Monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos
Encyclopedia
Benedictine
Benedictine refers to the spirituality and consecrated life in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century for the cenobitic communities he founded in central Italy. The most notable of these is Monte Cassino, the first monastery founded by Benedict...
monastery
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...
in the village of Santo Domingo de Silos
Santo Domingo de Silos
Santo Domingo de Silos is a municipality located in the province of Burgos, Castile and León, Spain. According to the 2004 census , the municipality has a population of 292 inhabitants....
in the southern part of Burgos Province
Burgos (province)
The province of Burgos is a province of northern Spain, in the northeastern part of the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is bordered by the provinces of Palencia, Cantabria, Vizcaya, Álava, La Rioja, Soria, Segovia, and Valladolid. Its capital is the city of Burgos...
in northern Spain. The monastery is named after the eleventh-century saint Dominic of Silos
Dominic of Silos
Saint Dominic of Silos was a Spanish saint, to whom the Monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos is dedicated....
.
Romanesque architecture and sculpture
The two-storey cloisterCloister
A cloister is a rectangular open space surrounded by covered walks or open galleries, with open arcades on the inner side, running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle or garth...
of the monastery, which has large capitals with carved scenes, and also relief panels, is considered a masterpiece of Romanesque art
Romanesque art
Romanesque art refers to the art of Western Europe from approximately 1000 AD to the rise of the Gothic style in the 13th century, or later, depending on region. The preceding period is increasingly known as the Pre-Romanesque...
, and has been written about extensively, notably by Meyer Schapiro
Meyer Schapiro
Meyer Schapiro was a Lithuanian-born American art historian known for forging new art historical methodologies that incorporated an interdisciplinary approach to the study of works of art...
in his Romanesque Art (1977). There is also an important Romanesque
Romanesque art
Romanesque art refers to the art of Western Europe from approximately 1000 AD to the rise of the Gothic style in the 13th century, or later, depending on region. The preceding period is increasingly known as the Pre-Romanesque...
free-standing enthroned Madonna and Child.
Library
The monastery's scriptoriumScriptorium
Scriptorium, literally "a place for writing", is commonly used to refer to a room in medieval European monasteries devoted to the copying of manuscripts by monastic scribes...
was an important one, which among other major books produced a finely illuminated
Illuminated manuscript
An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniature illustrations...
Beatus
Beatus of Liébana
Saint Beatus of Liébana was a monk, theologian and geographer from the Kingdom of Asturias, in modern northern Spain, who worked and lived in the Picos de Europa mountains of the region of Liébana, in what is now Cantabria and his feast day is February 19.-Biography:He created an important...
manuscript (a commentary upon the Apocalypse); the text was completed (by two related monks) in 1091, but the illuminations (illustrations) were mostly done later by the prior
Prior
Prior is an ecclesiastical title, derived from the Latin adjective for 'earlier, first', with several notable uses.-Monastic superiors:A Prior is a monastic superior, usually lower in rank than an Abbot. In the Rule of St...
, who finished his work in 1109. These include an important map of the Mediterranean
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
regions. This is now in the British Library
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...
, having left the monastery by the 18th century. Other manuscripts were sold at auction in 1878, and are mostly in the British Library in London or the Bibliothèque nationale de France
Bibliothèque nationale de France
The is the National Library of France, located in Paris. It is intended to be the repository of all that is published in France. The current president of the library is Bruno Racine.-History:...
in Paris. The library still contains the Missal of Silos, the oldest Western manuscript on paper
Paper
Paper is a thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon, drawing or for packaging. It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets....
. Together with the library of Toledo Cathedral, the Silos Library was the main repository of liturgical manuscripts of the Mozarabic rite
Mozarabic Rite
The Mozarabic, Visigothic, or Hispanic Rite is a form of Catholic worship within the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church, and in the Spanish Reformed Episcopal Church . Its beginning dates to the 7th century, and is localized in the Iberian Peninsula...
until the sale of 1878.
There is a historic pharmacy with a specialist library.
Music in the abbey
The monks originally sang Mozarabic chantMozarabic chant
Mozarabic chant is the liturgical plainchant repertory of the Mozarabic rite of the Roman Catholic Church, related to the Gregorian chant...
. At some point around the eleventh century they switched to Gregorian chant
Gregorian chant
Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic liturgical music within Western Christianity that accompanied the celebration of Mass and other ritual services...
. In the nineteenth century the abbey became a member of the Solesmes Congregation
Solesmes Congregation
The Solesmes Congregation of the Benedictine Confederation was founded in 1837 by Pope Gregory XVI as the French Benedictine Congregation, with the newly reopened monastery of Solesmes Abbey under Dom Prosper Guéranger at its head. The Congregation's first nunnery was St...
, and the singing has since been influenced by the scholarship and performance style of Solesmes Abbey.
Recordings
The monks of Silos became internationally famous through the albumAlbum
An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...
Chant, one of a number of recordings they have made. First released on LP
LP album
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
, Chant became popular when re-released by Angel Records
Angel Records
Angel Records is a record label belonging to EMI. It was formed in 1953 and specialised in classical music, but included an occasional operetta or Broadway score...
in 1994 and strongly marketed. It peaked at #3 on the Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
music chart, and was certified as triple platinum
Music recording sales certification
Music recording sales certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped or sold a certain number of copies, where the threshold quantity varies by type and by nation or territory .Almost all countries follow variations of the RIAA certification categories,...
, becoming the best-selling album of Gregorian chant ever released. It was followed by Chant II (1995).
Access for the public
The cloisters and pharmacy are open to the public. Visitors are also able to attend services such as vespersVespers
Vespers is the evening prayer service in the Western Catholic, Eastern Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and Lutheran liturgies of the canonical hours...
in the abbey church, an eighteenth-century building designed by Ventura Rodríguez
Ventura Rodríguez
Ventura Rodríguez Tizón was a Spanish architect and artist. Born at Ciempozuelos, Rodríguez was the son of a bricklayer. In 1727, he collaborated with his father in the work at the Royal Palace of Aranjuez.-Major works:...
. Access to the library is restricted to researchers.