Around 1194 in the vicinity of what would later be the Carthusian monastery of Santa Maria d’Escaladei, a community of disciples of Saint Bruno of Cologne, both hermits and coenobites, came into existence. This was the first Carthusian monastery in the Iberian Peninsula. The founding Carthusian monks, came originally from Provence and enjoyed the protection of King Alfons the Chaste, who had donated the land and had expressed a fervent desire to see the order established in Catalonia.
The monastery, inaugurated around 1215, consisted of the Romanesque church surrounded by twelve individual cells where the monks had their residence and a small private vegetable garden. By 1228 the first cloister had been added together with other buildings to do with the life of the community. The second cloister dates from 1333, and had twelve more cells, and the third, with six cells, brought the number up to the maximum of thirty monks and fifteen lay brothers.
Successive concessions and privileges bestowed first by King Pere the Catholic and then by King Jaume I the Conqueror, led to the beginning of a golden era for Escaladei, whose members practised the strictest observance of solitude and silence in accordance with Carthusian rules. Only the farmer (conrer) monk, together with the prior, living over a kilometre to the East of the monastery, were allowed to observe a different conduct: that of administering the community’s property, such as the Conreria estate, now known as Masia Duch, and to communicate with the rest of the population on behalf of the monastery.
Wine production began in 1266 as a commercial crop. Bottles, utensils and tools were purchased from Porrera by the prior of Sant Vicenç del Garraf, and these, together with those that he had at properties in the mountains of Prades, formed the base for the production of what would later become the highly appreciated monastery wine. The combination of the winemaking know-how of the Provencal monks and the extraordinary characteristics of the Priorat soil made for a magnificent winegrowing business.
At this time, because of the large quantity of water on the Tancat property, the estate provided vines and other horticultural products for the Monastery; this is the same water source that is today used by Masia Duch for its winegrowing. Proof of this past activity can be seen in the numerous lines of terracing on the property, today completely restored, just as they were in the 12th century. The building of the local housing is also attributed to the monks of Escaladei. Under the administration of one of the lay brothers, some sixty people involved in farming the land and preparing the aforementioned products lived there, and the name Conreria probably comes from the fact that they depended directly on the decisions of the conrer or farmer monk. The mill and millpond located to the East of the property, now completely rebuilt, were supplied in part by the Escaladei stream, and demonstrate the medieval importance of the production site of the highly valued Masia Duch wine. |
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