Monastery of Santa Maria
La Real, that was founded by the Navarron King Don Garcia "el de Nájera"
"he from Nájera". |
Interpreting the sign like
a warning from heaven, the King was the first to stop the undertaking and
order in that same place the construction of a monastery as dignified as
in Najera that would protect the sacred mortal remains. A little time after
the monarch died and his successor, King Sancho Garcés, commissioned
the abbot to elaborate another urn more beautiful.
In the workshops of the monastery
they worked the wood, the steel, the stone and also the gold, silver and
the ivory. The result was a luxurious chest, adorned with ivory panels,
that told grafically the life of San Millán. The chest was encrusted
with precious stones and lined with an arab material from the 11th century.
Also in those days, the year
1040, Domingo de Cañas, prior of Suso and later to Santo Domingo
de Silos, was banished for denying to submit the monastery to the unjust
intentions of the King don Garcia el de Najera.
The construction of the monastery
(that of the buildings from the 16th century traces were rubbed out) lasted
for fourteen years. The building was more spacious than that of Suso. Arranged
like a graceful romanic church, ample cells, refectory, a square with pigeon
lofts and hen house, rooms for the monastic school, etc. One part of the
emilianense community - each more numerous - abandoned the density and uncomfort
of the mountain at Suso to take shelter at the bottom of the valley, on
the riverbed of the river Cárdenas, in the monastery of Yuso. Another
group remained in the primitve lifestyle.
With the construction of
the monastery at Yuso in 1053, part of the emilianense community abandoned
the density of the mountain (Suso) to install themselves in the valley on
the banks of the river Cárdenas. |
