During the midst of the Christian reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula, the town and its castle were conquered by troops under the command of the first Portuguese King Afonso I (1112-1185).

The village was returned to Muslim possession and renamed Scheberim when the major offensive of Almohad Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur retook a lot of land and reached the river Tagus in 1191.

Two decades later, with Afonso III (1248-1279) completed the conquest of the Algarve, Alfonso X of the Kingdom of Castile challenged him for jurisdictional control of these areas.

To this end, the Order of Avis made a donation of one third of the incomes of the churches of Moura and Serpa to "remake and grocery alcáceres of the said castles" (1320).

Afonso V (1438-1481) remedied the situation by granting to future residents the exemption privilege for full for twenty years from military or municipal services.

Setting up the War of Restoration, like other places in the border region, also suffered this modernization work, with project in charge of Nicholas Langres architect, but were not completed.

In the mid-twentieth century, the Government of Portugal declared the Serpa walls to be classified a National Monument by a decree published on 30 January 1954.

There is installed the Archaeological Museum Serpa, exposing the evidence recovered in County region, the Paleolithic, Neolithic, of the Metal Age and Roman times.