The Hostatgeria de Celma Hotel*** recovers a historic name: the name of the stately manor Celma. Nowadays the Celma region with the other properties enjoy the protection of the Historical Art Heritage. It is a region that extends a lot further than the old village of Celma. It covers the "Alt Camp" which is a centre settled at an altitude of 743m. more to the eastern part below the mountain of Celma (801m high) and presided by the ruins of the Celma Castle. This castle is already mentioned in the year 977 and close to this castle a church was built named San Cristòfol. In the year 1142 the castle was given to the Order of the Templars and in 1171 the Bishop of Barcelona granted them the title of Parish church with the creation of the Commander of "Sant Cristòfol of Celma". When in 1312 the Order of the Templars extinguished the property passed into the hands of the "hospitalers" (infirmaries) Gran Priorat in Catalunya and these continued with the name of Commanders until the end of the XVIII century. Since the XV century they were the same Commanders as the villages Vallmoll and Puigpelat. Nowadays only the gothic Church of Sant Cristòfol exists. Celma (or Selma according to the actual place-name) is nowadays nothing more than a historic-archeological reminiscence materialized in the ruins of a church and a castle beautified in a standstill of "l'Alt Camp" that is situated next to Baix Penedès. But during centuries they were the head of a Commander; first Templars and afterwards infirmaries that governed a local area but that area was quite extensive and covered villages like Vallmoll and Puigpelat. The Celma site was historically able to establish her proper name during the years of the "Reconquista" (recapture) and colonization in the X - XII centuries thanks to the Santmarti family who constructed the primitive castle and church on top of the mountain which offered then the defensive borderline extending itself from Queralt to Montagut, Montmell, Pinyana, Albà...until the border of the Penedès area. The difficulty of the Restoration of that border territory made the Castle owners transfer the land and its surroundings to the Order of the Templars (1142) who were then just starting to introduce themselves in the Catalan province. The Tarragona and Tortosa inclusion into Christianity in the middle of the XII century facilitated the repopulation of that sector in the interior of that mountain area by means of the constitution of a power centre. And in this way the feudal structure was organized with the appointment of feudal lords who took care of public order and the defence of the territory and were in charge of the lands attributed to them. And at the same time the corresponding foundation of the Barcelona Parish Church was being operated (1171) under the protection of the Templars by concession of their prelate. In the course of the XIII century the behaviour of the feudal lords gave way to the common jurisdiction for free civilians and ended in a full feudal state system. Subsequent royal concessions in the exercise of justice led to the structure of a real Celma Feudal jurisdiction. The disappearance of the Templars' Order at the beginning of the XIV Century involved the transfer of their dominions - in our case the Celma dominions - into the hands of the Hospital Order (people that take care of the sick). The economic and demographic crisis (black death, years of sterility), feudal violence, internal war incidences during the XV century, and later on in the modern age, banditry affected profoundly the stability of the Celma Feudalism although it also experienced however real recoveries such as the concentration of lands (XVI century) in only a few hands thus allowing a better exploitation of the agriculture on the different existing Manors. Agricultural loans were reduced and substituted for established cash money. The Bourbon Reform and the subsequent governmental interventionism meant a real hard blow for the Celma Feudal system and their privileges came under question and the tax payments were increased and its pressure was noticeable (XVIII century). Afterwards, at the beginning of the XVIII century, the political and military disturbances and the instauration of the Constitutional System reverberated radically Celma's Feudal system in both feudal and ecclesiastic dimension. If in 1831 the Order was incorporated to the Crown, the 1851 Concordat meant the final extinction of the Order. The Celma castle presides over the ruins of the small village of the same name abandoned totally in the thirties of the XX century. This was not the only village settlement in the extensive castle territory but it was one of the most essential ones within the internal partition. The numerous existing properties specially from the XII century onwards show a rich historical defence border line that helped consolidate the new Catalan country. Some of these properties still exist nowadays. Information taken from the Quaderns de Vilaniu/Miscel·lània l’Alt Camp núm. 9 (1986) p. 82-84 y FIGUERAS I FONTANALS, Ll. M. El senyoriu de Celma. L’esquema funcional. Valls: Institut d’Estudis Vallencs, 1999. Links The Villagesm land of "grallers". Les Pobles and the Monastery of "Santes Creus". The Municipality of "Aiguamúrcia" . Link about of the "Ruta del Cister".