Castle of the Week

Castle

Welcome to Castle of the Week.

This section will tell you some of the history of famous and less famous castles around the European world and even a few from further afield.
We try to get you images, a location map and possibly overviews, ground plans and pictures of the castle as it stands today as well as providing a history of the castle. In some cases, we have downloadable maps to play as well.

We started this series when the original Stronghold was released and began with the historical castles that are featured in that game. Once these were described we moved on to other castles in Europe and even visited a few crusader castles in the Levant. We have been continuing it with those historical castles from Stronghold 2 that we hadn’t already covered and will keep bringing you new castles from throughout the world regularly

Castle of the Week

Castillo de Bellver, Spain

Jaume I, King of Aragon, reclaimed the Bealeric Isles from Islamic rule in the late 13th Century. When he perished in 1276, he split his kingdom between his two sons Pedro and Jaume. Pedro received the majority of the mainland territories while his brother gained the more secure, but less economically viable islands. Jaume (James II) established sweeping reforms on the Bealeric Isles that encouraged agricultural development and the establishment of trade and textile industries. He joined the rest of Christendom in arresting Templars and seizing their property in 1307. The wealth gained by James II was invested in building projects around the isles, including funding the building of Castillo de Bellver to protect his kingdom’s most important port city, Palma.

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