In Roman times, the area offered opportunities for vacations and relaxation, with many private villas dotting the landscape.

The church was commissioned by the Visigothic king Recceswinth of Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula, comprising modern Spain and Portugal), in the year 661 and whose solemn consecration ceremony is believed to have taken place on 3 January, 661.

A literal translation would be:[1] Forerunner of the Lord, martyr John the Baptist owns this seat, built as an eternal gift which I myself, King Recesvinto, devotee and lover of your name, dedicated to you in his own right, in the third year, after the tenth, as an illustrious companion of the kingdom, in the Era, six hundred and ninety-nine.The church was built as a royal foundation under the control of the Bishops of Palencia.

It and several other Visigothic churches built in Spain about the same time represent the last ashlar construction in western Europe until Charlemagne, and can be seen as the end of that ancient Roman building tradition in the west.

[4] The excavations that were carried out in 1956 and 1963 yielded a medieval necropolis of 58 tombs to the north-west of the church and discovered three pieces of 7th-century bronze: two belt buckles in the shape of a lyre and one liturgical object.