Monastery of San Millán de Yuso
The royal monastery of San Millán de Yuso (yuso meant 'below' in old Spanish) is located in the town of San Millán de la Cogolla, autonomous community of La Rioja (Spain), on the left bank of the Cárdenas river, in the heart of the San Millán valley. It forms part of the monumental complex of two monasteries, together with the oldest monastery of San Millán de Suso ("from above").
This monastery was ordered to be built in the year 1053 by King García Sánchez III of Navarra "el de Nájera". The history of its foundation is linked to a legend based on a miracle of Saint Millán (or Emiliano), a young shepherd who became a hermit. When Millán died in 574, at the age of 101, his disciples buried him in his cave, and around it the first monastery was formed, that of San Millán de Suso. San Braulio, fifty years after the death of San Millán, writes his life.
Legend of the founding of the monastery
The King of Navarre García III was very devoted to San Millán. As he had just founded the great monastery of Santa María la Real de Nájera in this city that was the court of the kingdom, he wanted to take the mortal remains of the saint there, which were buried in the monastery of San Millán de Suso. On May 29, 1053, they placed the remains of the Saint in a cart pulled by oxen and thus began the journey, to the great discontent of the monks who were devastated there by the loss of their patron. When they reached the plain, near the river, the oxen stopped and no longer wanted to walk again; there was no way to force them. The king and the entire entourage understood that this was a miracle, that San Millán was imposing his will not to go beyond there and be buried again in those places. It was then that the king ordered the construction of the recent monastery, which was called Yuso (below), as opposed to the one above (Suso).
Until at least the year 1100, the two monasteries coexisted, the upper one, Suso, and the lower one, Yuso. The first remains faithful to tradition: Mozarabic rule and double character of double masculine and feminine community. The second, reformed with the Benedictine rule. From the 12th century there is only one community of monks, the Benedictine, with a main house, that of Yuso (below). The 10th and 11th centuries are those of greatest splendor in the spiritual, religious, artistic and cultural spheres.
In 1809 the Benedictines were expelled for the first time in compliance with the decree of Joseph Bonaparte. They return in 1813. They are expelled again during the constitutional period of the reign of Ferdinand VII, between December 1820 and July 1823. The royal treasury then sold the apothecary at public auction. The third and last expulsion of the Benedictine community will be due to the ecclesiastical confiscation of Mendizábal. Yuso remains abandoned for thirty-one years, from November 1835. Between 1866 and 1868 a house for Franciscan missionaries of Bermeo was established and, after ten years of abandonment, in 1878 it was occupied by the friars of the Order of Augustinian Recollects as a house for the formation of missionaries destined for the Philippines. The first rehabilitation works that were carried out by the Augustinian Recollects were carried out by Fray Toribio Minguella.
Building Details
The monastery was built in the Romanesque style, as befitted the time. It was demolished in its entirety and rebuilt in the 16th century, in the Herrerian style, from the 17th and 18th centuries.
Baroque façade and Hall of the Kings
The interior is accessed through a Baroque door from the XVII century that has Corinthian columns and a relief of San Millán on horseback. It is the work of the architect Pablo de Basave and the sculptor Diego de Lizarraga. From the vestibule you enter the Hall of the Kings. It receives this name from the four canvases of benefactor kings of the monastery. The shields of the Royal Staircase are those of the Abbey and those of Castile. They are dated in 1697. It is the last great construction of the Benedictine abbots. In this room there is a reproduction of codex 60 and folio 72 recto in which the Emilian Glosses are written.
Cloister
The cloister on the ground floor is also known as the processional. Its construction began in 1549, Juan Pérez de Solarte. It is Renaissance with Gothic vaults. Pointed arches, bent, between buttresses topped by Gothic pinnacles with hooks, not very slender and of rough work. The door that communicates with the church, decorated in the Mannerist style, is the work of the Italian Andrés de Rodi. It is dated 1554 and gives us an idea of the decoration that was planned for the rest of the lower cloister, and which was never carried out.
The one on the top floor is classicist. Tuscan columns, attached to pillars, with a frieze of triglyphs, metopes and capitals adorned with three rosettes and egg moldings on the corner. It is decorated with twenty-five paintings by José Bejes that narrate the different miracles of San Millán, according to the biography of San Braulio, bishop of Zaragoza.
The church
The church has three naves, with a star-shaped vault and a beautiful dome. It began in 1504 by order of the abbot Fray Miguel de Alzaga and ended thirty-six years later. decadent gothic. The church was for the use of the monks, so the front part, from the central choir, passing through the presbytery to the reliquary, was intended only for them. The rear part, from the rear choir to the door, was the area used by the people when they could access the temple. They are two liturgical spaces within the same building.
