Roda d'Isàvena is a village in the municipality of Isàvena

Isábena

Isábena or Isàvena is a municipality located in the province of Huesca, Aragon, Spain. According to the 2004 census , the municipality has a population of 278 inhabitants.The town rises at the feet of the rocky Morrón de Güell mountain range....

, in the region of Ribagorça, in the province of Huesca

Huesca

Huesca is a city in north-eastern Spain, within the autonomous community of Aragon. It is also the capital of the Spanish province of the same name and the comarca of Hoya de Huesca....

, Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

.

It was the capital of the county of Ribagorça and site of a diocese, the reason why the Romanesque

Romanesque architecture

Romanesque architecture is an architectural style of Medieval Europe characterised by semi-circular arches. There is no consensus for the beginning date of the Romanesque architecture, with proposals ranging from the 6th to the 10th century. It developed in the 12th century into the Gothic style,...

 Cathedral of Roda was built between the 11th and 12th century.

Located near the Isàvena

Isábena

Isábena or Isàvena is a municipality located in the province of Huesca, Aragon, Spain. According to the 2004 census , the municipality has a population of 278 inhabitants.The town rises at the feet of the rocky Morrón de Güell mountain range....

 river, the county of Ribagorza was one of the founding domains from which was built the Kingdom of Aragon

Kingdom of Aragon

The Kingdom of Aragon was a medieval and early modern kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula, corresponding to the modern-day autonomous community of Aragon, in Spain...

.

The village of Roda rises over a mountain which dominates the access to the valley of Isàvena. During the tenth century it was a fortified village which served as a vigilance point between the Muslim Taifa of Saragossa and the Christian county of Ribagorça, which would ultimately become part of the Kingdom of Aragon

Kingdom of Aragon

The Kingdom of Aragon was a medieval and early modern kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula, corresponding to the modern-day autonomous community of Aragon, in Spain...

.
About the middle of the tenth century, Roda d'Isàvena became an episcopal see

Episcopal See

An episcopal see is, in the original sense, the official seat of a bishop. This seat, which is also referred to as the bishop's cathedra, is placed in the bishop's principal church, which is therefore called the bishop's cathedral...

, and the political capital of the county of Ribagorza. The removal of the see, first to Lleida

Lleida

Lleida is a city in the west of Catalonia, Spain. It is the capital city of the province of Lleida, as well as the largest city in the province and it had 137,387 inhabitants , including the contiguous municipalities of Raimat and Sucs. The metro area has about 250,000 inhabitants...

 and then to the diocese of Barbastro-Montsó

Diocese of Barbastro-Monzón

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Barbastro-Monzón is located in north-eastern Spain, in the province of Huesca, part of the autonomous community of Aragón. The diocese forms part of the ecclesiastical province of Zaragoza , and is thus suffragan to the Archdiocese of Zaragoza.The city of Barbastro is...

 reduced the importance of the locality. The Spanish desamortización

Ecclesiastical Confiscations of Mendizábal

The Ecclesiastical Confiscations of Mendizabal, more often referred to simply as La Desamortización, encompasses a set of decrees from 1835-1837 that resulted in the expropriation, and privatization, of monastic properties in Spain....

(a long historical process in which "unused" territories, generally owned by the Church, were publicly auction

Auction

An auction is a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bid, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder...

ed) and the predation of the 20th-century art thief René Alphonse van den Berghe despoiled it of some of its rich cultural heritage.

Nevertheless, Roda, with its Cathedral of Satn Vicenç de Roda d'Isàvena preserves the vestiges of its rich past. Nowadays, Roda has the distinction of being the smallest Spanish village with a cathedral.