Monastery of San Juan de Ortega

the Monastery of San Juan de Ortega.

And the saint " cantonnier" San Juan de Ortega, holy Jean of the Nettles.

Located in Municipio (canton) of " Barrios de Colina" , in the north of the Spain, comarca (historical community) of “Burgos” in the the autonomous Community of Castille-and-León, province of Burgos.

San Juan de Ortega is a high place in all the directions of the word: by altitude initially, because it is a wooded plate of 1000 meters, which goes down again towards Burgos by the valley of Rio San Juan; by the splendor of the landscape also: a clearing in the forest of fir trees; finally by architecture, and which old stones could be more moving that those which posed the saint himself, the such small pink marble cloister being next to the refuge, wonder of simplicity and harmonie.
The site from now on is entirely reserved to the pilgrims.

Geography

To 22 km, the east of Burgos, in Montes of Oca.

The village

The village was born near a vault and from an inn established about 1115 by san Juan de Ortega. Thus, was born a core from population which received into 1202 of the privileges by the king Alphonse VIII. This document, a fuero (charter) granted freedoms to those which were established, although he points out the bonds to them which they owed with the monastery. This document is regarded as the moment when the village is made up like such, by taking the name of the monastery. Little by little the settlement grew and, when the hermits of the Spanish order of Jerome Saint were established in the monastery, the bishop of Burgos committed himself removing his jurisdiction, engagement that it forever held.

Population: 24 inhabitants in 2003.

The monastery

History

April 24th, 1138, the Pope Innocent II took under his protection the new monastery, governs by regular canons who lived under the Rule of Saint Augustín.
A few Years later, on July 27th, 1170 Alphonse VIII makes gift with the cathedral of Burgos of it. After years of litigations between the chapter and the cathedral, in 1222, the two parts sign an agreement on the jurisdiction of the bishop in the businesses of the monastère.
In 1431, the situation of poverty of the monastery and the relaxation of the rules, make that the bishop of Burgos, Pablo de Santamaría, decides to establish a community of monks of the Spanish order of Saint Jerome de Fresdelval so that they reform it. They took possession of the monastery in March 1432. The following year, San Juan de Ortega was set up like independent monastery, confirmed by the pope Eugene IV on June 27th, 1441. Begin one boom, supported by the patronage of Pablo de Santamaría and Alonso de Carthagène (both bishops of Burgos), and that of Juan de Ortega, bishop of Almeria.
In the posterior centuries, the monastery also received the assistance of important families peerage-books (Rojas and Avellaneda, inter alia).

After the law of desamortización (privatization) of 1835 it was vendu.
In 1931 he was declared monument national and, in 1962, the municipal council of Burgos assumed the employers of the monastery, and undertaken his restauration.
Of the monacal unit one can admire the church, the cloister, the vault of San Nicolás and the old people's home.

The church

History

Although historiography indicates that work of the church started before the death of Juan d' Ortega in 1163, the architectonic and sculptural analysis of the bedside, lets just like suppose that they began about 1200, those of the transept and the beginning of the nefs.
Work was stopped, the transept, with its voûtement, continued throughout the 13th century.
After another long period of interruption of work, the unit was completed in the middle of the 15th century, the naves, the chorus and the Western frontage, in which intervenes the stone mason Pedro Fernández de Ampuero. This last work was subsidized by the bishops of Burgos, Pablo Santamaría and Alonso de Carthagène, whose weapons appear in the crowns of arches of this zone and in the principal door of the church. The escutcheons embedded in the pillars of the principal vault belong to the families Avellaneda and Roja (of the 16th century).
The pediment of the principal frontage was added to the XVIIe century.

Description.

The church has a plan of Latin cross, with only one span of three naves, a transept, and with the bedside three apses, forming each one a vault. These vaults are covered with vaults in berceaux.
The transept, with five spans, is covered with barrel vaults of simple crusader, and one added, with the central nave, of the longitudinal bonds and transversaux.
In the central span of the nave the high altar is, which one reaches since the contiguous cloister through mill polychrome wood oil. Outside, to notice an imposing bedside, with the central apse traversed by columns like obstinate and articulated with blind arcades in semicircular arch, and its walls in large apparatus,

