The early romanesque church of Sant Martí de Tost
The old village of Tost (Alt Urgell), today uninhabited, offers a desolate vision, with its castle in ruins and its parish church lying abandoned. However, this village was once home to a glorious feudal lineage who owed allegiance to the Counts of Urgell, a lineage that reached the height of its splendour with the warrior Arnau Mir de Tost (1000?-1072), who conquered the Saracens in the Vall d’Àger. The primitive church dedicated to Sant Martí, consecrated in 1040 by Eribau, Bishop of Urgell, in the presence of its founders, the said Arnau and his wife Arsenda, was a simple example of the early Romanesque style. Today, hardly anything remains of this building, since its fabric was reused in |
|
the construction of a larger church, probably erected in the modern era to meet the needs of an increased population. Of the Romanesque construction, still visible are the old decorative elements on the south-west corner of the present church, with vestiges of a door and round window on the western side, half hidden now by a buttress, as well as three double windows and a blocked off doorway on the southern façade. The voussoirs of the arches of both doorways have alternate ashlars of baked reddish clay and white calcareous stone, which clearly served a decorative purpose, as in Sant Ponç de Corbera (1062-1069) (Baix Llobregat). |
