Monsanto Portugal II

The earliest traces of man is from Early Stone Age at the time of the ice-ages. Later, Romans settled at the base of the mountain. Also traces from Visigoth in the early Middle Ages and even earlier Arab presence has been found in the area.

In the 12th century, King Afonso Henriques conquered Monsanto from the Moors as part of the Christian recapturing the Iberian Peninsula. In 1165, he granted the custody of the city to a knights' order of the church, first to the Order of Knights Templar, and later to the Order of Santiago. The city was given to the military orders to maintain the reconquested city on Christian hands, and Grand Master the Order of Knights Templar, Gualdim Pais, was manager of the building of the fortress. Later, King Sancho I of Portugal reconstructed and repopulated it after the wars with the Leonese (see Kingdom of León). Unfortunately, the medieval castle was destroyed in the nineteenth century because of an explosion in the ammunition depot of the castle.