Santes Creus
| Cistercian Abbey of Santes Creus | |
|---|---|
 General view of Santes Creus (December 2004) |
|
| location |
 SpainCatalonia Tarragona Province |
| Coordinates: | 41 ° 20 '50 " N , 1 ° 21' 46" E |
| Serial number according to Janauschek |
340 |
| founding year | 1152 |
| Year of dissolution / annulment |
1835 |
| Mother monastery | Grandselve Monastery |
| Primary Abbey | Clairvaux Monastery |
|
Daughter monasteries |
|
Santes Creus or with its full name Real Monasterio de Santa María de Santes Creus in Spanish or Reial Monestir de Santa Maria de Santes Creus in Catalan ("Royal Monastery of Saint Mary of the Holy Cross") is an extensive Cistercian monastery complex of the 12th century in Catalonia , Spain , in the province of Tarragona , municipality of Aiguamúrcia .
history
The monastery for the "holy crosses" was founded near a group of crosses that were erected in memory of a light phenomenon. Santes Creus is counted among the most pleasant and loveliest of the Cistercian monasteries. The royal court is not responsible for the establishment, but the Montcada family under their ancestor Guillem Ramon II. De Montcada . For the beginning, monks from the Abbey of Grandselve in the French Languedoc were brought in for the Cistercian monastery . The place where it was founded at that time is not where the monastery stands today. The monks moved twice. In 1158 they finally settled at their current location in the valley of the Gaià river near the crosses mentioned above.
However, the royal court soon became interested in the flourishing monastery, granted it privileges and financial support, and ultimately ensured that the monastery was directly subordinate to the Pope. From the third generation of abbots, the monastery was again dependent on Grandselve.
The abbey began to decline in the 17th century. During the so-called desamortización , the monastery was abandoned by the monks in 1835.
In 1921 the facility, threatened by decay, was added to the list of national monuments and thus placed under the protection of monument preservation. The monastery is now part of the Ruta del Cister, together with the monasteries of Santa Maria de Poblet and the nunnery of Santa Maria de Vallbona .
Monastery complex
The construction of the church began in 1174 with the facade; the consecration took place in 1215. The facade looks extremely austere and unadorned, almost like a castle with a rough crenellated crown at the top.
The three-aisled, six-bay basilica is 47 meters long, the central nave is nine meters wide and 21 meters high, and the side aisles are five meters wide and ten meters high.
The work on the individual parts of the monastery dragged on for decades. The chapter house was built from 1174, the dormitory was built between 1191 and 1225. The foundation stone of the cloister was laid in 1313 and completed in 1341.
Cloister
The main attraction of the monastery is the Gothic cloister with its extremely interesting, very imaginative capitals. A variety of plants, animals, humans and beastmen are represented with great joy in playing, whereby in part the entire area of the coupled capitals is filled with a single scene over several support members. In contrast to the Benedictine rule, however, there is apparently no “deep” theological meaning. Some topics are: Garden of Eden, Creation of Man, Creation of Eve from Adam's Rib, Temptation, Expulsion etc .; In addition, various forms of handicrafts are shown, seasonal work, games of fools and demonic animal figures.
It is said that this cloister was the first Gothic-inspired in all of Spain.
Further monastery buildings
In addition to the cloister, the dormitory , 48.5 meters long and ten meters wide, is of particular importance . The open gable roof is supported by eleven stone candle arches . It is much older than the parts of the cloister below. However, different data is available about its construction period. The dormitory was either built from 1191 or from 1173.
The huge Gothic wine cellar, south of the cloister, with its heavy ribbed vaults and a unique 'vaulted' atmosphere is also wonderfully preserved.
In comparison, the abbey church impresses with its austere Cistercian simplicity and severity. Worth mentioning are the royal tombs, which, with their splendid late Gothic furnishings, almost look like foreign bodies in this room.
See also
The Poblet Monastery, founded in 1151 and also Cistercian , is about 36 kilometers to the west. The late Romanesque church of Sant Ramon with a wheeled window that is very similar to the east window of Santes Creus is only about 15 kilometers to the west in El Pla de Santa Maria .
literature
- Vicenç Buron: Esglésies Romàniques Catalanes. Artestudi Edicions, Barcelona 1977, ISBN 84-85180-06-2 , pp. 27f.
- Catalunya Romànica. Fundació Enciclopèdia Catalana, Barcelona 1987, ISBN 84-85194-56-X .
- Fritz René Allemann, Xenia v. Bahder: Catalonia and Andorra . (= DuMont art travel guide). 4th edition. Cologne [1980] 1986, ISBN 3-7701-1102-8 , p. 275, fig. 115–121, color plate 37,38,40.
- Otto von Simson: The Middle Ages II. (= Propylaea art history. Volume 6). Frankfurt am Main / Berlin [1972] 1990, ISBN 3-549-05106-9 , p. 395, 399 Fig. 7.
- Bernard Peugniez: Le Guide Routier de l'Europe Cistercienne . Editions du Signe, Strasbourg 2012, p. 794.
