The castle where Queen Sibila de Fortià lived

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The castle of Sant Martí Sarroca, also called castillo de los Santmartí, is from the 10th century. The protagonist today in Las Fotos de los Lectores de La Vanguardia, it is located at the top of the hill of the Roca, in the municipality of Sant Martí Sarroca , in the Alt Penedès.

Together with the church of Santa Maria they form the so-called Monumental Complex of the Rock. Both buildings are listed as historical-artistic monuments of national interest and are part of the municipal museum.

From the Late Middle Ages until the 19th century, a population center was consolidated around the castle, originating from the current town of Sant Martí Sarroca, which was damaged during the first Carlist war.

In this period, simultaneously, the development of the population center of new houses began, down on the plain, the head of the municipality and main population center of Sant Martí. The streets of Casetes and Cases Noves evoke this expansion of the population outside the walled nucleus.

The historical origins of the term center on the old castle of Sant Martí Sarroca, in whose surroundings and its church the current town was formed. The term of Sant Martí is mentioned for the first time in the year 984.

It was possibly conquered from the Muslims by Galí de Santmartí, who was appointed governor of the borders of Penedès and vicar of the castle of Sant Martí Sarroca.

Galí, the initiator of the lineage of the powerful family named Santmartí, was the one who built a tower at the top of the hill, an elevated place with indisputable natural defenses on two of its four cardinal points.

Leaving aside that the oldest archaeological remains of the place of the Rock (still called that), where the castle was built, belong to the Iberian culture (in 1954 a ceramic oven and remains of a habitation were discovered), the first documentary citations are from the 10th century, when the castle was restored by Galí, a lineage of the Santmartí lineage, which was established around 966.

From the son of Galí, Guillem, who was also the guardian of Sant Martí Sarroca, was the initiator of the castle at the end of the 10th century and the beginning of the 11th century, probably after the falconade of Almanzor in 985.

In the 11th century, William’s widow, Adelaide, and her son-in-law, Mir Geribert, continued the work on the castle, building new rooms and converting the complex into a well-protected fortress. These works must have been improved by Arnau de Santmartí at the end of the 11th century.

However, it is believed that it was after the surprise attack by the Almoravids in 1108 that it was proposed to build a fortification with wide and high walls that would be almost impregnable.

Arnau de Santmarti in 1002 seems to have died in the Catalan expedition to Córdoba in 1010. Adalaida, his widow, sued in 1013 with the monastery of Sant Cugat for possession of the Calders ponds. Disposia, his daughter, was the first wife of Mir Geribert, and thus the house of Santmartí passed to the descendants of the one who was called Prince of Olèrdola.

The castle was inherited by Arnau Mir, who would receive the nickname “Sant Martí”. Between the years 1076 and 1082, Arnau Mir swore allegiance to Count Ramon Berenguer II for the castles of Olèrdola and Eramprunyà, and was governor of Penedès. Arnau Mir de Santmartí, before 1100, had built the first church of the castle, dedicated to Saint Mary.

The expansion and new consecration of the current temple did not take place until the year 1204, when it had the Ferrer de Santmartí castle, with those of Subirats, Olèrdola, Eramprunyà, Falset and Móra.

High walls were built in the castle and noble rooms were built. In the middle of the 13th century, with the extinction of the Santmartí line, the castle passed by marriage to the Entença. In 1339, he was Señor Berenguer de Vilaragut, and in 1343 he was Señor Bernat Guillem de Entença. Ten years later the castle was sold to the lords of Font-rubí.

The castle passed through several hands and gained prominence at the end of the 14th century, when, having given the castle of Sant Martí Sarroca by King Pedro III to his brother-in-law Bernat de Fortià (1381), it served as a refuge for Queen Sibyl, who, Pursued at the touch of a whistle, she opened the doors of the castle to her pursuers on January 6, 1387.

In the 14th century, when it passed into the county family due to family ties, various reforms were carried out: the castle was converted into a fortified palace and the walls were repaired.

The castle passed into the hands of the Cervelló family and they sold it in the Pía Almoina of the Barcelona cathedral in 1481, an institution that had its own and mixed empire.

It still belonged to the Pia Almoina in 1714, when the castle once again had military use during the War of Succession and became one of the last bastions of resistance against the army of Philip V and had to capitulate, along with the castle of Cardona. , on September 18 of that year, a week after Barcelona and its defenders were chased to San Quintín de Mediona and killed when they were found there.

Later, in 1782, during the Great War, the castle was fortified again. From that moment on, many reforms were made that partially modified its original form, which are still visible in many rooms.

The ruin of the castle began during the first Carlist war, a period in which the buildings that were part of the fortress were burned. When it was abandoned, a very strong process of looting began and the building was turned into a pile of rubble.

In 1831 the Marquis of Dos Aguas appears as lord. With the confiscation, the degradation of the building accelerated, which was often used as a supplier of materials for the construction of new houses in the town.

