Peniscola Castle
cultural property in Peniscola, Spain
Peniscola Castle (Spanish: Castillo de Peñíscola; Valencian: Castell de Peníscola) is a castle in Peniscola, Castellón, Valencian Community, Spain. The castle is restored and is open to the public.
The castle is situated on a crag overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, at an altitude of 64 metres (210 ft) above mean sea level.
History
The earliest evidence of habitation in the area were Ibero-Roman remains excavated in the port of Peniscola; they date to the 1st–2nd centuries BC. Arab writer Al-Idrisi described Baniskula in the 11th century AD, and briefly described a Moorish castle overlooking the sea. There are no detailed descriptions until the 13th century, when James I of Aragon briefly summarised the Muslim defences. The castle was transferred to James's control in April 1229, after the last Almohad governor of Valencia, Zayd Abu Zayd, signed an accord surrendering various castles in eastern Spain.
The current form of the castle is essentially that developed by the Knights Templar, who planned to develop a kingdom centered on Peniscola. James II of Aragon gave the castle to the Templars in 1294, together with the nearby castles of Pulpís and Xivert. The Templars began work that year, demolished the Muslim fortifications, and completely rebuilt the castle; the work was completed in 1307. In common with other Templar fortifications, the castle was laid out around an inner ward and possessed a chapel.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2970221. Authority coordinates are 40.359, 0.408. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1229, 1294 and 1307.
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This entry incorporates text from “Peniscola Castle” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.