In S. João de Tarouca, the first Cistercian monastery in Portugal was implanted in the 12th century. He was called S. João de Barosa and also S. João de Mondim, as it is read in documents of the time. The Claravalense monks received great support, although interested, from the bourgeoisie of Tarouca, later joining the gifts of the nobility, in such a way that the church became a kind of pantheon of some strains and also of the most qualified people of Tarouca. D. Afonso Henriques granted a letter of couto to the monastery in 1140, to compensate the friars for the assistance given in taking Trancoso from the Moors.

Building of the family of the so-called "Cistercian Romanesque", it introduced a new spatiality that in a certain way prepared the advent of the Gothic. The church was built between 1152-1169 by the "barbati" (brothers lay or converts, who could grow a beard, and who functioned as a highly qualified set of master builders mostly from France) and in which the Vitruvian scheme was applied "ad quadratum", in which the height of the central vault is equal to the total width of the temple.