The Copper Quintar and the Lost Church of Avellanet: A Medieval Structure Built

Sant Joan de l'Avellanet, a church in the municipality of Bagà (Berguedà), once an independent parish, but later became a sub-parish of the parish of Sant Esteve de Bagà. Situated in a rural context, now dominated by a camp of the Generalitat de Catalunya, is a small construction of a single nave with a semicircular apse on the eastern side. The church, built with regular stonemasonry, has a barrel vault in the nave and a barrel vault with a quarter sphere in the apse.

Exteriorly, we find a roof with two water outlets with Arabic tiles. The entrance is a pointed arch lowered and covered in stone and located in the middle of the north wall. There is only one window on the short sides of the church. The apse is dated to the 12th century, but the nave is a 14th century reconstruction. On April 2, 1393, Berenguela, wife of Pere Avellanet, gave 3 sous to the parish for ornaments for the altar. The church suffered reverses and may have been destroyed in the 14th century, as Pere Avellanet promised that when the church was finished, he would give 80 florins.

At the end of the 14th century, the church might have been built with an unusual material: copper coins, known as quintars in Catalan.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons