Santa María la Real
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The monastery of Santa Maria la Real is located in the small town of Najera in the La Rioja province of Spain. Originally a Cluniac monastery, Santa Maria la Real was an important pilgrimage stop along the Camino de Santiago. It is particularly well-known for the spectacular woodwork in the choir of the church.
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[edit] History
The first construction on the site dates back to the 11th century. Santa Maria la Real and the attached royal pantheon were founded by King García V of Navarre in 1052. It was later elevated to an episcopal seat and placed under Papal authority. This remained until the collapse of Navarrese authority in 1076, when the kingdom passed into the hands of Alfonso VI of Castile.
In 1079, Alfonso gave the property over to the Cluniac order and it became one of only two important Cluniac centres South of the Pyrenees. As a center of Cluniac power, the monastery is associated with the introduction of the Cluniac reform to Castile, particularly upholding abolition of the Mozarabic Rite (sometimes called the Isidorean or Spanish Rite), which was replaced with the Roman Rite in 1076 upon the fall of the Navarrese royal line. It is also likely that Alfonso was interested in using his allegiance with the Cluniac order to assert control over the Riojan territory. In 1142 the Abbot of Cluny Peter the Venerable visited the monastery. While in Spain he met with translators from the Arabic and he commissioned the first translation into a European language of the Qur'an. The monastery remained in Cluniac hands until the 15th century, when it was established through Papal mandate as an independent abbacy under Rodrigo Borgia (later Pope Alexander VI) at which time it underwent a major reconstruction.
As the popularity of the Camino de Santiago waned, so did the fortunes of the monastery, which depended on the wealth generated by traffic of pilgrims. The monastery fell into a long decay, and further suffered under the Napoleonic occupation of Spain and subsequent anti-monastic legislation under Juan Álvarez Mendizábal. The fortunes of the monastery revived with the arrival of Franciscans at the end of the 19th century. It was declared a national monument in 1889.
[edit] Royal Pantheon
Santa Maria la Real is the site of the royal Pantheon of the kings of Navarre and later Castile and Leon. More than 30 royal family members are buried there. Most famous is the tomb of Blanca of Navarre, wife of Sancho III of Castile, whose ornately decorated sarcophagus is a remarkable work for its detailed carving and iconographic distinctiveness.
[edit] Art & Architecture
The current structure dates back principally to the 15th and 16th centuries, during which period the monastery was largely rebuilt in the prevailing gothic style. The most notable feature of the church of Santa Maria de Real remains the extraordinary choir. The ornate wood carvings of the stalls and misericords is exemplary of late medieval gothic style. The woodwork took place shortly after the 1492 expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1495. A recurring motif in the stalls is the intertwined letters 'F' and 'I' (for Ferdinand and Isabella, King and Queen of Castile). These are latticed together in the form of a heart, from which a drop of blood is spilt. This has given rise to the suspicion that the craftsmen may have been Marranos or Crypto-Jews, and the cleverly concealed image is a symbol depicting the broken heart of Spain.
The cloister, completed in 1528, is known as the Claustro de los Caballeros (Cloister of the Knights), so called because of the concentration of Riojan aristocracy that are buried there, including Diego López de Haro. It is highly ornamental in the plateresque style.
