Castle of Noudar, in Barrancos

Castle of Noudar, Alentejo, located in the old village of the same name, parish and county of Barrancos, Beja District, Portugal.

Sentinel streak with Spain, stands isolated in a steep rise dominating the surrounding plains and the creek Múrtega and Ardila, on the left bank of the Guadiana river.

Witnessed, along with the castles of Alandroal, Moura, Serpa and Veiros, the action of the Order of Avis in the region.

At the time of the Christian Reconquest of the Iberian peninsula, especially since 1167, the region was conquered by the forces commanded by Gonçalo Mendes da Maia, “the Lidador”. Later, in 1253, the town received a charter of King Alfonso X of Castile, along with other localities of the left bank of the river Guadiana, including Moura and Serpa, integrating the dowry of his daughter, Brites, when her marriage to D. Afonso III that year.

The town definitely pass to the Portuguese Crown under the Treaty of the Guarda (1295), which established peace between Dinis (1279-1325) and Ferdinand IV of Castile. In December of that year, the sovereign passed new a charter to the village, whose domains were later donated in 1303, the Order of Avis, provided to rebuild the castle, works would be completed in 1308, as two epigraphic inscriptions:

The first, dated April 1, 1308, currently uncertain whereabouts, notes the work of the Master of Avis, D. Lourenço Afonso, the castle foundation and the settlement of the village;
The second, with many doubts if it has been written that year, reports the action of Commander Afonso Aires in the building of the keep.
At the time of King Manuel I (1495-1521), is figured by Duarte de Armas (Book of Fortresses, c. 1509), which records the existence of weep holes surrounding the castle, ie, a characteristic architectural structure military fifteenth century. The village would receive the sovereign, in the same period, its Foral New (1513).

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