Santa María la Real of Nájera
Santa María la Real is a monastery in the small town of Nájera in the La Rioja community, Spain. Originally a royal foundation, it was ceded by Alfonso VI to the Cluniac order. It was an important pilgrimage stop on the Camino de Santiago. It is particularly well known for the woodwork in the choir of the church. 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 Sánchez III of Navarre in 1052. It was later elevated to an episcopal see and placed under Papal authority. In 1076 the kingdom of Navarre passed into the hands of Alfonso VI of León and Castile. The Mozarabic Rite (sometimes called the Isidorean or Spanish Rite) was replaced with the Latin Rite. The Missal of Silos, a Mozarabic missal which is the oldest known Western manuscript on paper, was created in the monastery in the 11th century. Cluniac Order In 1079, the see was transferred to Calahorra, which had been the seat of a bishopric before the Muslim Conquest. Alfonso gave St María la Real 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. It appears that this helped Alfonso assert his control over Riojan territory. In 1142, the Abbot of Cluny Peter the Venerable visited the monastery. While in Spain, he met with translators from the Arabic language and 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. Later history of monastery 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. In the nineteenth century it suffered under the Napoleonic occupation of Spain and anti-monastic legislation in the 1830s (the Ecclesiastical confiscations of Mendizábal) before being declared a national monument in 1889. The fortunes of the monastery further revived with the arrival of Franciscans at the end of the 19th century. Monastery The exterior of the Monastery of Santa María la Real de Nájera is a mixture of different styles, fruit of its long story. Defensive needs led to high walls and buttress with the function of bastions. The 17th century left the decoration of the walls and the doors and the squared tower. The portico of the church was built between the years 1621 and 1625. Inside the monastery, two main areas can be discerned: the church with the Royal Mausoleum and the cloister, so-called of the Knights. The access to the cloister is through the so-called Gate of Charles I. This gate