Santes Creus

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Santes Creus is a Cistercian monastery in Catalunya, Spain. It was started in 1158 and is today considered one of the finest preserved monastic sites in Southern Europe.

[edit] History

The monastery was started in 1158 and was finished within 50 years. In its early period, the monastery was a center of intellectual and political activity and was comparable to the Poblet Monastery. Fortified in 1375 by Pedro IV, it played an important role in the creation of the Order of Montesa, a refuge for Aragonese Knights Templar after the abolition of their order.

The activities of the monastery continued largely uninterrupted until the Napoleonic invasion of Spain, which led to its eventual demise in 1835 at which time the monastery was sacked and burned. Shortly thereafter, several ex-monks erected it as a parish Church and worked slowly toward its restoration. It is today in the hands of the Generalitat de Catalunya.