Castle of Gouveia

Parish of São Julião

Castle of Gouveia
District Guarda
Council Gouveia
Parish São Julião
Area 7,92 km²
Inhabitants 1 622 (2011)
Density 204,8 hab./km²
Gentilic Gouveense
Construction ( )
Reign ( )
Style ( )
Conservation ( )

A popular, unlikely belief; suggests that the city of Gouveia would have been populated by the Turduli in the 6th century BC. However, the oldest remains in the city date back to the Largo do Castelo, where in the 1940s 3 funerary pots were found, dated at the time, to the Bronze Age, with traces of incineration and remains of human bones.

In addition, the old Gauvé is located in the center of the country, in a region proven to be part of of the Lusitanians, a Celtic tribe that is much more natural as having given rise to Gouveia.

From the Roman period, a votive altar consecrated to the Lusitanian God Salqiu and a grave of a Roman warrior, holding several metal artifacts (axe, knife and arrowhead) next to the old primary school of S. Pedro.

The Roman roads that exist both in the upper municipality, namely in Folgosinho (Galhardos and Cantarinhos), as in the lower municipality, in this case, in Vila Nova de Tazem (section of Teixugueira-Parigueira) are proof of the regional experience and dynamics in the Roman era, in the region, without, however, having found proof of the legal-administrative status, knowing only that it was integrated into the province of Lusitania.

During the occupation by the Germanic and Muslim peoples, nothing is known of the high medieval Gaudella; only that Ferdinand the Great conquered it by capitulation to the Muslims in 1055, with the first reference to Gouveia Castle to appear in a Papal document Innocent II, of 1135.

The medieval castleseta_baixoseta_cima

Brasão de Gouveia

In the Bull Officii Nostrii of Pope Innocent II, the oldest documentary reference to Gouveia, together with its castle, seen the Castrum Gaudella described is considered to be the direct reference to your castle.

Currently missing, there was actually a defensive fortress, as there are documentary records from the Modern Era that prove this, such as the letter that D.Pedro II sent to Gouveia chamber when Catherine of Braganza leaves for England, for her wedding with Charles II of England, asking that Gouveia Castle be cleaned and illuminated for his stay in that location.


It would have been destroyed around March 21, 1811, when the troops withdrew. of General Massena, at the end of the 3rd French invasion during the Peninsular War, when these they pass through Gouveia, as we know that they destroyed the Church of S. Julião with the flag of Gouveia, which at the time belonged to the family of the former Marquis of Gouveia, close to Largo do Castelo. Few years later the lease of the castle lands was made with a view to installing the Venetian Balloon Factory: Saraiva & Irmão, Gouveia, a building that still dominates the terrace of Largo do Castelo.

General João de Almeida in his work Itinerary of Portuguese Military Monuments places here a castro Lusitano, based on the excellent topographical position of the place, dominating a large part of the valley of Mondego and its location halfway up the hill.


Currently, the Bairro do Castelo is the historic area of the city, maintaining some of the medieval urban features, as well as part of the medieval Jewish quarter.

Events of the time

803 - Break between Charlemagne as Emperor of the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire.

805 - The emperor of Byzantium Nikephoros I of Constantinople suffers a heavy defeat in battle against the Saracens at Crasus.

811 - Battle of Virbitza between the Bulgarian Kroum Clan and the Byzantine Empire.

812 - Peace treaty between Emperor Charlemagne and the Empire.

814 - End of the Reign of Charlemagne.

822 - Abd al-Rahman II is appointed Caliph of Córdoba (822 to 852).

824- Louis I the Pious imposes his authority on the Papal States.

 - Battle between Abd-El-Raman III Caliph of Córdoba and Count Hermenegildo in Rio Tinto (Gondomar)