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Origin and history

Priory Sainte-Marie de Serrabona, founded at the beginning of the 11th century by Augustinian canons under the impulse of the Viscount of Cerdagne, settles on a mountainous site near Boule-d The first written mention dates from 1069, evoking a parish church dedicated to the Virgin. In 1082, the religious elected their first prior, marking the autonomy of the priory in the face of the comtal and episcopal powers, in a context of Gregorian reform.

The church was enlarged in the 12th century: nave vaulted in cradle, transept, semicircular bedside, and single gallery cloister (adapted to the steep rock) were added. The new collegiate, consecrated in 1151 by the bishop of Elne, incorporates a young stand in pink marble, contemporary sculptural masterpiece of enlargement. Its decoration, combining plant motifs, fantastic animals and religious symbols (tetramorphic, Paschal Lamb), bears witness to the influence of the workshops in Roussillon linked to the Abbey of Saint-Michel de Cuxa.

The priory declined from the thirteenth century, undermined by the individualism of the canons and the secularization of ecclesiastical goods. In 1593, the pope attached him to the Cathedral of Solsona (Spain), ending his status as a collegiate. Abandoned, the building suffered degradation: partial collapse in 1819, reuse of the gallery as an attic, and theft of capitals (like those of the northern gate, replaced in 2000). Ranked a Historic Monument in 1875, it was restored in the 20th century, with the reconstruction of the western façade (1969) and the anastylosis of the podium balustrade (2014).

The site, acquired by the Pyrénées-Orientales department in 1956, is now protected in its natural environment. Its isolation (600 m above sea level, final walking access) and its hybrid architecture (local schist, Villefranche marble) make it a unique testimony of Catalan Romanesque art. The capitals of the cloister, saved in extremis in the 19th century, and the jube stand – the only structure of this type preserved in Roussillon – illustrate the influence of the workshops of Cuxa and Serrabone between 1130 and 1155.

Recent excavations and studies (including those of Marcel Durliat and Olivier Poisson) have confirmed the stylistic unit of the carved decoration, linked to the quarries of Bouleternère. The gallery, initially controversial for its apparent disproportion with the church, is now recognized as an original creation for the site. Its iconography, inspired by Italian ambons and Clunisian jubes, reflects a synthesis of the Tuscan, Spanish and Languedocian influences of the 12th century Roussillon.

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