The passage of time was not the only one responsible for the current situation of the Galician fortresses, in a much worse state than those of the rest of Spain. Not counting San Antón , Vimianzo or Monterrei , among others, the main forts in Galicia are, in general terms, in a situation of improvable maintenance , when they have not disappeared. The main cause dates back to the end of the Middle Ages , when a famous social revolt broke out against the nobility: The Irmandiñas Wars .
A longstanding conflict
Galicia was the scene of one of the biggest European revolts of the 15th century , which is considered one of the first revolutions in the modern world. But the root of the problem lies two centuries earlier, when the dynastic union of the kingdoms of Castile and León formed the Crown of Castile in 1230 , into which the Kingdom of Galicia was definitively integrated . This began to have great weight in the new Crown , mainly due to the rural economic structure that predominated in the territory: the nobility ( Andrade , Moscoso ,Osorio , Sarmiento , Sotomayor or Ulloa , as examples) and the land-owning clergy shared the fortune of the time at the expense of a peasantry decimated by hunger , disease and taxes . Thus, the privileged estates abused the Galician common people for two centuries until their revolutionary uprising .
Two decisive stages
At first, the revolts germinated in Pontedeume and As Mariñas , where Mr. Nuno Freire de Andrade treated his vassals extremely harshly . These first incursions, known as the First Irmandiña revolt , were carried out in 1431 by the Irmandade Fusquenlla , made up of about 3,000 men under the command of the hidalgo Roi Xordo . After five years of unrest, Xordo perished and the brotherhood was defeated.
Later, between 1467 and 1469 , a second and last wave of violence took place , which is historically usually referred to as the Great Irmandiña War . In it, Alfonso Lanzós and Diego de Lemos led a movement in which the researcher Carlos Barros highlighted the possible existence of a shared “righteous and anti-seigneurial mentality” , which openly rejected feudal injustices and considered their lords as “criminals” .
The era of demolition
However, during this brief but intense two-year period, the irmandiños , made up of peasants but also some city people , members of the lower nobility and nobility , and even humble clergymen , caused enormous damage to more than 130 castles scattered throughout Galicia, some of which they came to destroy . However, ecclesiastical properties were hardly attacked.
Given the rise of the revolts in Galicia, a large part of the nobility took refuge in Portugal and in Castile , which led to the entry into action of the legendary feudal lord Pedro Álvarez de Sotomayor , usually nicknamed Pedro Madruga . The gentleman organized a front of feudal troops that, with the sophisticated weapons and the support of the high nobility and clergy that he had, managed to suppress the protests and defeat the irmandiñosin record time. The character of Pedro Madruga himself is the protagonist of the theory about the Galician origin of Christopher Columbus, but we will tell that story in depth another day.
Most of the castles and fortresses in Galicia were left in ruins , paving the way for years later the Catholic Monarchs to easily subdue the Galician nobility that had supported Juana la Beltraneja in the War of Succession. One of the few castles that was rebuilt was that of Castro Caldelas, in the province of Ourense . Pedro Álvarez Osorio, Count of Lemos, whose fortresses at Moeche, Monforte, and Sarria were also destroyed, as well as its walls in As Pontes, ordered his peasants from Castro Caldelas to rebuild it: “You threw it down and you will raise it up.”
The dignity to remember
Despite their fall, the Irmandiños managed to question for the first time a social system that, however, would last another three centuries in Galicia. In the towns of Moeche (Ferrolterra) and Vimianzo (Terra de Soneira) each year a symbolic assault on the castelo is celebrated in memory of these popular insurgent groups , in which the respective castles of both towns prepare to receive the “invasion” of the neighbors , in a fully festive atmosphere .