The low choir stalls were made by a Flemish carver, Matero Frabricio, around 1640, following the traces and model designed by a monk from San Juan de Burgos. It has an altarpiece from the 17th century century with paintings also by Fray Juan Ricci; the central painting represents San Millán in the battle of Hacinas (Burgos) against the Moors. The Christians, in their struggles against the Muslims, chose San Millán as their patron and thus, Gonzalo de Berceo in his Life of San Millán tells us about the promise of the legendary vows, on the one hand Ramiro II de León to Santiago and from the other, Fernán González to San Millán.
The retrochoir
It was the area destined for the town. The retrochoir is both the parish altarpiece and the access door through the choir to the main altar. The retrochoir, a work by Francisco de Bisou carried out in 1767, in French Rococo style, is decorated with round sculptures, probably from the Pascual de Mena workshop, which represent the saints who move around San Millán: San Braulio, his biographer, San Felices, patron of Haro and his teacher, San Aselo, San Geroncio, San Citonato, San Sofronio, Santa Potamia, disciples, and Santa Oria.
In this area there is also a Plateresque pulpit, from the end of the 16th century. The medioreliefs represent the four evangelists.
In the oratory you can see the replicas of the reliquary chests of San Millán (XI century) and his master San Happy (12th century) That of San Millán was commissioned by Sancho IV of Navarra (Sancho el de Peñalén), in the year 1067.
Sacristy
It is one of the sacristies with the highest artistic value in Spain. At first it was the chapter house. Architecturally it is from the s. XVI. It began to be used as a sacristy at the end of the XVII century, a period from which almost all the painting that we can contemplate is from. The frescoes on the ceiling and the central tables are from the 18th century. Abbot Fray José Fernández (1693-1697) adorns it with twelve copper pieces that are on the walnut chest of drawers. The collection of coppers is completed until reaching twenty-four. He also enriched it with four large canvases that they brought from Naples. The baroque altarpiece is presided over by a carving of Our Lady Queen of the Angels with a scepter and crown.
Refectory
The main refectory, the monks' dining room, began to be built in 1580. Decorated with a Doric doorway, seats with fluted Ionic pilasters, and a pulpit. For its realization, the assembler Juan de Iriarte was hired in 1597. The fourteen tables were made in 1608. The furniture is completely preserved.
Language Hall
Inaugurated in 1977 on the occasion of the celebrations of the Millennium of the Spanish Language, today it is the emblematic place of the monastery. It is decorated with all the shields and flags of the Hispanic countries and the Philippines by the corresponding embassies, as well as a bust of Gonzalo de Berceo, the first poet of Spanish letters and notary of this monastery. Official acts and conferences related to Spanish are held in this room.
Hotel
Inside one of the wings of the monastery is one of the most charming hotels in La Rioja. Hostería San Millán, a hotel with 25 rooms that offers activities related to the culture of the monastery and wine tourism
Items of interest
Cradle of the language
A language was not born in a specific place or time, but it was in the monastery of San Millán in the 11th century when a monk consciously has the audacity to write down words and phrases of that language of the people. Nobody had done it before with a literary intention. They are the Emilian Glosses. In the same codex we also find the first words written in Basque. For this reason, San Millán de Yuso celebrated the Millennium of the Language in 1977, and since then it has been known as the "Cradle of the Language". In the Salón de los Reyes are the commemorative tombstones for the millennium of the Castilian and Basque languages, as well as a facsimile reproduction of Codex 60.
Romanesque ivories
For the abbeys and monasteries their most esteemed treasure were the relics of the saints, especially if they were of the founding saint. Don Blas, abbot of Yuso between 1067 and 1081, had the richest possible reliquary chest made to venerate the remains of San Millán, using the finest fabrics inside and covering the outside with sheets of gold, silver, precious stones and ivory cards.. Among the collection of reliquaries in the monastery, the reliquary chests of San Millán (11th century) stand out, on the one hand, and that of San Felices (12th century), on the other, for their Romanesque ivories.
There are twenty-four cards, eleven on each side of the chest, and one in the center of each of the frontispieces. This lasted until 1809, when Napoleon's soldiers ripped off the gold plates and precious stones. The old piece of the old chest remains today in Yuso in which you can see the original wood and the interior lining of Arab fabric from the XI century . In the new silver reliquary made in 1944 are the original surviving Romanesque ivories from the XI century: thirteen from the life of San Millán, two fragments from the same series, plus those of the abbot Don Blas and the scribe Don Munio.
