Durro

Durro first appears in the historical record in the second half of the eleventh century, named in the feudal agreements that divided the County of Pallars. The town belonged to the honour of Ramon V of Pallars Jussà, and around 1070 the men of Durro and the Boí valley swore an oath of loyalty to him. A castle stood high above the village on the hill still called the Tossal del Castell; it is mentioned as early as 1154, though nothing of it remains today.

In 1140 the parish of Durro was detached from the bishopric of Roda and joined, along with the rest of the Boí valley, to the bishopric of Urgell. It operated under a distinctive system of shared parish governance known as co-rectorships. The first clear record of this comes from a papal visit in 1373, which names Pere Amigó as vicar of Durro. By 1566 the village had ten co-rectors, with two more absent. A 1723 register notes that the number of co-rectors in Durro was effectively unlimited — any son of the village who reached the required age and competence could be put forward by the town councillors. The income from these posts was often modest, and holders could hold other benefices elsewhere, including at the sanctuary of Caldes and in places as far as Lleida. Even in the mid-nineteenth century, the geographer Pascual Madoz recorded the system still functioning, with one vicar and three beneficed clergy.

Madoz's 1849 dictionary gives a vivid picture of the village: 22 single-storey houses, streets that were steep, unpaved and dirty, a town hall with a prison, and a primary school endowed by a private foundation. The parish church of the Nativity had to be served exclusively by men born in the Boí valley. A spring of good water stood beside the village, next to the cemetery. The surrounding land was mostly rocky and poor, worked by clearing forest for grain or potato fields that were abandoned after a few years. Iron and lead deposits existed but were not exploited.

Until 1831, when feudal lordships were abolished, Durro belonged to the barons — later counts — of Erill. In 2023 it was listed among the Pueblos Más Bonitos de España. The village also has a notable native son: Ramón Iglesias y Navarri, bishop of Urgell and co-prince of Andorra, was born here.