Monastery of Santa Maria de Lillet

Address: outskirts of La Pobla de Lillet

Monastery of great importance to Alt Berguedà region. The church, in Romanesque style and Latin cross plan, has undergone many reformations, the most important one took place in the 18th century. Its square cloister stands out, a typical example of a rustic cloister, built some time after the church.

The old monastery is located about two kilometres from La Pobla de Lillet in a privileged setting at the base of a mountain, surrounded by fields and meadows. Next to it there is a farmhouse and at walking distance you will find the Romanesque chapel of Sant Miquel de Lillet.

On 17^th April 819 the Monastery is mentioned in the Montclús farmhouse deed of sale.

The original church was consecrated in 833, devoted to Santa Maria, Sant Pere and Sant Joan de Lillet Castle. Shortly before 1086, a small canonical community consisting of one prior and five augustinian canons established here. The parish activity was very intense for the next two centuries, until 1356, when a new church was built in the neighbouring village of La Pobla. At that time Santa Maria lost part of its parishioners and ecclesiastical domains. Despite this, the canonical carried out an  important activity until its secularization in 1592. After that process remained a community of beneficiaries under the provost’s authority, a position that will last until 19^th century ( as well as the parish).

The complex ruins of the monastery reveal its long history. The church was built mostly in the 11^th century and it is formed by a single nave with a wide transept. The chancel, built later, has a central apse and an apsidiole at the south. During the 14^th  century a gothic doorway was built in the northern transept to replace the primitive one on the western wall. The continuous reforms will last until the 18^th century and will completely transform the church’s appearance: opening of lateral chapels on the thick nave walls, classicist decoration of adjoining columns and toral arches, arrangement of a chorus at the bottom of the church, construction of new roofs and a dome.

The community lived on the premises placed at the south side of the church, organised around a little cloister with four arches on each side and supported by solid square pillars.

There are a lot of remains of the complex,  walls perforated by doors and windows at different heights, not always coinciding as product of the different stages  of construction and the use of spaces. In this area we can find from the very oldest parts of the monastery, with opus spicatum walls (9^th-11^th century), to the last changes carried out in the 19^th century.

This monastery is a museum from different periods: Pre-Romanesque (apsidiole remains), Lombard Romanesque (central nave, 11^th-12^th century), Gothic (northern transept and doorway, 1397), Classic-Baroque (travertine columns, capitals and plaster cornices, 16^th-17^th century).

In 1816 there is still news of the community existence, composed by a provost, two vicars and five benefitted.

In 1889 the rector was forced to move to La Pobla.

Nowadays, a mass is celebrated here in Sant Isidre day, with the blessing of small breads which are distributed to all the attendees after.

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