The equinoctial light
Every early spring and fall, around March 21 and September, the equinox occurs. They are the days of equal length of day and night, when the sun is projected directly on the equator line, when the poles of the earth are best oriented from north to south, and what we call the equator line, from east to south. west. It is the best time to fix the cardinal points. At more or less at quarter past six in the afternoon in the Yuso Monastery a perfect circle of sunlight can be seen over the central body of the temple. It only lasts a few minutes. The ray of light enters through the rose window at the back of the church, passes through the circle that crowns the retrochoir and hits the geometric center of the church. It thus marks the axis of the church and, therefore, the perfect orientation of the apse towards the east. This phenomenon, in addition to its mathematical meaning, may have others of a mysterious nature.
Codices and Cantorals Room
The monastery also has an important library of Cantorales from the XVII century century. About 30 giant books, weighing between 40 and 60 kg, made by hand over four years of work and for which parchment from fragments of the skin of about 2000 cows was used.
They contain the complete collection of all the chants that the monastic community prays throughout the year. It is one of the four complete collections preserved in Spain.
Along with the hymn books there is an excellent collection of facsimiles. Codex 46, dated 964, which in the words of the Turza brothers "is an encyclopedic dictionary of 20,000 articles like current dictionaries", and which includes all the knowledge of the time. Codex 60, that of the Emilian Glosses, first sentences in Spanish and words in Basque. One of the works of the first poet with a name known in Spanish, Gonzalo de Berceo, who was educated in the Suso monastery and ended up as a notary cleric of Yuso. The excellent calligraphers of the monasteries are represented by a work by Fray Martín de Palencia, a monk from San Millán.
Yuso Monastic Archive and Library
Heir to the old Escritorio de San Millán, the archive and library complex is considered among the best in monasterial Spain. The archive consists of two cartularies (the Galicano and the Bulario) and some three hundred original documents: lawsuits, donations, sales, privileges, bulls... All of this referring to the monastery of San Millán or its monasteries or churches. The oldest document is that of the foundation of San Miguel de Pedroso, from the year 759. The first one that is copied is an off-page interpolation and refers to the vows of San Millán. We can also find one of the most interesting texts from the Middle Ages referring to the place names of Álava both in Basque and in Old Castilian, the Reja de San Millán, written in 1025, which refers to the payment of said tribute, the gate, to the monastery of San Millán.
The Venetian-style library dates from 1780 and contains a wealth of old books. It has the same layout that the abbot Don Anselmo Petite gave it in 1780. Its greatness is due more to the quality and rarity of its collections than to the number, since its artistic shelves do not admit more than ten thousand volumes. When the Benedictine monks left the monastery in 1835, they left it practically empty. It is the Augustinian Recollects who worry about recovering the same books, since they remain in the surrounding towns. They recover more than eighty percent of the original library, something really valuable considering that the libraries of other monasteries are totally redone when the monks return.
The Internet portal of the San Millán de la Cogolla Foundation allows access to the library's documentary collection. The process of digitizing the documents began in 2001, and has continued to reach more than 72,000 pages in 212 high-value volumes.
Illustrious Monks
Cardinal Aguirre
Fr. José Sáenz de Aguirre (Logroño 1630, Rome 1699), is the most illustrious Benedictine monk of the Yuso monastery. Professor of Salamanca, considered the best theologian of his century, systematizer of the theology of San Anselmo, historian of the councils, Pope Innocent XI named him cardinal at the proposal of Carlos II in recognition of the defense of the rights of the papacy against the Gallican theses in his work Auctoritas infallibitis et summa cathedrae S. Petri.
When he dies, he orders that "in a small chest they bring his heart to the Royal Monastery of San Millán". This was fulfilled, placing him in Suso, where he was until the confiscation. He then he went down to Yuso. In the antechamber there are two medallions with the busts of Blessed Innocent XI and Cardinal Aguirre.
Brother John Ricci
Fray Juan Ricci, a Benedictine, considered the best Spanish cloistered painter, worked in the monastery between 1653 and 1656, during the mandate of the abbot Fray Ambrosio Gómez, who had seen him paint in the cloister of San Martín, in Madrid.
In the Hall of the Kings of the Monastery we can see four canvases with the following legends:
- Count Fernán González, lord of Castile, who granted the votes to N. P. S. Millán
- El Rey D. Sancho III el Mayor, Rey de Navarra, Castilla y Aragón, bienhechor desde monastery; it offers a particularity: its head is the portrait of the Spanish writer, Lope de Vega.
