Santa Coloma de Queralt

Santa Coloma de Queralt is a municipality in the comarca of the Conca de Barberà in Catalonia, Spain. It is situated in the north-east of the comarca about 60km from the city of Tarragona. The town is linked to the rest of the comarca and to Igualada by the C-241 road.HistoryIn 976, Borrell II, Count of Barcelona, sold the castle of Queralt and the surrounding area to Viscount Guitart, and by 1018, castles had been built at Santa Coloma and other strategic locations. The Gurb-Queralt family established a barony and remained in control of the area for the next two centuries. By the end of the thirteenth century, Santa Coloma de Queralt was an important regional centre, serving as a market town that linked the local community and their need for commercial goods brought from other parts of the Mediterranean with the outside world. These commercial activities attracted Jews, so that by the early fourteenth century, of the one hundred and fifty houses in the town, fifty were occupied by Jewish families.The Catalan Revolt in the mid-seventeenth century came about as a result of the continuing presence in Catalonia of Spanish troops during the Franco-Spanish War between the Kingdom of France and the Monarchy of Spain. Dalmau de Queralt, Count of Santa Coloma, who was the Spanish viceroy of Catalonia at the time, was assassinated by the rebels near the beginning of the revolt. After the war, the town returned to the control of the Queralt family.