The municipality of A Pobra do Brollón has demonstrations of settlements since the third millennium BC. Megalithic tombs can be found in Vilachá, Salcedo, Parada dos Montes, Ferreiros, Castrosante, Castroncelos, Canedo, Óutara.
Things Romans mining began in A Pobra do Brollón. The special climatic and soil conditions, together with the mining wealth of the municipality, especially gold, filled it with castros its territory, with 15 currently listed. Of these Galician-Roman castros (newly built), a few were dedicated to agriculture, and most were used to house the personnel who worked in the gold mines. In some castros, closest to the mines, the miners lived; in others, those in charge of repairing the dams and boilers that brought water to the farms; in others, the soldiers, administrators, smelters,... and the artisans who repaired and built the necessary tools. Witnesses to the importance of the gold mining wealth are scattered throughout the municipality. Examples of this wealth are the mine exploited by the comb system of the Fears the ruin of Montium da Mud.
The presence of the Goths (Suevis) is referenced by the existence of a few toponyms, such as those of Esmoriz, Tudriz, Domiz, Recemunde, Guariz; all of them near Gallic-Roman forts.
From the 9th century onwards, in the donation documents and forums of the monasteries of Samos, San Vicente do Pino, Ferreira de Pantón, Meira, Oseira, Montederramo, Celanova,... churches and places of worship begin to be mentioned. Lands of Brollón.
Places like Salcedo, Cereixa, Barxa do Lor, Brollón, Ferreiros, Ferreirúa, Lamaigrexa, Domiz, Saa, Castrosante, Liñares, Martul, Canedo… already appear in these documents, which suggests that they were populated long before, possibly since the repopulations of Bishop Odoario and his family (8th century). There were two very short-lived monasteries: one in Vilachá and the other in Ferreiros. The people dedicated themselves to the cultivation of rye, vineyards and horticulture. They raised sheep, goats, pigs and rabbits.
From the end of the 13th century, alongside the previous places, a new one begins to appear in documents, Puebla do Brollón or Puebla de San Pedro. It seems that it was the King of Castile, Sancho IV, who granted the founding document (on an old mining fort) of the place, the town charter; and that his heir, Fernando IV, ratified it. This document contained the distribution of lands, duties and rights that were granted to the settlers of A Pobra do Brollón and its twelve villages; and a very important right, such as that of being directly dependent on the king himself. The repopulation promoted by the aforementioned town charter was a demographic and economic success, as demonstrated by the annual rents that they had to pay. From then on, A Pobra do Brollón appears in documentation and maps. Its strategic location in the forced passage of people and goods, who wanted to enter or leave Galicia through the natural path of the Sil river valley, must not have been unrelated to this economic development. The presence of the Hospitaller and Santiago orders in the Lands of Brollón confirms this.
On July 30, 1477, King Ferdinand the Catholic, in a document dated in Medina del Campo, it is given to Don Pedro Álvarez de Osorio (first Count of Lemos), all the rights and rents (amounting to more than 20,000 maravedíes) that the crown had in A Pobra do Brollón. Thus ended the quarrels that the nobility had been having for the possession of the Lands of Brollón, and which had begun on August 23, 1424, when Don Fadrique, Lord of Monforte, annexed A Pobra to Monforte, along with its twelve villages.
Being a people of men dependent on the king or his administrators, a people of men free from the jurisdiction of nobles and the church, a people of free men defenders of their rights, motivated the participation of Maria Castaña, from the Coto de Cereixa, in the uprisings of the people of Lugo against the abuses of the bishop of the city (14th century). After a few years, the entire town of A Pobra do Brollón protested against the abuses and payments of royal rents to the Count of Lemos, in what is known as revolt of the Guimarães, a fact that popular tradition has preserved to this day.
From the 15th century, despite the administrative reforms promoted by the Catholic Monarchs and their descendants as sovereigns of the entire State, the Lands of Brollón continued to be linked to the House of Lemos, until the administrative reforms of the 19th century. Its economy was centered on agriculture (rye and wine), livestock and exploitation of iron mines, mainly Cova das Choias and A Veneira de Roques, (which had 37 miners) who sought ore from all the surrounding blacksmiths, including the three in the district: Biduedo Blacksmith, Barxa do Lor Blacksmith and Loureiro Blacksmith.
The arrival of corn and potatoes at the end of the 18th century contributed to a very significant population growth, which forced the exploitation of previously wasteland and the construction of new towns. At the end of the 19th century, the vineyards suffered from the phylloxera plague, which forced their cultivation to be abandoned until the mid-20th century.
