Monastir LED Camp

The Monastir del Camp (which means as a Catalan “ the monastery of the Camp ”) is an old monastery which would have been founded, according to the legend, at the end of the 8th century or at the beginning of the 9th century, at the request of Charlemagne to Passa, close to Thuir, in the the Eastern Pyrenees, after its victory over the Sarrasins. Too much little known, it is one of the jewels of the Romanesque art Catalan.

History

Founded according to the legend, at the request of Charlemagne, which borrowed this way from its return of the Bataille of Panissars where it fought the Sarrasins in June of the year 785, the Priory of Monastir del Camp is probably posterior of almost two centuries to this event.
Following its victory against the Buckwheats, Charlemagne stopped its troops with two miles of the village of Passa. The made thirsty soldiers sought a source in vain when one of them planted its sword in the drained ground of the bed of the river. Water spouts out some and all could be refreshed in the “Riu del Miracle” which runs at this place.
to mark its recognition with the Virgin Mary, which had allowed its army, exhausted of a long victorious combat against the Moors, to be refreshed, the king required that a vault be set up at this place.
Historically, the Priory of Monastir del Camp really accommodated a community of monks, the community of the canons of saint Augustin, around 1116, which was installed in the places by Artal II, bishop of Elne. Thereafter, the priory will become a monastery Benedictine, which will remain in activity until in 1786.
the church which one can see nowadays was built with the site of an older vault dedicated to sainte-Marie, probably dating from the Carolingian time (9th century). This first church being still attested in 1087, then in 1090, one can thus locate the construction of the church of Monastir between the years 1090 and 1116.
In 1307, a Gothic cloister of style, to the trefoil arcades, was added.
the monastery was secularized by papal bubble of Clément VII in 1592.
After the departure of the community of the canons of saint Augustin, the Priory was sold by Louis XVI with the family Jaubert de Passa. The descendants of this noble family always live and work in Monastir, which accommodates the national stud farms from March to June.
With the Revolution, the inhabitants of the priory took refuge in Spain and the monastery was transformed into hospital.
In 1826, Prosper Mérimée, then minister, classified the site under the Historic buildings. He was the friend of François Jaubert de Passa, man of letters (inspiring of Venus d' Ille and Carmen), listener with the Council of State and President of the general advice of the the Eastern Pyrenees.

Description of the monastery

the priory of Monastir LED Camp, inserted in a large masonry into the airs of fortress, is essential, majestic in the middle of large trees, by its austere frontage and its crenelated tower of angle.

Buildings

the conventual church , with single nave glaze of a cradle in semicircular arch, has a remarkable gate located at the west, probably because the church did not serve the only community, but also the inhabitants of a nearby village. A door, located on at midday, makes communicate the church with the conventual cloister and buildings. The building itself dates from the 11th century and was arched at the next century. With the 13th century, one associated a vault arched on intersecting ribs with the septentrional wall.
the conventual buildings go back to the S, as the coupled windows of the western wing attest it. In the center draws up a Gothic cloister with the charming trefoil arcades, whose construction goes back to the beginning of the 14th century (1307).

The Western gate

superb the Western gate , out of white marble of Céret, was set up only at the end of the Romance time (last third of the 12th century).
It is decorated of a double archivolt which falls down on four columns via splendid carved capitals. The latter, cut themselves in the marble, present topics and a technique which make think of the Maître of Cabestany or at least to sculptors working in his workshop.
the stringcourse external of the archivolt juxtaposes, without concern of establishing a continuity in the decoration, of the marble plates carrying of the varied reasons.
the capitals them, belong to two distinct groups: three of them represent ordinary monsters: human or animal, raised of many blows of trepan, and especially of the “Players of horn” to singular morphology, extremely similar to those which one finds with Rieux-Minervois, carved in the sandstone. But there is another capital which does not fail to intrigue: located frontage on the left, it shows a character presenting the cross to a richly avoided woman. Some saw there the Invention of the Cross by Sainte Helene, mother of the emperor Constantin. But the fact that this reason is also with the Basilique Saint-Sernin of Toulouse and with the Monastère of Leyré in Navarre, always close to a “Visitation”, justifies the assumption that it is rather about a “Annunciation”. The more so as the priory is dedicated to Marie and that the costume of the female character, in particular his cap, resembles curiously that which carries Marie in two other works of the Maître of Cabestany: on the tympanum of Cabestany and in the Nativity of the Sainte-Marie church of Boulou.

Photographs of monastir

Random links: