogica mediaevalia , 13 (1992), 354–374.
• Maribel Cedó Rovira, Francisco José Lorente Regordosa i Enrique Vijande Majem, Proyecto de rehabilitación del castillo de Miravet con objeto de instalar un museo ,, treball de fi de carrera de l'Escola Universitària Politècnica de Barcelona (UPC. 1994 per Jesús Gandullo i Benito Vila].
• Pere Lluís Artigues i Conesa, "El castell de Miravet: darreres actuacions", Tribuna d'Arqueologia , 1995-1996 [= 1997], 39-60.
• Pere Lluís Artigues i Conesa, “Miravet”, a Catalunya romànica , vol. 26, Barcelona, ​​Enciclopèdia Catalana, 1997, pp. 190-197.

• An article in the Great Catalan Encyclopedia (Catalan.)