Logbook · 18 places

Monastery of Santa Maria de Lavaix

el Pont de Suert, Alta Ribagorça, Lleida

1 Villages · 2 Monuments · 2 Nature · 5 Activities · 2 Curiosities · 4 Historical milestones · 2 Food and drink

Spain › Catalonia › Lleida › Alta Ribagorça › el Pont de Suert › Monastery of Santa Maria de Lavaix

Monastery of Santa Maria de Lavaix

Historical milestone · el Pont de Suert, Alta Ribagorça, Lleida

The monastery of Santa Maria de Lavaix lies today in ruins, flooded for most of the year by the Escales reservoir, in the municipality of el Pont de Suert (Alta Ribagorça); when the reservoir level drops, it can be reached on foot from the southern mouth of the Lavaix tunnel, on the N-260 road. It was founded in 848 by Abbot Trasoad, who moved there the original monastery of San Julián de Sentís, to a place called Vilanova, possibly caves now submerged. It is the Catalan monastery that changed diocese the most times, passing through Urgell, the short-lived one of Pallars, Roda, Barbastro and finally Lérida; it was Benedictine around 947 and adopted the Cistercian rule in 1223 under Bishop Berenguer d'Erill. Abandoned after the 1835 disentailment, its archive suffered looting from the War of the Spanish Succession onward.

848-1835

Photo: Lluís Marià Vidal i Carreras (Public domain)

What to see and do in el Pont de Suert