Montearagón Castle

The castle of Montearagón is located in the town of Quicena and was built during the offensive of the Kingdom of Aragon to conquer the Muslim city of Wasqua (Huesca).A few years later, in 1093, the king founded a canonry there under the rule of Saint Augustine, establishing the Royal Chapel of Aragon, which began to develop from 1096, the date of the conquest of Huesca.Sancho Ramírez and his sons, Pedro I and Alfonso I, provided the Castle-Abbey of Montearagón with large incomes, turning it into a major economic power in the area.In 1571, Philip II decided to create the dioceses of Jaca and Barbastro, which led to the extinction of monastic life in order to provide the bishopric of Huesca with its income. Years later, monastic life would resume, but without recovering the large incomes it had. This, together with the large volume of the building and the poor quality of the sandstone used in its construction, caused a general deterioration that forced a series of actions to be carried out.In 1735, Philip IV intervened in the church, giving it a baroque aesthetic, although the original Romanesque part is identifiable and, to a lesser extent, the Gothic part of the 15th century.In 1843, in view of the imminent sale of the monastery, in the process of confiscation the remains of the Royal Pantheon were moved to the city. The successive private owners plundered the usable material (stone, wood, lime, brick, etc.) for the construction of buildings in Huesca. In 1859, after a fire, the second of those documented throughout history, the owner of the castle returned it to the Crown.In the latter part of the 19th century, the state intervened by repairing the church, following the baroque model and acting inside the enclosure to eliminate the gaps caused by the looting.In 1931 it was declared a National Monument.During the Spanish Civil War it was a front line for months, being bombed on several occasions. After the war, the monastery was abandoned and ruins took over the space.Since the seventies of the last century, its owner, the State, has carried out a series of restoration actions that have allowed it to reopen to the public in 2024.