Viver i Serrateix

The municipality of Viver i Serrateix is located in the Berguedà region and belongs to the bishopric of Solsona.

It is formed by three towns: Serrateix, which is the head, Viver and Sant Joan de Montdarn. All have the settlement formed by scattered farmhouses with the parish church as a center; Only Serrateix has a small core around the Cal Fuster restaurant.

The current municipality was formed in the first half of the nineteenth century, when the municipalities of Viver, including Sant Joan, and Serrateix merged.

These places have been inhabited since antiquity. In the Neolithic the first farmers settled.

From the Ibero-Roman era, several sites have been located, small country houses, which are the basis of the medieval and also the current settlement. The dispersed settlement , typical of this area, has its roots in these remote stages.

The present towns were configured to the High Average Age, during the centuries VIII to the X. The count Guifré, the Hairy, had an important paper when throughout the ninth century repopulate the center of Catalonia; in Serrateix, he ordered the construction of the parish church of San Pedro and a defense tower, said of the abbot, which is preserved in the Monastery of Serrateix. And in San Juan, he founded a monastery of clerics. The current Vivero has its roots in the Frankish castle of the 8th century.

The municipality retains many traces of the medieval era: roads, farmhouses, flour mills, guard towers, tombs carved into the rock, Romanesque churches.

The municipality still retains traces of ancient roads, which have left marks of the passage of animals to rocks. It is necessary to emphasize the one that continues next to the stream of Navel.

Currently, the municipality is well connected to neighboring towns by means of paved roads.

At Serrateix, there are two buildings of interest, historically related: San Pedro and the Monastery of Santa María; both have important pre-Romanesque and Romanesque elements and from other eras. This set is unique throughout the Llobregat and Cardener axis.

In the Monastery of Santa María you can make guided visits, a service of the Friends of Serrateix Board. You can find all the information here.

A Vivero highlights the Parish Church of San Miguel. In the tenth century, there was already a pre-Romanesque temple, as witnessed by two anthropomorphic tombs carved into the rock, which are in the environment. In 1187 a church was consecrated, which is the skeleton of the present one; the central nave corresponds to the church of that time. It is a Romanesque building of transition to Gothic, something rare in our region.

Finally, in San Juan de Montdarn, the Parochial Church of San Juan stands out. In the place of the present temple, it would have had eremitic life in the small grotto that is in the rock that supports the church (VI-VII centuries). In the 9th century, the monastery founded by Count Guifré was built. In the eleventh century, the monastery was abolished and San Juan remained as a simple parish.