Ourém Castle aerial view

The Ourém Castle is a Portuguese castle in Ourém, Santarém

The two towers flanking the entrance are located in the front right, with the ruins of the large palace of Count Afonso just behind them. The oldest portions of the castle are located in the back.

A fortification existed in the region of Ourém since at least the period of Muslim domination. The area was reconquered by Christians in 1136, and the town was donated in 1178 by the first king of Portugal, Afonso Henriques, to his third daughter, Princess Theresa. The princess granted it a letter of feudal rights (foral) in 1180, to promote the settlement and development of the village.





Castle of Ourém. The two towers flanking the entrance are located in the front right, with the ruins of the large palace of Count Afonso just behind them. The oldest portions of the castle are located in the back left of the image.
Under the Muslims, the village was apparently called Abdegas, but during the times of the Reconquista (12th century) it was called Portus de Auren, from which the name Ourém was later derived. According to popular myth, the name of the village is actually derived from a Moorish Princess who converted to Christianity under the name of Oureana.

The town's historical nucleus developed around the Castle of Ourém, which during the Reconquista served as watchpost for the Castle of Leiria, an important stronghold located nearby. In the mid-14th century, King Peter I turned Ourém and its lands into a County. The third Count of Ourém was the celebrated Nuno Álvares Pereira, the knight who led the Portuguese army to victory against the Castilians in the Battle of Aljubarrota in 1385.

Under Count Afonso (1402–1460), fourth Count of Ourém, the town flourished. To accommodate his court, Count Afonso remodelled the old-fashioned castle and built a palace inside it following the trends in 15th-century Italian military architecture. The ruins of the palace and castle are the main historical and touristic attraction of the town nowadays. Count Afonso is buried in the crypt of the main church of Ourém in a magnificent Gothic tomb created by one of Portugal's main sculptors of the time, Diogo Pires-o-Velho.

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