From the year 850, the kings of Navarra expanded  to orient, subjecting this extreme of the Channel of Berdún. To control and defend the territory annexed, had to build a castle in this central and strategic position. In effect, between 905-925 it appears like headquarters of royal possession, defending the zone between Yesa and Arrés. Although a lot of authors attribute a Muslim origin (911) to the construction of the castle of Ruesta, treats  of a confusion with the castle of Cercastiello (known like Rueita or Royta), that follows repeating in a lot of publications.
More possible is that the castle went destroyed by Almanzor in the bitter campaign of the 999. Like this, between the years 1016 and 1018, the monarch Sancho III reconstructed the castle of Ruesta. In his will (1035), appears like one of the four main defensive enclaves of Aragon (beside Samitier, Petilla and Loarre), conceded to his successor in the throne navarro. In 1056 the king of Navarra conceded to Ramiro I the city of Ruesta, integrating definitively in the realm of Aragon. It documents  like headquarters of royal possession between the years 1024 and 1190.

Between the 11th-13th centuries, the core of Ruesta projected between the locations of the zone like city-market, endowed with an important Christian community and hebraica devoted to the regional and border trade, as well as with the consequent services and urban equipments. Between them, Ruesta had four churches and two hospitals for pilgrims, founded all by the navarros and Aragoneses monarchs.
This urban character also was put of relief by the collection of taxes on the traffic of commodities and by the presence of a Jewish community. In 1098, they quote  by first time the teloneo de Ruesta and his lezda (mercantile and commercial tolls) that they had to earn to the doors of the city, well by his sale in the market or by his traffic to the new border with Navarra. In 1294 it quotes  El peaje de Ruesta, tax customs heiress of the previous, and that it was substituted in the following century by the tax of General (origin of the General Deputation of Aragon), that earned  in Escó and Tiermas. These costums taxes  that taxed the entrance and exit of products of the realm shaw the commercial importance of this border population, as well as the intimate relation of the route jacobea with the international commercial traffic.
In the same year 1098, appoints  for the first time to the Jewish of Ruesta, that had to project by his commercial activity, since the king earned them a special tribute, called the lezda de los judios. Before 1249, the Hebrew community was concentrated in the neighbourhood of the castle, with the obligation to keep the in good condition fortress, as it occurred in other border populations. In 1294, they appear guarding and administering the castle and the oven, earning his work of the incomes of the same oven, exploded in diet of monopoly. At least from 1381, no longer they exerted his ancient task of Spanish, being substituted by wardens of designation of de lord or de king. In the ones of 1412-1416, follow  documenting like the king taxer, quoting the incomes of the Jewish of Ruesta. The jewish community extinguished  in 1492, following in its footsteps the other of realm, by means of the expulsion or the circumstantial conversion.

The village of Ruesta also had to be victim of the numerous and destructive invasions that, from the border navarra, affected to all the Channel in the 12th-15th centuries. Like this for example, in 1283, during the war of Aragon against Castilla, Navarra and France, orders  the fortification of the castles and villas of Tiermas, Ruesta and Salvatierra, beside the border. The invasion devastated the Channel of Berdún.
In 1381 the king Pedro IV sold to Pedro Jordán of Urriés (lord of Ayerbe and of Sigüés) the castles and places of Ruesta, Artieda, Pintano and Osia. With regard to the castle of Ruesta, the sale was revoked (temporarily) in 1385, commanding the king kept  in the possession of his warden to Martín Escudez, to the one who previously and during his life had conceded it the king. In the royal incomes of 1412-1416, Ruesta goes back to appear like belonging of the real heritage. The warden of the castle was Sancho Escudero, that earned  his wage with the income of the common oven.