History of Beram
Beram is one of the oldest continuously populated settlements in Istria. Explorations of the prehistoric necropolis on the south slopes of Beram have shown with certainty that during the iron age a settlement already existed here. A conical hill above a fertile valley was an ideal place for a hill-fort type settlement, surrounded by a simple rough wall following the terrain configuration. Over the ruins of these walls Roman forts and medieval castles were later built. A radial street pattern founded in some ancient times has been preserved in Beram untill today.
The Beram hill-fort of the first phase (untill the VIII century BC) enclosed about thre same area the town includes today. Entrance is at a place that is still being used as an auxilliary entrance, and local people call it „the small gates“. Outside the hill-fort wall, at the southern hillside, was the necropolis – a place to burn and burrow the dead. As the hill-fort settlement was later spreading down the southern hillside the necropolis kept moving to be beyond the outside wall.
The prehistoric Beram
Explorations of the Beram necropolis – the first real archaeological research in Istria Explorations of the Beram necropolis were the first real archaeological research in Istria, and they provided an ample amount of material that clarified not only the prehistoric era of Beram, but of the entire Istria. The Beram necropolis was explored in 1883. by three arcaeologists, independently one of another: Carlo Marchesetti, Karl Moser, and Andrea Amoroso, who altogether explored over 170 graves, and deposited the findings in museums of Vienna and Trieste.
At the necropolis, remains were burned at a special place, and afterwards the ashes put in urnes would be placed into square niches deep up to 60cm, sometimes carved in live rock, and covered with stone plates. Different accesories would also be laid in the graves together with the remains of the deceased. It was precisely this research that gave us the most information about Beram of the past and its inhabitants. In the prehistoric age population of Beram lived in organised communities that were farming the land, gathering friuts, and breeding live stock. They bred cattle, horses, sheep, and pigs, not only as a source of milk and meat, but also for making clothes and weaving. It is interesting that sea shell valves brought form the sea coast were also found, and findings of deer and roe-buck horns show that they also practiced hunting.
Beram – medieval fort at the second line of defence of the Pazin Principality
Beram was first mentioned in a written document in the year 911, in a deed of gift by king Berengar to the bishop of Trieste. In the middle ages it was fortified with defensive walls above which was rising, at the place where the parochial church stands today, a square watchtower, from which there was a secret undergroun passage leading to Jamorina cave next to the creek at the hillfoot.
Although in parochial sense it belonged to Poreč diecese, Beram was part of the lands belonging to the counts of Gorizia, and later to Pazin principality, and it had a status of castle, and beginning with 1578 of a small town. During numerous armed conflicts between the Pazin principality, enclosing the central part of Istria with center in Pazin, and Venice, which reigned over neighbouring Motovun and the entire Istrian coast, the Beram castle played an important role, but due to that it also often suffered attacks and destruction.
Beram – an important Glagolitic centre
Beram was one of the most important centres of medieval Glagolitic literacy. Students („žakans“) from most parts of Istria would come to study with Beram Glagolitic priests. They left testimonies of it written in Glagolitic script on the margines of Beram liturgic books, or carved with a sharp object into fresco-painted walls of the little church of St. Mary „na Škrilijinah“ (of the Rocks). Several illuminated XIII and XIV century. Glagolitic manuscripts come from Beram, including a fragment o a homilliary (collection of sermons), and a richly painted missal and a breviary from the XIV century.