- Don García, King of Navarre, founder of the monastery
- The Emperor D. Alonso on 7 King of Castile, a good-looking from a monastery.
His are also the canvases of the magnificent altarpiece of the main altar, which consists of two bodies. The main one, with four golden Corinthian columns and, in the center, a large canvas that represents San Millán on horseback in the battle of Hacinas that Count Fernán González won. On this body is the attic formed by golden pilasters, and in it is the beautiful painting of the Assumption of Our Lady, in which the influence of El Greco can be appreciated. On the bench of the altarpiece, the two apostles, Saint Peter and Saint Paul.
Other canvases of his are:
- San Ildefonso and Santo Domingo de Silos.
- Santa Oria and Santa Gertrudis.
- Christ and the Virgin give pink pearls to Saint Michael Florentino and Saint Benedict.
- San Benito welcomes and embraces San Plácido and San Mauro.
- Santo Domingo de Silos at the time of his death.
- Our Lady of Montserrat.
San Ezequiel Moreno
Saint Ezequiel Moreno, a friar of the Order of Augustinian Recoletos, a missionary in the Philippines and Bishop of Pasto in Colombia, lived for a short time in this monastery before leaving for Colombia.
San Millán Statute
In the Monastery of San Millán de Yuso, the Autonomy Statute of La Rioja, or also called the "San Millán Statute", was signed on May 8, 1981.
World Heritage Site
On December 4, 1997, the monasteries of San Millán, Suso and Yuso were declared a World Heritage Site in Europe. Inscription on this list confirms the exceptional and universal value of a cultural or natural site that must be protected for the benefit of humanity. This award is endorsed both for historical, artistic and religious reasons as well as for linguistic and literary reasons. No other known language can be attributed and associated with a monument and a natural environment as unique and concrete as San Millán, which has earned it to be included in the Camino de la Lengua itinerary, sharing a square with places as noted as Alcalá de Henares or Salamanca.
Institutions based in the Yuso Monastery
Within the monastic enclosure, in addition to the community of monks, the monastery of San Millán de Yuso is the official headquarters of the following institutions:
San Millan Foundation
In an act chaired by His Highness the Prince of Asturias, the San Millán Foundation was born on October 8, 1998 in the Language Hall. It is based in the same Yuso monastery and is sponsored by the Government of La Rioja, aware of the cultural, philological and moral commitment that the granting of the title of world heritage entailed. It is in charge of ensuring the protection of the Emilian enclave, preserving its architectural, historical and philological wealth, and promoting research into the origins of Spanish.
Center for Research in the Spanish Language
The San Millán Foundation creates in one of the parts of the Yuso monastery, the priest's wing, and in the Santa Rita cloister, the main facilities of the Spanish Language Research Center, CILENGUA. Its objective is the study, the investigation of the origin of the language and the conservation of the world heritage of the monasteries of San Millán. It develops its activity through three institutes: «The origins of Spanish», «History of the language», and «Hispanic Library», directed by Claudio García Turza, José Antonio Pascual, and Pedro Cátedra.
Association of Friends of San Millán
A non-profit public utility association created in 1974 with the purpose of providing intellectual, economic or material support to the religious of the Order of Augustinian Recollects of the Monastery of San Millán de Yuso. Although the Association has a civil nature, its members remain spiritually linked to the monastery of San Millán, as benefactors. They have stood out throughout these years for being the first to work and promote everything related to San Millán, and especially with the Yuso Monastery. They are based in the same Monastery of San Millán de Yuso.
Illustrious visits
Royal House
- On November 14, 1977, the Holy Emilian Year, culminates in the acts of the Millennial of the Spanish Language, with the presence of his majesties D. Juan Carlos and Dña. Sofia in one of his first official acts as kings of Spain.
- In 1992 they opened the Language Classroom.
- On 8 October 1998, in the Yuso Monastery Language Hall, in an event chaired by his Highness the Prince of Asturias, the constitution of the San Millán Foundation took place.
- On 15 October 2001, the third visit of his Royal Highness Prince of Asturias.
- On 13 October 2004, the Princes of Asturias preside over the special session of the Spanish, American and Philippine Academy.
- On April 9, 2008, Doña Letizia opened the Congress on Youth Language.
Other visitors
- On 21 August 2007, Jimmy Carter, former U.S. President.
Consulted bibliography
