The Monastery of Sant Joan les Fonts dates back to around 958 and was dedicated to St John the Baptist. From the twelfth to fifteenth centuries it was dependent on the Abbey of Sant Victor in Marseille, but then came under the control of the monastery of Sant Pere in Besalú. From 1592 until the nineteenth century it was dependent on the Monastery of Sant Pere in Camprodon.
The cloisters and the older parts of the monastic buildings were badly damaged by earthquakes in the fifteenth century and were eventually demolished. Today the church is the only part of the old monastery still standing.
The church is Romanesque in style with a rectangular basilica floor plan composed of one central and two lateral naves, and a large apse with an apsiodole on each side (one of which was demolished in the eighteenth century). Inside, of note are the decoration on the capitols, the twelfth-century baptismal font, and the artwork in the lateral naves (including a replica of the Monastery’s great Christ in Majesty).
In 1982 the church was declared a Monument of National Cultural Interest by the Catalan Government.
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