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The Cistercian monastery of Santa María la Real

Villamayor de los Montes, Arlanza, Burgos

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The Cistercian monastery of Santa María la Real

Monument · Villamayor de los Montes, Arlanza, Burgos

The monastery of Santa María la Real de Villamayor de los Montes, founded in the 13th century, is a community of Cistercian nuns located in this town in the province of Burgos, about 10 km from Lerma. It stands on the site of an earlier men's monastery dedicated to San Vicente, in existence since the mid-11th century, which the nobleman García Fernández acquired in 1223 to establish a female Cistercian community there, dependent on Las Huelgas de Burgos though with its own legal and property independence. Opened in 1228, its first abbess was Mencía, the founder's daughter. It preserves the cloister, of Romanesque design with foliate capitals and a 16th-century cobblestone pavement, and the church, of Gothic forms similar to those of Las Huelgas though on a smaller scale, with a triple apse and ribbed vault.

Photo: Sanbec (CC BY-SA 3.0 es)

What to see and do in Villamayor de los Montes