which was the trophy for winning the title of Portugal's Most Portuguese Village in 1938. It was the main town of the
concelho between 1174 and the beginning of the 19th century, and the county seat in the period of 1758-1853. The mountain Monsanto () rises abruptly to the East of the Idanha-a-Nova up to 758 meters above sea level. The earliest traces of human activity are from the
Early Stone Age, dating back to the ice ages. Later,
Romans settled at the base of the mountain. Traces from
Visigothic in the early Middle Ages and even earlier
Arab presence have been found in the area. In the 12th century, King
Afonso I of Portugal conquered Monsanto from the
Moors as part of the Christian
Reconquista. In 1165, he granted the custody of the city to a knights' order of the church, first to the Order of the
Knights Templar, and later to the
Order of Santiago. The city was given to the military orders to maintain the reconquered city within Christian hands. The
Grand Master of the Order of the
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. Unfortunately, the medieval castle was destroyed in the nineteenth century because of an explosion in the ammunition depot of the castle. Monsanto would become popularly known as "the most Portuguese village of Portugal" due to a government-sponsored competition that awarded Monsanto this distinction in 1938. The title was awarded by the Portuguese Secretariat for Propaganda under the
Estado Novo regime. A symbol of Portugal, the
Silver Rooster (Galo de Prata), designed by Abel Pereira da Silva, was the coveted trophy in this competition and can be seen atop the Clock Tower or Lucano Tower of Monsanto. In 2013, the parish evolved into the new parish
Monsanto e Idanha-a-Velha. ==Geography==