Las Huelgas
| Huelgas de Burgos Monastery | |
|---|---|
 Cistercian Abbey of Huelgas |
|
| location |
 Spain Burgos Province |
| Lies in the diocese | Archdiocese of Burgos |
| Coordinates: | 42 ° 20 '10 " N , 3 ° 43' 12.7" W |
| founding year | 1187 |
| Cistercian since | 1187 |
| Mother monastery | Tulebras Abbey |
| Congregation | San Bernardi in Hispania |
The royal monastery of Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas (Latin Abbatia BMV Huelguensis Burgensium ) is a Cistercian abbey and is located 1.5 kilometers west of the city of Burgos on the Avenida del Monasterio de las Huelgas.
history
The Castilian King Alfonso VIII (reigned 1158-1214) and his wife Eleonore Plantagenet founded the Abbey of Santa María la Real, better known as Las, near Burgos in 1187 at the point where a royal luscious residence had previously been Huelgas Reales (roughly translated as "royal leisure domicile"). Work on the monastery began in 1187 and was completed in the second half of the 13th century .
The 1186–1189 incumbent abbot Wilhelm II of Cîteaux (also known under his French name Guillaume II. De la Prée) gave his approval for the establishment of the nunnery in September 1187, stipulating that the nuns themselves had one or two abbots from regional male Cistercian abbeys to be their visitors . Eleonora, the daughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine and of King Henry II of England , played a key role in enforcing this preferential treatment of the monastery (other convents could not choose their visitors).
The first nuns came from Tulebras Abbey in the Kingdom of Navarre , founded in 1157; the first abbess was Doña Misol. Alfonso VIII saw his foundation as the head of a congregation into which the other Castilian Cistercian monasteries were to be admitted.
The Las Huelgas monastery received rich gifts from its founders, it received 49 goods, including the Hospital del Rey in the immediate vicinity. In addition, it was made the burial place of the royal family in 1199. The abbey possessed an extensive territory in which it exercised secular and spiritual jurisdiction and acted independently of the bishops of Burgos.
The abundance of power and wealth of the monastery also led to the creation of an important library over time. The abbey has a lectionary from the scriptorium of the nearby Cistercian Abbey of San Pedro de Cardeña , a Bible from 1181, a commentary on the Apocalypse by Beatus of Liébana from 1220 and a copy of the Benedictine Rule from 1246.
The Cistercian Sisters of Las Huelgas now belong to the Congregation of San Bernardo. The structural ensemble is a national art monument.
Special position of the Abbess of Las Huelgas
From the Cistercian General Chapter in 1189, the abbess was given authority over the kingdom of Leon and Castile . She was landlord over 60 lordships and localities as well as administrator of the royal foundation in spiritual and temporal matters. The abbess of Las Huelgas temporarily held the title of prelatus and ran her parish like a bishop . It issued litterae dimissoriae to candidates for ordination to allow appointed pastor , gave the confession and preaching authority , censored books and dispensed by marriage obstacles . The Holy See gave the abbesses - like the bishops - the appropriate faculties of quinquennal . The example of the abbesses of Las Huelgas is also significant in terms of church history because it shows that the potestas jurisdictionis (power of authority) in a local church can also be conferred on women.
The de facto episcopal jurisdiction of the abbesses of Las Huelgas was not welcomed, especially within the church. On the one hand, it restricted the power of the Bishop of Burgos. On the other hand, she disturbed and disturbed in a male-dominated church. In 1873, three years after the First Vatican Council had defined the primacy of jurisdiction , Pope Pius IX withdrew . the abbesses of Las Huelgas extended jurisdiction beyond the abbey.
church
The exterior of the church shows the clean lines of Cistercian art. Inside it is divided into two parts by a partition between the areas of the believers and the nuns. This is surmounted on the side of the nave by a descent from the cross from the 13th century . In the central chapel behind the high altar is a Baroque - altarpiece from the year 1665 on which the Assumption of the statue of Saint Benedict of Nursia and Bernard of Clairvaux and the founder pair is framed. Above the connection with the central nave, a picture from 1594 shows the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa ( July 16, 1212 ), in which Alfonso VIII fought, the work of Jeronimo and Pedro Ruiz de Camargo .
From the gilded pulpit made of wrought iron ( 1560 ), the preacher can make himself understood on both sides of the partition, both to the believers in the transept and in the choir, and to the nuns who were sitting in the choir stalls of the nave.
The central nave, which is accompanied by two aisles (the Katharinen-Schiff in the north and the Johannes-Schiff in the south), houses the double sarcophagus for Alfons VIII and Eleanor, who both died in 1214 . Here and on the sides there was also space for many other sarcophagi, such as that of the Infante Ferdinand de la Cerda , the son of King Alfonso X , who died in 1275 , in the Katharinen ship .
From the Johannes-Schiff, in which the sarcophagus of Mary of Aragon is, nun in Las Huelgas and daughter of King Ferdinand the Catholic (reigned 1474-1516), one can enter the Gothic monastery through two gates .
San Fernando Monastery
The Gothic monastery of San Fernando dates from the 13th to 15th centuries . Here fragments exist of stucco work in Mudejar style in the gallery vaults from the years 1230 to 1260
The Romanesque monastery
The Romanesque monastery dates back to the years 1180 to 1190 - like the Resurrection Chapel on its northeast corner in Mudejar style - and is located south of the Gothic one. Here, double rows of columns with stylish capitals give the monastery elegance. You then pass through several halls of the Palace of Alfonso X in Moorish decoration.
Chapel of St. James
To the east of the monastery, in the chapel of St. James, there is a stucco ceiling from the end of the 13th century , the colors and friezes of which have been preserved.
Museum of Medieval Fabrics
The museum is housed in a hall that opens onto the monastery. The fabrics and plaster on display in the former granary are evidence of royal attire in Castile in the 13th century. The clothes (tunics, furs and cloaks) were found in the graves. The most precious come from Ferdinando de la Cerda's grave, which was not desecrated by Napoleon's soldiers in 1809 .
Chapter House
The chapter house opens onto the east gallery and houses the “Pendon”, a trophy from the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa . It comes from the tent of Muhammad an-Nasir , the defeated Almohad general.
literature
- Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer : La abadesa de las huelgas: Estudio teologico juridico (Madrid 1988).
- Baury, Ghislain: Les religieuses de Castille. Patronage aristocratique et ordre cistercien, XIIe-XIIIe siècles , Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes 2012, ISBN 978-2-7535-2051-6 .
Web links
- List of the Abbesses of Las Huelgas
- https://www.zdf.de/dokumentation/dokumentation/die-aebtissin-eine-frau-kaempft-um-die-macht-in-der-100.html ; ZDF December 26, 2015, 6.15pm - 7.00pm; The abbess - a woman fights for power
Individual evidence
- ^ Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer: La Abadesa de las Huelgas. Estudio teológico jurídico . Editorial Luz, Madrid 1944.
- ^ Hubert Wolf : Church in Crisis - Reform - Where and How? In: Freckenhorster district. Informations , Issue 163 (August 2019), pp. 4–14, here p. 11.
- ↑ Hubert Wolf: Crypt. Suppressed Traditions of Church History . CH Beck, Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3-406-67547-8 , p. 48.