The Castle of Gormaz (Spanish: Fortaleza de Gormaz or Castillo de Gormaz) is a large castle located in Gormaz, Spain. Its current structure was built in 965 to defend the borders of the Caliphate of Cordoba. At the time of its construction, it was the largest fortress in Europe.
Location
The castle is located 13 kilometers south-east of El Burgo de Osma, at Gormaz, in the province of Soria, in the autonomous community of Castile-Leon, Spain. It is situated north of the Duero river, placed on a hill that rises 100 m above the river level.
Gormaz not only controls a contemporary bridge on the Duero, but it is in an area rich, in all directions, in watch-towers also of the middle of the 8th century AD and with some land-owners' towers such as the one that now serves as the belfry of the church of Bordecorex.
The area is rich in relics from this period, near to Sepúlveda and Segovia to the West, Ágreda to the East, Berlanga de Duero to the Southeast. This is probably one of the oldest standing ensembles of military architecture in Western Europe.
History
The site of the castle, or the surrounding area, was frequently contested between the Muslim-controlled Al-Andalus to the south (ruled by the Umayyad dynasty) and the smaller Christian kingdoms to the north during the 10th century. An existing fortification thus existed here before the current castle. Christian chronicles mention that the site was reconquered by Muslim forces in 925 and 940, indicating that it changed hands multiple times between the forces on either side of the frontier. The current castle was built or rebuilt in 965–66 by Ghalib ibn Abd al-Rahman, a general serving under Caliph al-Hakam II at the time. A foundation stone with an inscription mentioning this date and the caliph's name was also found in the nearby Hermitage of San Miguel de Gormaz (and kept today at the Burgo de Osma Cathedral) and is believed to come from the fortress, further supporting this construction date. According to Roger Collins it was also the largest castle in Europe at the time. The castle was relieved by a force led by general Ghalib in the summer of 975, which then pursued Garcia's retreating forces into Castile.