Castle
The construction of the castle originally dates from the Muslim occupation of the Alentejo, a situation under which it remained until 1158, when D. Afonso Henriques – aided by the Knights Templar – conquered it and delivered it to the militia of Christ.
In 1190, the Almohad caliph Al-Mansur seized the Christian castle, a situation that was only reversed in 1217 when D. Afonso II reconquered it and delivered it to the knights of the Order of Santiago, it whom it had already been donated (1186).
Between 1310 and 1336, the village and the castle were held by the Byzantine princess Dona Vataça Lascaris, pursuant to an exchange made between her and the master of the order, a circumstance that resulted in the exchange of the commendation that the princess held in Vila-lar (Castile) with the areas of this village. However, after her death in 1336, the castle and village once again fell under the tutelage of the master of the Order of Santiago.
In the revolution of 1383-85, many castles beyond the Tagus River were occupied by the armies of the King of Castile in an offensive that was thwarted by the troops of D. Nuno Álvares Pereira, who soon drove them out of the Alentejo and recovered the parade squares that had fallen into his possession. Among them was the castle of Santiago do Cacém.
From the early sixteenth century, the castle began to lose the old defensive function it had been endowed with, which accelerated its deterioration. In 1605 it was no longer inhabited, which resulted in further degradation and led to it being in an advanced state of disrepair by 1700. Thus, in 1838, the City Council chose to use its interior as the site of the municipal cemetery.
The current castle has the shape of a parallelogram surrounded by nine towers and turrets – the tenth was destroyed in 1796, when the mother church was built – its interior being accessible via the only subsisting door, where an emblazoned arrangement bearing the cross of the flag or standard of the Order of Santiago, the cross resembling a sword and a knight’s shield with the five corners of the kingdom can be seen. The interior of the castle is dominated by the ruins of the old commander’s residence or palace, a structure originating in the thirteenth/fourteenth centuries and remodelled in the fifteenth/sixteenth centuries – a space where a medieval grain granary is also hidden.
From the 1930s the castle underwent major restoration carried out by the National Monument Services Directorate. These gave it its current layout.
It has been classified as a National Monument since 1910.
