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The Castle of Manqueospese or Aunqueospese (Manqueospese is an Spanish Archaism) is a castle located in the municipality of Mironcillo (Avila), in the Abellesse Valley of Amblés, rising to 1362 meters
It is built on an impressive granite promontory, and partly supported by it, especially in its southern part, which gives it a spectacular and visible aspect for several kilometers around. It belongs therefore to the Castellanos rockers group.
In this castle the ashlar, the sillarejo and the masonry are combined, distributed alternatively in the two enclosures that make it up. The first defensive enclosure is a barbican that is crossed by an ogee door crowned by the shield of the Dávila family under alfiz, embraced by two powerful cubes, through which we access the inner enclosure, of greater height -the strength itself-, in the distinguished weapons yard, stables, keep, a wing that contained living rooms and kitchens. They emphasize their embrasures of inverted keyhole, the embrasures and the turrets hanging from the canvas on stepped corbels.
The primitive Castle was built in a time of confrontations by a group of Knights who had been previously expelled from Avila. From this here they organized frequent rallies against nearby Muslim territories. These raids are so violent that the Muslims organize an expedition of punishment against the castle, attacking it and putting to the knife all the defenders they find inside.
The castle itself that we know today was built in the 1470s and 1480s by Pedro Dávila, when the Catholic Monarchs consolidated their power in Castile gave him the title of Count del Risco. Of the house of the Dávila it happens by marriage to the one of Medinaceli.
In the twentieth century it became the common good of the town of Sotalvo, which then exchanged it with the neighbor Mironcillo for pastures. In 1931 it was declared a Historic Artistic Monument. Subsequently it is declared as an Asset of Cultural Interest. In 1975 it is bought by a private person for 1,200,000 pesetas and starts restoration work. It gives the castle wooden floors to later lift some partitions with cement vaults and put uralitas on the roofs, which is declared illegal by the Board that paralyzes the works to this day.
Still its walls make faces to the elements and bring us the echo of the glories and miseries that inside it were worked, the legends that the grandmothers know, the impossible love of Álvar Dávila and Guiomar de Zúñiga, loves of a time maybe Real, maybe dreamed. The legend of Malqueospese