During the First Carlist War (1833-1840) and the civil war of 1872, the town was fortified and the church, used as a barracks, was mistreated and desecrated, and the castle was burned and turned into a pile of ruins. In 1933, its stones were used to build the Can Rabell bridge.

The decline of the castle continued until the mid-20th century, when a popular initiative promoted the rehabilitation of the complex. A part of the castle was demolished to recover one of the facades. The part made up of the noble rooms of the castle structure has been rebuilt, which form an interior courtyard with a trapezoidal shape. On the ground floor are the stables, a room that maintains the original structure from the 11th century.

The castle’s old kitchens occupy three rooms on the ground floor. The Gothic room evokes the old dining room, originally Romanesque. The west room is restored in Renaissance style. In the south wing, the first floor formerly housed the rooms or bedrooms and the windows preserve festive seats. On the ground floor was the old wine cellar, in Romanesque style.

Queen Sibila of Fortià took refuge in this castle, who was the queen consort of the crown of Aragon and fourth wife of Pedro IV “the ceremonious.” Sibila belonged to the Fortià lineage, of the lower Empordà nobility, Sibila acceded to the court entering the service of Queen Eleanor of Sicily.

Upon her death and after being widowed, she attracted the attention of the king, maintaining a stable relationship, and in 1377 she married King Pedro IV of Aragon with whom she already had a daughter, the Infanta Isabel, thus becoming the fourth wife of the Aragonese sovereign.

After the wedding, Pedro surrounded himself with Empordà nobles, as well as Sibila’s relatives. With the death of the king in 1387, Sibila, fearing retaliation from her stepsons, took refuge in the castle of Sant Martí Sarroca.

The new king, Juan I of Aragon, confined her for a time in the castle of Moncada. Finally, the Sibyl moved to Barcelona, ??the city where she died in 1406.

Upon the death of Queen Sibyl, her body was buried in the Convent of San Francisco in Barcelona, ??where throughout the Middle Ages numerous members of the Aragonese royal family were buried, such as King Alfonso III (the Liberal).

The body of the fourth wife of Peter IV the Ceremonious remained buried there for several centuries, until in 1835 the Convent of San Francisco was demolished, and most of the remains of the royal persons buried there, including Queen Sibyl of Fortia , were transferred to the Barcelona Cathedral.

In the 20th century, the remains of Queen Sibyl were placed in a tomb, on the left side of the High Altar of the Cathedral of Barcelona, ????in which are also the mortal remains of two other queens of Aragon, Queen María de Cyprus, wife of James II of Aragon, and Queen Constance of Sicily, wife of Peter III the Great.

In the same tomb also rest the remains of Queen Eleanor of Aragon, queen of Cyprus by her marriage to Peter I of Cyprus, and granddaughter of James II of Aragon. The tombs, in which the remains of the queens were deposited in 1998, were made by the Catalan artist Frederic Marès.

In 1963, the castle became the property of the city council, where a commission was created, which decided to begin the work of cleaning and clearing debris from the remaining rooms of the old castle and began its restoration.

With the initiatives of Pepet Teixidor and Luis Pujadó they started the reconstruction of the castle under the direction of the Service of Conservation of Monuments of the Provincial Council of Barcelona; this one, in an excess of fantasy and without any scientific rigor, turned the north wing into a stylistic work without any historical or architectural foundation.

Fortunately, the Sala de Ponent, despite the arbitrariness observed, is a more faithful work. Regarding the nave that faces Les Valls, restoration began in 1988, a more rational criterion was followed, a part of the Castle was demolished to recover one of the facades. The part made up of the noble rooms of the castle structure was rebuilt, which form an interior courtyard with a trapezoidal shape.

On the ground floor are the Cuadras, a room that maintains the original structure from the 11th century. The castle’s old kitchens occupy three rooms on the ground floor. The Gothic room evokes the old dining room, originally Romanesque. The west room is restored in Renaissance style.

In the south wing, the first floor formerly housed the rooms or bedrooms and the windows preserve festive seats. On the ground floor is the old wine cellar, in Romanesque style.

Due to the current state of this castle, the result of the transformations and extensions it underwent in medieval and modern times, and also of the modern and current destructions and restorations, it is very difficult to determine the elements that can be considered from the Romanesque period.

Surely some of the current walls were built before the 13th century, however, most of the rooms and towers, with a very marked slope, seem not to be considered from before this century.

Even the organization of the naves corresponds more to that of a palace castle from the last medieval centuries than to that of a tower castle or a hall castle from the Romanesque period.

The castle currently hosts several archaeological and ethnological collections. In the Kitchen rooms, it stands out an Iberian funerary monument (3rd-2nd centuries BC). Highlights the so-called Venus of the Penedès, a stone female head (segment I aC), and Roman tombstones.

It is worth mentioning a Moorish ceramic tureen from Manises from the 14th century, decorated inside and out, a piece considered unique, which was found during the restoration of the church carried out in 1906. You can also see a grisaille table from the 16th century where He sees a knight with the head of a lion.

Since 1988 it has included a collection of farm tools, the result of donations from local families, displayed in the old stables of the premises.