Bufalaranya Castle Verified listing

It is thought that the castle called "Panna Nigra", located on the grounds of the Sant Pere de Rodes monastery, referred to the Castle of Bufalaranya. The area’s residents still call the hill the castle sits on “Monegra”. This name has been documented on several occasions and appears to come from the significant donation that Gausfred I d'Empúries-Rosselló made to the monastery in 974, to the papal confirmations of 974 and 990, and to the ratifying precept of the Frankish King Lothair in 982. The name Bufalaranya could be a bastardisation of the original Brufaganyes, a name documented in a parchment from 1361. It was not until 1798-1802 that the name "Mas Isern del Castell de Bufalaranya" was registered. It is clearly a late medieval building, although it believed that first construction stage happened earlier, from the 8th to 9th centuries.