to see

To notice in the church some capitals, like that who describes the combat of Roland and Farragut and, especially, triple capital of the Nativity. It reveals the cycle of the Incarnation and for the first time, the Gabriel archangel is represented with knees in front of the Virgin, recognized like mother of God. In accordance with a whole hispano-wisigothic iconography and Mozarab, Gabriel raises left hand a pattée cross, the Croix of Victoire asturienne. The Virgin, the two opened hands, palms ahead, accepts the divine will. Behind it, a maidservant looks at the spectateur.
On the close capital, the Virgin is represented with Elisabeth who poses to him, in a gesture full with tenderness, the left hand on the belly, at the time of the Visitation. The remainder of the basket of the capital is entirely decorated with scenes of the Nativity. Twice a year, with the equinox, the capital is lit by an sun ray in end of the afternoon. It is the luz equinoccial which symbolizes the Holy Spirit going down on Marie.
Very at side draws up a sumptuous tomb, wonder of Romance funerary art that a count, friend of San Juan, knowing it with most badly, had intended to him. In its anguish, Juan de Ortega kept enough clearness and humility at the same time to prefer a naked stone to him. The carved tomb remained for its glory, but vide.
To still see, scenes of the life of the saint cut in the stone inside the vault “isabelline”, the carved wood retable, the Gothic baldachin flowered, decorated mouths of dragons and the rich person ironwork found in the ruins of the monastère.
It is also necessary to pay attention to the retable of Jerome Saint, in the southern end of the transept, and of that of the Last Judgment, in the vault on the side of the Gospel (is).

The Cloister

Square and large-sized, this cloister is leant in the north of the church. It is open towards the garden, organized on two stages, the northern gallery having been détruite.
The low part as the gallery of the second stage have seven arcs of half-time, completely smooth, that prismatic pillars decorated with pilasters Tuscan support; all are closed with grids. The galleries of the stage are covered with barrel vaults of brick edge, covered by means of a plastering with geometrical drawings; the various sections are separate by means of arcs of half-time. The high stage was perhaps covered in a similar way; today this covering is ruined.

All the unit is very austere, single circuit lines and architectonic purity: Nets volumes and absence of mouldings. In end, the classicism about Jerome saint is carried out almost at his ends.

Around the cloister is the principal dependences of the monastery, some are completely in ruins and others very faded by the restaurations.
In the Eastern wing one found the large sacristy and a passage which led to the kitchen garden; in north, scriptorium and the library; and in the west, the refectory, with the kitchens. On the floor were located the cells of the monks, and that of the prior - also used like chapter house - as well as the dormitory of the novices.
In the Western gallery one preserves the funerary enfeus several benefactors of the monastery.

With regard to its time of construction, in the door which gives to the church it is noted the date 1681, and in one of the grids of the galleries that of 1682.

The Saint Nicolas's Day vault

This vault is the core originating in the monastic complex. The tradition informs us that San Juan d' Ortega, with his/her Martín brother, finished it about 1120, but “ has teja winnowed there mui pobre ” (with vain and very poor tile). The narrowness and the poverty of this vault have surprised Isabelle the Catholic during his visit with the monastery in 1477. The queen could only exclaim by considering it: “ That pobre cosa are esta capilla ” (Which poor thing is this vault). Juan de Ortega, bishop of Almeria, which accompanied the queen during this voyage, would have answered him: “ If Alteza lo manda will vuestra, yo the mandare hazer ” (If your Highness asks it, I will ask that it be done). And indeed, it was thus made, moreover it equipped it with a retable.
The new vault, which was preserved until our days, is of only one rectangular nave, cover of three barrel vaults, with the weapons, in the keystones, of the Kings Catholiques and those of Juan de Ortega. The presence of a grenade in the royal escutcheon makes think that its execution is posterior with 1492.
With the bedside is the retable as well as a reliquary of style baroque, work of the 18th century, chaired by the image of Jerome saint. The central part is decorated with two reliefs with end with 16th or beginning with the 17th century: one represents holy Nicolas and san Juan de Ortega, and the other in holy Anne, the Virgin and the Child. The part side are open and let see inside many reliquaries and, in the doors, of paintings of the Holy Family and others saints.

One preserves also two grids. That which separates the Western part of the bedside, was done in 1547 on ordering of Juan de Tolède, and its Manrique brother. The other, currently dismounted, protected the Gothic baldachin from San Juan, gift of Diego de Vargas, Secrétaire of the King, in 1561.

The Old people's home

In the west of the vault of Saint Nicolas the old hospital of the pilgrims is, built at the end of 15th or beginning of the 16th century. At the 18th century it is mentioned in the documentation of the monastery like old people's home.
One reaches inside by an arched door, in the keystone is the escutcheon of the kingdoms of Castille and León, crowned by a miter. All the frontage is built in masonry, except the door and the windows which, ordered in two stages, are out of stone of taille.
Work for the installation of the current pension transformed the various dependences, but in some one still preserves original columns. These dependences are organized around a small court of ten side meters, on two stages. The inferior present in each side two reduced arcs which rest on cylindrical columns with simple capitals hardly indicated. The upper floor shows similar pillars, now linked by grids.

The Pilgrimage of Compostelle

On the Camino frances of the Pilgrimage of Saint-Jacques-to-Compostelle.
One comes from Villafranca Montes of Oca, the next commune is Agés.

See too

Camino francés

External bonds

Localization on the chart
the Way of Belorado with San Juan de Ortega
the Way of San Juan de Ortega in Burgos

Sources

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