Logbook · 4 places

Hermitage of Santa María de Melque

San Martín de Montalbán, Montes de Toledo, Toledo

1 Villages · 2 Monuments · 1 Curiosities

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Hermitage of Santa María de Melque

Monument · San Martín de Montalbán, Montes de Toledo, Toledo

The complex of Santa María de Melque began as a Visigothic monastery between the 7th and 8th centuries near Toledo, capital of the Visigothic kingdom; radiocarbon dating of its original plaster places the construction between 668 and 729, on the site of a former Roman estate with dams on the two streams surrounding the hillock. The Muslim conquest did not immediately end monastic life, of which there is evidence of a later Mozarabic community, and its church came to be fortified with a tower above the dome that is still preserved. After the conquest of Toledo by Alfonso VI in 1085, the temple regained its liturgical function without losing its military one. Documented since 1148, in later periods it was reduced to a rural hermitage, the destination of an annual pilgrimage by the residents of La Puebla de Montalbán.

Photo: Rodelar (CC BY-SA 4.0)

What to see and do in San Martín de Montalbán