San Pedro (Caracena)
The Romanesque church of San Pedro in the small mountain village of Caracena in the northern Spanish province of Soria belongs to a group of around 60 to 70 still existing churches with a south porch in the old Castilian provinces of Burgos , Soria , Segovia and in the northwest of the province of Guadalajara in Castile-La Mancha .
location
The church is - like the neighboring church of Santa María - at just under 1,100 meters above sea level. d. M. in the barren mountain landscape in the south of the province of Soria and notably not in the center, but on the outskirts of Caracena.
history
No information is available about the client (s) and the exact year the church was built - some attribute it to the late 11th century, others to the first half of the 12th century. During this time Caracena was the center of a district with over 30 hamlets and individual farms. Whether for climatic or other reasons, the surrounding farms were gradually abandoned and Caracena became increasingly impoverished from the end of the Middle Ages; the consequence, however, was that the two Romanesque churches of the place remained almost unchanged.
architecture
Exterior construction
The church is characterized by its tower, which, however, does not rise in the west, but above the Vorchorjoch - both placements were quite possible and common in the Middle Ages. The tower, which is square in its ground plan, is accompanied by a half-high round stair tower; the spiral staircase inside it therefore only leads up to half the height of the main tower, after which one had to climb up to the bells using ladders. Like the west facade, the semicircular apse is made of largely unworked rubble stones; it is completely undivided and - with the exception of a partially figurative console frieze - designed without decoration underneath the eaves, which can possibly be interpreted as an indication of an early date. There are no such console friezes on the nave of the church and on the two towers.
South porch
The south vestibule ( portico or galería porticada ) differs from the rest of the church building simply through the exact processing and walling of the stones ; it could therefore - together with the stabilizing buttresses - have been added in the early 12th century, which is also supported by the fact that the entrances to the porch and the church are not in line. Seven arcades open the south side, another is on its east side. The asymmetrical arrangement of the arches - in connection with the missing entrance in the west and the lack of decoration of the facade - gave rise to speculation as to whether it might not have collapsed at a later time - with the result that two arches are missing on the left. The same asymmetry of the south porch can also be found in the church of Jaramillo de la Fuente , about 100 kilometers further north , of which the original state of preservation cannot be doubted.
A key feature of the vestibule are its coupled double columns , which double again on both sides of the entrance. The four pillars on the left go straight up; the four pillars on the right, on the other hand, are rotated around an imaginary inner axis - a striking and quite rare motif, which also appears in the cloister of the Santo Domingo de Silos monastery , which is commonly assigned to the late 11th century. There is also a certain relationship between the capitals of Silos and those of Caracena, which may be attributed to wandering stonemasons. Despite the rather poor state of preservation, figurative and abstract motifs can be distinguished: there are fighting or jousting knights and a wild boar hunt with dogs as well as a well-preserved double capital in basket form. With the exception of the fifth capital, which may show sleeping guards (soldiers) and the virgins at the empty tomb of Christ, there are no biblical themes - but not uncommon for this time.
Turned column with capital
Capital with lions and hooded birds
Capital with fighting knights (tournament?)
Capital with wild boar hunt (?)
.jpg)
inner space
The single-nave interior of the church is barrel-vaulted and has transverse arches as joists ; the walls of the fore choir yoke and the apse are slightly raised compared to the two nave yokes and drawn inwards. The western part of the church is also separated from the rest of the nave by wall projections. It is no longer possible to determine whether the interior of the church was previously painted.
Web links
- Caracena - floor plans, photos + information (Spanish)
- Caracena - Photos + Info (Spanish)
- Caracena, Church of San Pedro - floor plan, photos + information (Spanish)
- Catalog of churches with vestibules (Spanish)
Coordinates: 41 ° 22 '55.5 " N , 3 ° 5' 32.5" W.