Santa Coloma de Queralt

Santa Coloma de Queralt traces its origins to an early church dedicated to Saint Coloma, attached to the castle of Queralt. The church appears in written records from 976, when the viscount Guitard acquired it, making it the first centre of the barony of Santa Coloma and the founding seat of the Queralt dynasty. The town's earliest name was Santa Coloma Samora, and it also appears in documents as Samarca or "de la Marca," though the Queralt name was already in use alongside these.

Between the medieval period and 1492, the town had a significant Jewish community, and some of the streets associated with that community are still identifiable today.

During the Guerra dels Segadors — the mid-17th-century Catalan revolt against Castilian rule — the town sided with the Generalitat, the Catalan government. France's King Louis XIV rewarded it with the title of "royal town" and abolished the seigneurial lordship. When the war ended, however, control returned to the Queralt family.

The Spanish Civil War brought another, briefer name change. Between 1937 and 1939 the town was called Segarra de Gaià, a politically motivated renaming driven by efforts to remove religious references from Catalan place names. After the war the change was reversed on the grounds that it had not followed legal procedure. During the conflict, the municipality also minted emergency one-peseta coins for local use.

The medieval town retains substantial sections of its walls along with four surviving gateways: the gates of Cervera, Martí, Santa Maria, and Santa Coloma. The walls were originally built with three gates, recorded as such in 1294, and expanded to six by 1471.

The parish church of Santa Maria is the town's dominant monument. Gothic in style, it was begun in 1331 but not completed until 1587 — a construction span of more than two and a half centuries. Inside, the most important object is an alabaster altarpiece dedicated to Saint Lawrence, made in 1386 by the sculptor Jordi de Déu. The church also has a tall square bell tower.

On the outskirts of the town stands the church of Santa Maria de Bell-lloc, declared a Historic Artistic Monument in 1944. It dates from the transitional period between Romanesque and Gothic architecture. For roughly fifty years it functioned as a monastery, from 1270 to 1321. The church preserves two Gothic tombs — those of Pere de Queralt and Alamanda de Rocabertí — as well as a Gothic cross that originally came from the Font de les Canelles.

Within the town itself, other survivals include the former palace of the counts of Queralt, which features a cylindrical tower, the arcaded Church Square and main street (Carrer Major), and the ruins of Aguiló castle.

The barony of Queralt passed through several hands over the centuries: from the lords of Gurb until 1213, then to the Timor family, who adopted the Queralt name and founded their own dynastic line. Earlier still, the castle had belonged to the lords of Barcelona and, in the 10th to 11th centuries, to the county of Osona-Manresa.