España romanica: the “deluxe” hermitage church of Nuestra Señora de la Anunciada in Urueña
Hermitage churches are decidedly quite different in Spain! When you say “hermitage”, you think “hermit”, i.e., a solitary person desiring to live in isolation and utter poverty, and believing that solitude and physical deprivation should enable one to better meditate and pray and come closer to God-pleasing ideals. Such persons showed utmost fortitude and despise for material possessions. Those hermits (at least, the ones I knew about before I came to Spain!) probably did not often see the need for a specific place for their rituals. If they did, a simple and humble altar certainly sufficed, or at the most a very small and unadorned chapel... but here in Spain, the hermits would have none of that!
Well-defended, castle-like decorated churches, that’s a Spanish hermit’s life for you, like the one (Saint Cecily) we’ve just visited in Aguilar de Campóo! And here, near the village of Urueña, when looking for a hermitage church, we should not be surprised to happen upon this lovely, but not at all humble, early 1100s church with its cut stones, its three naves (count ’em!) and its generous decoration of bandes lombardes that makes art historians believe Catalan builders were employed to erect it. I make no mention of the ugly additions from the late 17th century, very un-hermit-like as well.
My Zodiaque book, Castille romane, volume 2, says that no one knows how such an impressive monument came to be built here in Castille, but mentions the marriage of the local earl’s daughter to the Catalan earl of Urgel, Don Armengel V, as a possible lead to track its architectural and decorative gene pool. This monument had no descendance whatsoever in the provinces of Castille and León and remains quite isolated. And as to the “hermit” who presumably lived there, no one knows anything about him either, but let’ say that, if he accepted to live a so-called hermit’s life in this church, he was not being too hard on himself!
I know some hermits who would have called this a joke.
Just as we did, you probably went “Wow!” when you first saw this photo: “what, this, a hermitage church?” Beyond the sarcasm, and if you try to un-see the ugly, squarish additions from the late 1600s, you can admire a lovely church, a true homage by Catalan artists to the “First Age of Romanesque” with the bandes lombardes prominently featured as they should...
Nicely appareled, with good care but not too much care, this Nuestra Señora de la Anunciada appears made to look as exactly as possible as those early Romanesque churches looked, like a proud Catalan seed firmly planted in the earth of Castille and León... not unlike, perhaps, the own Catalan seed that the earl of Urgel intended to plant into Doña Maria Ansurez...
España romanica: the “deluxe” hermitage church of Nuestra Señora de la Anunciada in Urueña
Hermitage churches are decidedly quite different in Spain! When you say “hermitage”, you think “hermit”, i.e., a solitary person desiring to live in isolation and utter poverty, and believing that solitude and physical deprivation should enable one to better meditate and pray and come closer to God-pleasing ideals. Such persons showed utmost fortitude and despise for material possessions. Those hermits (at least, the ones I knew about before I came to Spain!) probably did not often see the need for a specific place for their rituals. If they did, a simple and humble altar certainly sufficed, or at the most a very small and unadorned chapel... but here in Spain, the hermits would have none of that!
Well-defended, castle-like decorated churches, that’s a Spanish hermit’s life for you, like the one (Saint Cecily) we’ve just visited in Aguilar de Campóo! And here, near the village of Urueña, when looking for a hermitage church, we should not be surprised to happen upon this lovely, but not at all humble, early 1100s church with its cut stones, its three naves (count ’em!) and its generous decoration of bandes lombardes that makes art historians believe Catalan builders were employed to erect it. I make no mention of the ugly additions from the late 17th century, very un-hermit-like as well.
My Zodiaque book, Castille romane, volume 2, says that no one knows how such an impressive monument came to be built here in Castille, but mentions the marriage of the local earl’s daughter to the Catalan earl of Urgel, Don Armengel V, as a possible lead to track its architectural and decorative gene pool. This monument had no descendance whatsoever in the provinces of Castille and León and remains quite isolated. And as to the “hermit” who presumably lived there, no one knows anything about him either, but let’ say that, if he accepted to live a so-called hermit’s life in this church, he was not being too hard on himself!
I know some hermits who would have called this a joke.
Just as we did, you probably went “Wow!” when you first saw this photo: “what, this, a hermitage church?” Beyond the sarcasm, and if you try to un-see the ugly, squarish additions from the late 1600s, you can admire a lovely church, a true homage by Catalan artists to the “First Age of Romanesque” with the bandes lombardes prominently featured as they should...
Nicely appareled, with good care but not too much care, this Nuestra Señora de la Anunciada appears made to look as exactly as possible as those early Romanesque churches looked, like a proud Catalan seed firmly planted in the earth of Castille and León... not unlike, perhaps, the own Catalan seed that the earl of Urgel intended to plant into Doña Maria Ansurez...