Las Huelgas Reales Monastery
Encyclopedia
Monastery
Monastery denotes the building, or complex of buildings, that houses a room reserved for prayer as well as the domestic quarters and workplace of monastics, whether monks or nuns, and whether living in community or alone .Monasteries may vary greatly in size – a small dwelling accommodating only...
of Cistercian nuns
Cistercian nuns
Cistercian nuns are female members of the Cistercian Order, a religious order belonging to the Roman Catholic branch of the Catholic Church.-History:...
in 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 is located within the city of Valladolid
Valladolid
Valladolid is a historic city and municipality in north-central Spain, situated at the confluence of the Pisuerga and Esgueva rivers, and located within three wine-making regions: Ribera del Duero, Rueda and Cigales...
in the Duero region.
History
The early history of the monastery is obscure, primarily due to a fatal fire in 1282, which totally destroyed the entire monastery, along with its archives. The indicator Real (Royal) implies that it was founded by some member of the ruling family. After the fire, Queen María de MolinaMaría de Molina
María de Molina was the wife of Sancho IV of Castile. She was queen consort of Castile and León from 1284 to 1295 and then regent until the coming of age of her son Ferdinand IV.- Biography :...
(1265-1321) gave the community a palace used as a place of rest--thus the title "of the Fallows" --for their home, to which the community relocated. Of this building, only a gateway survives, Valladolid's sole example of Mudéjar
Mudéjar
Mudéjar is the name given to individual Moors or Muslims of Al-Andalus who remained in Iberia after the Christian Reconquista but were not converted to Christianity...
art.
One later historian attributed the original foundation to doña
Don (honorific)
Don, from Latin dominus, is an honorific in Spanish , Portuguese , and Italian . The female equivalent is Doña , Dona , and Donna , abbreviated "Dª" or simply "D."-Usage:...
Sancha, the sister of the Emperor of Spain Alfonso VII (1105-1157). This would be a logical history, given that it was King Alfonso, a very pious man, who introduced the Cistercians to Spain. He presumably knew the Order due to his father's Burgundian origins. He was the nephew of Pope Callixtus II
Pope Callixtus II
Pope Calixtus II , born Guy de Vienne, the fourth son of William I, Count of Burgundy , was elected Pope on February 1, 1119, after the death of Pope Gelasius II . His pontificate was shaped by the Investiture Controversy, which he was able to settle through the Concordat of Worms...
and the founder of the military Order
Military order
A military order is a Christian society of knights that was founded for crusading, i.e. propagating or defending the faith , either in the Holy Land or against Islam or pagans in Europe...
of the Knights of Calatrava, who were a part of the Cistercian Order.
This monastery lay on the new frontier of land taken back from Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
rule in Alfonso's active engagement in the Reconquest of Christian Spain. The territory had been sufficiently pacified that he entrusted it to his sister. The new monastery suffered severe damages in 1328 from the forces of King Alfonso XI, known as "The Avenger", as he attempted to seize his grandmother and former Regent
Regent
A regent, from the Latin regens "one who reigns", is a person selected to act as head of state because the ruler is a minor, not present, or debilitated. Currently there are only two ruling Regencies in the world, sovereign Liechtenstein and the Malaysian constitutive state of Terengganu...
, the aforementioned Queen Maria, who had retired there after his coronation.
More peaceful times followed for that region of Spain, and the monastic community settled into a normal routine of a life of prayer and work. Over time, they acquired donations of various farms and lands in the surrounding area. They became a significant landholder in the region that way, with all the privileges pertaining to such a position. In 1482, under Abbess
Abbess
An abbess is the female superior, or mother superior, of a community of nuns, often an abbey....
Isabel de Herrera y de Guzmán, the community joined the Reformed Congregation
Congregation
A congregation is a large gathering of people, often for the purpose of worship:* Local church* Congregation , an administrative body of the Roman Catholic Church...
of Castile. This re-invigoration of commitment to the Rule of St. Benedict saw a revival and flowering of the monastery, which lasted into the mid-17th century.
Work on the monastery church was begun in 1579 under the rule of Abbess Ana Quijada y de Mendoza (1543-1590), and was completed in 1599. The cloister was totally renovated in 1622. A census
Census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...
of the monastery in 1665 shows the community to then consist of 42 nuns, with 20 servants, and two monk
Monk
A monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of monks, while always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose...
s, who would have served as their chaplain
Chaplain
Traditionally, a chaplain is a minister in a specialized setting such as a priest, pastor, rabbi, or imam or lay representative of a religion attached to a secular institution such as a hospital, prison, military unit, police department, university, or private chapel...
s, who had a housekeeper
Housekeeper
Housekeeper may refer to:* Housekeeper , a woman heading up domestic maintenance* Maid, a female with various domestic duties* Janitor, a person responsible for institutional maintenance* A person engaged in housekeeping...
and 2 servants.
The monastery again suffered during the Spanish War of Independence in the 19th century, when many of their lands were appropriated by the anti-clerical government. Nevertheless it survived and recovered after that period in the national history. It was due to the loss of their lands as a source of income that a boarding school
Boarding school
A boarding school is a school where some or all pupils study and live during the school year with their fellow students and possibly teachers and/or administrators. The word 'boarding' is used in the sense of "bed and board," i.e., lodging and meals...
was established by the nuns in 1895. They were also able to weather the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
a century later, under the leadership of Abbess Purificación Martín, O.Cist., (1921-1947). After that period, the community built a new school building, which was completed in 1966.
The monastery was designated a National Monument in 1931.
Today (2011) the monastery has 17 nuns, led by the current Abbess, María del Mar Martínez Lopez, O.Cist., who was elected on 28 December 2002. They have built a modern cloister, which was inaugurated on 22 June 2007, with the support of the regional government. They have a small daughter house, the Monastery of Alconada, with 4 nuns, in the Province of Palencia
Palencia
Palencia is a city south of Tierra de Campos, in north-northwest Spain, the capital of the province of Palencia in the autonomous community of Castile-Leon...
. They remain a house of the Congregation of St. Bernard
St. Bernard
-People:*Saint Bernard of Clairvaux *Saint Bernard of Menthon *Saint Bernard of Thiron , founder of the Tironensian Order*Saint Bernard of Vienne *Saint Bernard degli Uberti -People:*Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153)*Saint Bernard of Menthon (923–1008)*Saint Bernard of Thiron (1046–1117),...
of Castile, part of the worldwide Cistercian Order.
External links
- website of the monastery and school Huelgas Reales