Santa María (Lebeña)
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Santa María de Lebeña is a pre-Romanesque church of the Mozarabic style in the autonomous Spanish region of Cantabria . The church is dated to the 10th century. On March 27, 1893, it was declared a cultural monument ( Bien de Interés Cultural ).
location
Today the church belongs to the municipality of Cillorigo de Liébana and is located outside the village of Lebeña on the Río Deva , south of the Desfiladero de la Hermida gorge at the foot of the Picos de Europa .
history
Just a few years after the Moorish conquest of the Iberian Peninsula , the area of Liébana was recaptured and repopulated by the Asturian King Alfonso I (739–757) . In the Santo Toribio de Liébana monastery, about twelve kilometers from Santa María de Lebeña, lived from 756 to 768 the monk Beatus , the author of a richly illustrated and repeatedly copied manuscript of a commentary on the Secret Revelation of St. John ( Apocalypse ). The copy book of this monastery shows that Count Alfons of Liébana and his wife Justa had a church built to which they consecrated seven patron saints , St. Romanus, St. Martin , St. Prisca , St. Justa and Rufina and the Savior (Salvator ) and Maria . The donors richly furnished the church with altar items made of gold and silver, with valuable textiles and manuscripts . In the absence of reliable dates for the construction of the church, it is dated between 924 and 959; H. while the count and his wife were still alive. The yew and an olive tree standing next to the church could have been planted at the time the church was founded because of their age. In northern Spain there was a custom of planting a yew tree when a church was founded. Two of the patrons, Justa and Rufina, were martyrs from Seville , which suggests that the founders of the church also came from Andalusia , perhaps even Seville, and were Mozarabic immigrants.
The church has served as the parish church of Lebeña since the 16th century . The free-standing bell tower was built in the 20th century. The southern porch and the sacristy on the north side are later additions.
architecture
The building is made of quarry stone masonry , which is connected with mortar and was probably previously plastered. The corners are reinforced with large, precisely hewn blocks. A cornice with a narrow frieze with geometric motifs runs under the roof . The sprawling eaves rest on cantilever consoles on which - as in the San Miguel de Celanova chapel - sun gears and rosettes are depicted. As is customary with Mozarabic churches, the entrance is on the south side.
inner space
The church has three aisles and is divided into twelve almost square room parts, which are spanned by barrel vaults. The two yokes of the aisles have - probably for structural reasons - transverse barrels , the other parts of the room have longitudinal barrels. The two bays of the central nave - like the crossing of Santa Comba de Bande or Santiago de Peñalba - tower over the other parts of the building and are pierced by ceilings windows. Three apses adjoin the square nave in the east . The middle, larger apse is square, the two side apses have a trapezoidal plan . The eastern yoke of the main nave is raised by one step and delimited as a presbytery .
Columns and capitals
Horseshoe arches connect the parts of the room with one another. They rest on massive pillars with set columns . Remnants of stucco on the bases suggest that the columns were once painted in color. The monolithic shafts have Corinthian capitals decorated with two or three rows of stylized leaves and bordered at the bottom by a dew band ring . The resting on the capitals fighters have duplicate Kehl profiles on.
altar
At the front of the altar there is a stone slab almost one meter wide and 1.75 meters long, which is decorated in the middle with a large sun wheel. On both sides three circles are carved into which flower motifs and wavy lines are inscribed. Until 1971 this stone slab lay face down on the floor and served as a step to the altar. Due to the puzzling symbols, there are suspicions that this stone slab could come from pre-Christian times.
See also
literature
- Achim Arbeiter , Sabine Noack-Haley: Christian monuments of the early Middle Ages from the 8th to the 11th century . Mainz 1999, ISBN 3-8053-2312-3 , pp. 307-310.
- Jaime Cobreros: Guía del Prerrománico en España . Madrid 2006, ISBN 84-9776-215-0 , pp. 88-91.
- Jacques Fontaine: L'Art Mozarabe. L'Art Préroman Hispanique . Volume 2, 2nd edition, Éditions Zodiaque, Abbaye de la Pierre-Qui-Vire 1995, ISBN 2-7369-0215-7 , pp. 153-162.
Web links
Coordinates: 43 ° 12 ′ 55.2 " N , 4 ° 35 ′ 25.8" W.